A new report in the scientific journal "Nature" is generating new discussions among researchers about which paths modern humans took out of Africa to help populate the rest of the world.
The report notes Chinese research done on 47 different teeth discovered in a cave in Fuyan Cave in Nandao County in central China's Hunan province a few years back has confirmed they are from Homo sapiens.
Analysis with radioactive uranium shows that the teeth are from Homo sapiens dating back to around 80,000 to 120,000 years ago, prior to the European Homo sapiens with similar characteristics by at least 35,000 to 75,000 years.
Chinese scientists say that the teeth proved when the most ancient Homo sapiens in East Asia emerged and their geological distribution.
The analysis by Chinese researchers runs contrary to previous working theories that modern humans first populated Europe, and then made it to east Asia only around 50-thousand years ago.
The report in "Nature" is leading to suggestions modern humans, who first began showing up in Africa around 200-thousand years ago, took an easterly-track out of Africa first before later pressing toward Europe.
The new findings might also clarify questions about how early modern humanity began populating the Americas, as many researchers have been questioning the time-lines of humanity's crossing from modern-day Russia into North America.
Chinese scientists say that their findings also demonstrates that there is a differentiation in human evolution in South and North China by proving that the characteristics of fossils found in the same period are different.
But they say more DNA analysis and fossil samples are required to find out how Homo sapiens evolved in East Asia, Europe and west Asia.