Hŭngsu child) is the name given to a skeleton which is believed to belong to the Paleolithic era and that was discovered in the Turubong limestone cave complex in Sangdang-gu, Cheongju by the excavation team of Chungbuk National University Museum (충북대학교 박물관) in 1982.
In 1978, Kim Hŭngsu (김흥수) ran a limestone mine and found several animal bones and ivory that he sent to the neighboring Chungbuk National University (충북대학교).
Since then, a total of seven caves, one rock shelter, and one open site have yielded hominid fossils from the Korean peninsula.
The discovery of hominid fossils in Korea shows that there was a continuation of the Upper Paleolithic culture during the late Pleistocene period.
Because the peopling of the Japanese archipelago was likely by some type of watercraft, the Korean Peninsula is the easternmost part of the Eurasian landmass reached by terrestrially restricted hominins through the middle of the late Pleistocene.
[2] Sun-joo Park (박선주) and Yung-jo Lee (이영조) compared these measurements to the range of growth samples of Lowe Museum of Anthropology in Berkeley and noticed slight differences.
The Hŭngsu individual is only differentiated by the superiority in size of the skull, cranial length, and height, and, most significantly, its greater parietal arc.
Some retardation in the growth of long bones is suggested; alternatively, such short stature could have been one of the main physical characteristics of the Upper Pleistocene hominid stock in Korea.
In the exact place in which Hŭngsu Child was discovered, experts have found stone artifacts and some traces of pollen and flowers, probably chrysanthemum.
However, Dr. Amélie Vialet, Maître de conférences at the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, through accelerator mass spectrometry analysis obtained a radiocarbon age which was quite controversial: the archeological find was traced back in AD 1630–1893, a much later period compared the Pleistocene era.
Thus, before this type of potentially important information is disseminated to the public, it is best that a site and associated materials be subjected to thorough scientific scrutiny from multiple angles.