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Tianyuan man are the remains of one of the earliest modern humans to inhabit East Asia. In 2007, researchers found 34 bone fragments belonging to a single individual at the Tianyuan Cave near Beijing, China. Radiocarbon dating shows the bones to be between 42,000 and 39,000 years old, which may be slightly younger than the only other finds of bones of a similar age at the Niah Caves in Sarawak on the South-east Asian island of Borneo.
Isotope analysis suggests that a substantial part of the diet of these individuals came from freshwater fish.
Tianyuan man is considered an early modern homo sapiens. He lacks several mandibular features common among Western or Southern Eurasian late archaic humans, showing its divergence. Based on the rate of dental occlusal attrition, it is estimated he died in his 40s or 50s.
DNA tests published in 2013 revealed that Tianyuan man is related "to many present-day Asians and Native Americans". He had also clearly diverged genetically from the ancestors of modern Europeans or Aboriginal Australians. He belonged to mitochondrial DNA haplogroup B, and his Y-chromosomal haplogroup was K2b.