Human remains from the Xarusgol Valley, Ordos Plateau, northwestern China, have been considered to date to the Late Pleistocene. In order to ascertain their true age, direct AMS 14 C dating of a femur collected in the early 1920s was conducted. The results demonstrate that the femur is very young, with one sample of ‘post-bomb’ age and the other sample c. 200 years old. This first direct dating of a Chinese fossil hominid underscores the need to apply the same methodology to other Chinese modern human fossils currently believed to be of Pleistocene age.