The remains of some of the earliest modern humans to invade Asia have been found in caves in Laos, according to research results released on Tuesday.
Excavations at Tampaling Cave over the past seven years have found bone fragments of early modern humans who inhabited the area approximately 86,000 years ago and may have lived in the mountains for at least 68,000 years. was done. according to to nature. The find pushes back the chronology of human exploration, as these sites may belong to some of the first humans to leave Africa and enter Southeast Asia.
“The importance of another point on the map for early modern humans in Southeast Asia cannot be overstated,” Miriam Stark, an anthropologist who was not involved in the study, told Nature. . “Understanding Southeast Asia is essential to understanding the deep history of the world.”
A 1.2-million-year-old hatchet ‘factory’ found in Africa. The shit is getting old and somewhere Graham Hancock is smiling.https://t.co/qQbsElZaq9
— Jazz Shaw (@JazzShaw) January 26, 2023
Small fragments of a skull and shin bone fragments were found in the cave, believed to have been deposited during the flood. Through analysis of herbivore teeth, electron spin resonance, and uranium-based dating, the researchers compared these fragments to other fragments found in the cave nearly a decade ago, almost twice as old. I discovered. (Related: Archaeologists’ Finds Prove We Need to Rewrite Human History)
The bones also challenge the human migration hypothesis that Homo sapiens left Africa and dispersed across the globe in a single, rapid event called marine isotope stage 5, Nature noted. This period lasted from 130,000 to 80,000 years ago, but the findings at Tampaling disagree with these theories. These humans seem to have left everywhere long before marine isotope stage 5 occurred.
The shape of fossilized remains also has a great impact on the historical understanding of early modern humans. For example, a younger skull fragment has both modern and archaic features, while a skull fragment about 86,000 years old has only modern human features.
