Evidence of 700,000-Year-Old Ancient Humans Found in Philippines
Archeologists found stone tools on the island of Luzon in the Philippines from an ancestor 700,000-years older than modern humans. The tools were used to butcher a rhinoceros by a currently unknown ancestor, though there are a few culprits.
Until now, the oldest fossil evidence of humans found in the Philippines were 67,000-years old coming from Callao Cave on the same island. Now, this new find drastically changes the perceived timeline of our hominin ancestors’ diaspora to southeastern Asian islands.
Though the rhino remains are likely the work of Homo erectus, the mysterious Denisovans, and the less likely Homo floresiensis still have not been ruled out. A lack of any hominin fossil evidence only allows archeologists to speculate which ancestor was so adept at butchering.
The fossilized remains found at the Kalinga site in the Cagayan Valley show it was a spot where many animals were butchered meticulously to reach all the way down to the marrow of the animals’ bones.
The team uncovered 57 stone tools and roughly 400 bones total, belonging to an assortment of animals, including lizards, turtles, deer, stegodons, and rhinoceroses. The bones of larger animals make it less likely that the tools belonged to Homo floresiensis, due to that ancestors’ hobbit-like stature, reaching an average height of 3 feet 6 inches tall. Though it’s presence on nearby Indonesian islands keeps it in the running.
Previously, archeologists only had evidence of hominin migration to southeastern Pacific islands in the Indonesian archipelago dating back 118,000 years ago. This is where Homo floresiensis was found, and some speculate to possibly still exist. Now that timeline has been pushed back more than half a million years.
But archeologists still don’t know how they got there.
One possibility is that a land bridge may have existed back then, or a tsunami may have forced unassuming hominins out to sea, surviving on makeshift rafts, until they wound up on a foreign island. Neither of these theories are proven however, and it may be possible that these ancestors were intelligent and capable of building seafaring vessels, intentionally exploring new islands.
The only finding that can be confirmed for certain is that they were able to travel across distant stretches of ocean. It also shows that our understanding of human evolution is constantly being challenged and is far more complex than we may have imagined.
Could Discovery of 9.7 Million Year Old Teeth Rewrite History?
A recent archaeological find in Germany has the potential to change our understanding of human history. Researchers recently discovered a pair of teeth in a sedimentary layer dating back almost 10 million years. Now, after waiting an entire year to publish their discovery, the team says they believe their find came from a hominid species, potentially shifting the official timeline of our ancient ancestors. Could this discovery of fossilized teeth rewrite human history?
Archeological Find of the CenturyÂ
It’s been 80 years since a fossil of this nature was discovered and nearly 40 years since the discovery of ‘Lucy,’ the Australopithecus afarensis, our hominid ancestor who eventually evolved into the genus: homo. Lucy died around 3.18 million years ago in what is now Ethiopia. She has since been the basis for our understanding of the origin of our ancestors and their subsequent migratory paths throughout the world. Lucy has led us to assume that humans originated in Africa and left no earlier than 120,000 years ago.
Now, under the guidance of paleontologist and geologist Herbert Lutz, a team has found an upper right molar and upper left canine, that they believe resembles either the hominid species, Ardipithecus ramidus or Australopithecus, like Lucy. If this hypothesis holds up, it would suggest two things; that our hominid ancestors were present outside of Africa and that they, or a close relative, existed millions of years earlier than previously thought.
But some say that Lutz’s discovery isn’t as profound as he believes and that the canine tooth likely belonged to a ruminant animal, like a deer, cow or sheep. They also say that the molar is more likely to have originated in a non-hominoid species known as Pliopithecoids who were known to have lived between seven and 17 million years ago. This would not be a major discovery as we’re more closely related to baboons than we are to Pliopithecus.
Lutz is undeterred by his colleagues’ criticisms, saying that since the two teeth were found together after 20 years of painstaking excavation, and with no other similar discoveries in that area, they must have come from the same mouth. He also didn’t jump to conclusions, spending a year doing the necessary research before going public. He found evidence that the teeth had different characteristics from Pliopithecus and that they came from a sub-adult specimen that would have been heavier than the non-humanoid species. Â
New Archeological Discoveries
The teeth were recovered in an area near the Rhine River, fossilized within a layer of sedimentary rock, dating 9.7 million years old. The site where they were found, known as Eppelsheim, has only produced nine or ten finds within the past couple centuries, making this discovery rare and lending to the possibility that the two teeth came from the same jaw.
Lutz is under the assumption that this was a previously unknown great ape with hominin resemblances that was part of a line of species that fall somewhere within our evolutionary history. His discovery is one of several that have challenged the timeline held by mainstream archeology, that believes hominids evolved in Africa and didn’t cross into Europe until about 2 million years ago.
Other recent findings have suggested the possibility of hominid species in areas of Europe before what was previously thought possible. A discovery of fossilized footprints from a bipedal ancestor were found on the modern day island of Crete in Greece. These footprints date back 5.7 million years and were also discounted by mainstream archeologists as having a hominid provenance. Other sets of fossilized hominid teeth have been found outside of Africa, in places like Greece and Bulgaria and were dated over 7 million years old from the Miocene epoch.
Although the presiding opinion of mainstream archeology can be stubborn and tough to change, there seems to be new evidence everyday challenging that narrative. Could this discovery lead to new insight and a paradigm shift in our perception of history?