Fossils from a Philippine cave may come from a new human-like species | Credit: CALLAO CAVE ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT
Posted on 05/13/2019 11:38:20 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The ancient bones and teeth of a previously unknown human relative — one that was even smaller than the so-called Hobbit — have been discovered deep in a cave on an island in the Philippines.
The newfound species is named Homo luzonensis in honor of Luzon, the island where the mysterious beings lived during the late Pleistocene epoch, more than 50,000 years ago. At less than 4 feet (1.2 meters) tall, H. luzonensis is the second known dwarf human on record, the first being Homo floresiensis, also known as the Hobbit, whose remains were found on the Indonesian island of Flores in 2004.
But though H. luzonensis is short like the hobbit, it shares features with a number of other ancient human relatives; it has curved foot and finger bones like Australopithecus (a genus that includes the famous Lucy); premolars that have characteristics similar to those seen in Australopithecus, Homo habilis and Homo erectus; and small molars that look like those of modern humans, or Homo sapiens...
It took years to find the H. luzonensis remains. After scientists found a 67,000-year-old metatarsal, or toe bone, in Luzon's Callao Cave in 2007, they scheduled follow-up excavations in 2011 and 2015. In total, they uncovered 13 fossil bones and teeth that belonged to at least two adults and one child, including two hand bones, three foot bones, a thigh bone and seven teeth. One of these fossils dated to 50,000 years ago, indicating that H. luzonensis lived at the same time as other human lineages, including H. sapiens, Neanderthals, Denisovans and H. floresiensis, according to the study, which was published online today (April 10) in the journal Nature.
(Excerpt) Read more at livescience.com ...
Fossils from a Philippine cave may come from a new human-like species | Credit: CALLAO CAVE ARCHAEOLOGY PROJECT
Take a drive through any one of a dozen ‘sanctuary cities’ and you’ll be able to spot all kinds of new human-like species...
Yeah, there’s a bunch like that running around Portland...
We were missing one at breakfast the other day.
Must have fallen on the floor and cat ate it.
:)
Could the bones belong to a long dead Negrito, Phillipino aborigine?
Eeewwwwwwwwww. That is ugliness incarnate.
Plenty of those folks still running around in paulo won in mindanao today
IF they have curved foot and finger bones from 3 different individuals, that rather rules out one “unusual” Homo Sapiens.
The teeth would be good clues too, I would think.
Maybe it was a midget Hobbit....
They preferred “little Hobbits,”
Isn’t Luzon where, about 40 years ago, a stone age tribe was found living in caves? It made all the news and magazines till it was proven a fake.
Aiiiie!
A.k.a. a Mibbet.
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