Mystery seafaring ancestor found in the Philippines

New Scientist ^ | 03 June 2010 | Jeff Hecht

[Palter]

The discovery of a single foot bone is forcing anthropologists to rethink how people first reached the islands off south-east Asia. It suggests that humans arrived on Luzon, the largest and northernmost major island in the Philippines, at least 67,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than had been thought.

The arrival of people in Australia 50,000 to 60,000 years ago is a good comparison," says expedition member Florent Detroit of the National Museum for Natural History in Paris, France. We have no idea how settlers got to Australia, he says, but we know from the archaeological evidence that they reached it settled it.

It seems coherent for us to think that in; south-east Asia and Australia, humans had sea-faring capabilities by 60,000 to 70,000 years ago."

Castaways

Getting to Luzon would have required crossing the open sea, long before any evidence that people had mastered boat-building or navigation. And the settlers of Luzon were not the only early humans who crossed the open ocean to live on the archipelago that sprawls between Asia and Australia.

The oldest fossils of Homo floresiensis, the famed "hobbits" of Flores, date from 38,000 years ago, but stone tools found on that Indonesian island date back a million years.

Stone tools older than the Luzon foot bone have also been found recently on Sulawesi and Timor, says William Jungers, an anthropologist at Stony Brook University in New York who has worked in south-east Asia but was not involved in the latest discovery.

Even during the peak of the most recent ice age, when sea level was as much as 120 metres lower than it is today, all of those islands were isolated from the mainland.

[Palter]

Ping.

[pabianice]

PLEASE don’t hyperlink articles that require a payment to read.

[Dexter Morgan]

Did you go to the article the OP posted? The article he posted is not a pay article. The hyperlinks are copied as page source information from the original article and not put there by the OP.

Cheer up, it’s Friday.

[GreyFriar]

Gilligan’s 1,349 x great uncle who disappeared on a 3 hour trip has finally been found.

[The Comedian]

Frowning takes 68 muscles.
Smiling takes 6.
Pulling this trigger takes 2.
I'm lazy.

[nickcarraway]

Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

[Joe 6-pack]

"The discovery of a single foot bone is forcing anthropologists to rethink how people first reached the islands off south-east Asia. It suggests that humans arrived on Luzon...at least 67,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than had been thought."

Nope. It suggests a human foot bone arrived on Luzon at least 67,000 years ago...

[Moleman]

I’ll go investigate. Their woman are SMOKING hot!!

[SunkenCiv]

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	Gods Graves Glyphs	Thanks Palter! The oldest fossils of Homo floresiensis, the famed "hobbits" of Flores, date from 38,000 years ago, but stone tools found on that Indonesian island date back a million years. Now I've gotta go look -- I thought the figure was more like 800,000 years. Funny thing, during all that span of time, Flores has always been isolated, always an island, including during glaciations when sealevel was lower. And yet, there are still those who claim that Australia was isolated until 40,000 years ago -- and then isolated again for another 39,500 years. BTW all -- I'm going to try to whip up the Digest tonight and post it before bed, because I've got a full plate tomorrow, and for the next couple of months thereafter. ;') To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother, and Ernest_at_the_Beach
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[BIGLOOK]

[Sawdring]

Art Bell agrees with you.

[colorado tanker]

The ancient seafarers were an attractive bunch, at least the women were . . .

[SunkenCiv]

:’)

[Little Bill]

I thought that we all went back To Africa 50K years ago/