Researchers Find Evidence of New Human-Like Species
Archaeologists in the Philippines have found bones and teeth from a previously unknown relative of modern humans.
The species has been called Homo luzonensis after the Philippines' main northern island, Luzon, where the bones were found. Archaeologists found six pieces of bone from the feet, hands and leg, as well as seven teeth, from three individuals. Two of the bones are between 50,000 and 67,000 years old.
Some of the bones and teeth are different shapes and sizes from what's been seen before in the human "Homo" family. In some ways they are similar to both recent humans and australopithecines, early human ancestors that lived in Africa between 2 and 4 million years ago.
This is surprising, as it had been thought that Homo erectus was the first human ancestor to leave Africa around 1.9 million years ago. But if an australopithecine-like species reached Southeast Asia, it may change our ideas about which human ancestor left Africa first.
And since Luzon Island was not connected to mainland Asia at any time in the last 2.5 million years, it raises questions about how the species got there.
It now seems that at least three human-like species lived in Southeast Asia at the time our own modern ancestors arrived there at least 60,000 years ago. One of those species, Homo floresiensis – also called "Hobbits" because of their small size – were found about 3,000 kilometers to the south on the Indonesian island of Flores, having lived there between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago.
Early modern humans also mixed with a species called the Denisovans. No Denisovan bones have been found in the area, but there is evidence of them in the DNA of people living there today.
These newly found bones suggest that human evolution in the area is even more complex than had been thought.
