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Article Dans Une Revue Journal of Human Evolution Année : 2010

New evidence for a 67,000-year-old human presence at Callao Cave, Luzon, Philippines

Armand Salvador Mijares
  • Fonction : Auteur
Florent Détroit
Philip Piper
  • Fonction : Auteur
Rainer Grün
  • Fonction : Auteur
Peter Bellwood
  • Fonction : Auteur
Maxime Aubert
  • Fonction : Auteur
Guillaume Champion
  • Fonction : Auteur
Nida Cuevas
  • Fonction : Auteur
Alexandra de Leon
  • Fonction : Auteur
Eusebio Dizon
  • Fonction : Auteur

Résumé

Documentation of early human migrations through Island Southeast Asia and Wallacea en route to Australia has always been problematic due to a lack of well-dated human skeletal remains. The best known modern humans are from Niah Cave in Borneo (40–42 ka), and from Tabon Cave on the island of Palawan, southwest Philippines (47 ± 11 ka). The discovery of Homo floresiensis on the island of Flores in eastern Indonesia has also highlighted the possibilities of identifying new hominin species on islands in the region. Here, we report the discovery of a human third metatarsal from Callao Cave in northern Luzon. Direct dating of the specimen using U-series ablation has provided a minimum age estimate of 66.7 ± 1 ka, making it the oldest known human fossil in the Philippines. Its morphological features, as well as size and shape characteristics, indicate that the Callao metatarsal definitely belongs to the genus Homo. Morphometric analysis of the Callao metatarsal indicates that it has a gracile structure, close to that observed in other small-bodied Homo sapiens. Interestingly, the Callao metatarsal also falls within the morphological and size ranges of Homo habilis and H. floresiensis. Identifying whether the metatarsal represents the earliest record of H. sapiens so far recorded anywhere east of Wallace’s Line requires further archaeological research, but its presence on the isolated island of Luzon over 65,000 years ago further demonstrates the abilities of humans to make open ocean crossings in the Late Pleistocene.
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hal-03227101 , version 1 (16-05-2021)

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Paternité - Pas d'utilisation commerciale - Partage selon les Conditions Initiales

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Armand Salvador Mijares, Florent Détroit, Philip Piper, Rainer Grün, Peter Bellwood, et al.. New evidence for a 67,000-year-old human presence at Callao Cave, Luzon, Philippines. Journal of Human Evolution, 2010, 59 (1), pp.123-132. ⟨10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.04.008⟩. ⟨hal-03227101⟩
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