Homo luzonensis – An international team of paleoanthropologists has found that a new human species with a unique mix of primitive (that is, Australopithecus-like) and derived (that is, Homo sapiens-like) morphological features lived in the Philippines approximately 67,000 years ago.
The new species was uncovered in Callao Cave in the Peñablanca region of northern Luzon island of the Philippines. Due to its genesis in Luzon, it has been named “Homo luzonensis“.
Australopithecus – a group of “tree-climbing, ape-like creatures” that populated the planet as early as several million years before the arrival of Homo erectus, Earth’s first known hominin to migrate out of Africa.
Identification of Homo luzonensis – New human species
In 2007, archaeologist Armand Salvador Mijares found a curious bone buried in Callao Cave on the island of Luzon of the Philippines.
Shortly after, he and his colleagues concluded it was the third metatarsal from a human and when dated using uranium-series ablation, was found to be about 67,000 years old, dating to the Late Pleistocene.
Together with other findings, it makes sense that humans could cross the open ocean and reach isolated islands very early on in our history.
But whether that bone belonged to Homo floresiensis or Homo sapiens or another species of the genus Homo was a mystery. Mijares and his colleagues have since discovered twelve additional bones and teeth from the same site.
Their analysis has disclosed that the remains are unlike any other hominin fossils known, and likely represent a distinct and a new human species of the Homo genus.
The new study titled “A new species of Homo from the Late Pleistocene of the Philippines” was published in Nature, an international journal of science, on 10 April 2019.
Findings
The excavation includes, two toe bones, two finger bones, seven teeth, femur shaft and foot bone unearthed in Luzon offer only scant evidence of the two adults and one child whose remains they represent.
The tiny teeth suggest humans from the new human species would have been shorter than 4ft tall – possibly even shorter than another ancient species, Homo floresiensis, sometimes called the “Hobbit”, also found in south-east Asia and dating to about the same period.
Most intriguing was the presence of a curved toe bone, which closely resembled the anatomy of far more ancient species such as Australopithecus. Normally this anatomy would indicate a mixed lifestyle with an ability to walk on two legs and climb trees.
Although the researchers found that the fragments are distinct enough to justify their classification as an entirely new human species (Homo luzonensis), others remain unconvinced—particularly because the team was unable to extract DNA from the bones and teeth, which have spent millennia in the humid confines of Luzon Island.
The Truth
Homo erectus likely used land bridges to reach what is now Indonesia around a million years ago. Previously researchers assumed – it would have been impossible for early hominins to venture farther east without boats, but the discovery of new human species like Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis suggests our ancient relatives were better-traveled than once thought.
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