Fossilized bones turn out to be from unknown human species
MANILA, Philippines — Archeologists who discovered fossil bones and teeth of a previously unknown human species that thrived more than 50,000 years ago in the northern Philippines say they plan more diggings and called for better protection of the popular limestone cave complex where the remains were unearthed.
Filipino archeologist Armand Salvador Mijares said the discovery of the remains, in Callao Cave in Cagayan province, made the Philippines an important research ground on human evolution. The new species is called Homo luzonensis after the main northern island of Luzon, where the remains were dug up starting in 2007.
Mijares displayed the six fragments of bones from the feet, hands and thigh and seven teeth of three individuals at a news conference at the staterun University of the Philippines. Tests showed two of the fossil fragments had minimum ages of 50,000 years and 67,000 years, according to a study published by the scientific journal Nature.
“This puts the Philippines, our scientific community in the spotlight,” Mijares said. “Before, we’re just peripheral in this debate of human evolution.”
Mijares, who led a small team of foreign and local archeologists behind the rare discovery, said he plans to resume the diggings next year and hopes to find larger fossil bones, artifacts and possibly stone tools used by people in those times. Aside from Callao Cave, human fossils have recently been found in another site in Bulacan province just north of the capital, Manila.
Another veteran Filipino archeologist, Eusebio Dizon, said the human remains from Callao were the oldest to be found in the Philippines, predating those discovered in Tabon Cave on the western island of Palawan by thousands of years.
While the archeological find could attract more scientists, Dizon worried that it could also draw vandals and treasure hunters who could threaten the seven-chamber cave complex, a popular tourism destination. An open-air chapel with pews and an altar in the cave complex has become a popular venue for weddings and filmmakers.
“Penablanca has been a treasure-hunting haven of many people,” Dizon said, referring to the Cagayan provincial town where the Callao caves are located. “Maybe it will reignite their kind of activity so that’s why it needs protection now more than ever.”
The main exodus of modern man’s own species from Africa that all of today’s non-African people are descended from took place around 60,000 years ago.
Analysis of the bones from the Callao caves led the study authors to conclude they belonged to a previously unknown member of our “Homo” branch of the human family tree. One of the toe bones and the overall pattern of tooth shapes and sizes differ from what has been seen before in the Homo family, the researchers said.
The fossil bones and teeth found about three metres below the ground in the cave show they belonged to small-bodied people. Bones of deer and related animals were found in the area, some with cut marks, suggesting they were butchered although there were no stone tools or sharp implements found where the human fossils were dug up.