New fossil discovery in Kalinga suggests early humans lived in the Philippines 700,000 years ago

Cordillera - A new discovery by a team of Filipino, French and Dutch scientists have shown evidence suggesting the presence of the so-called archaic humans in the island of Southeast Asia 700,000 years ago before our known species Homo Sapiens even existed.

The new evidence which was excavated in Kalinga of the Cagayan valley of Northern Luzon shows  rhino bones and stone tools. 

Scientists found marks on the bones that indicates sharp-edge tools were used in butchering rhinos and removing flesh and fats from the bones. 

Mike Morley, an archaeologist from the University of Wollongong in Australia said that the marks on the bones were signs of butchery by unknown species of hominins. 

"The stones tools and the cut marks on the bones certainly point to a butchery site, with the bone being fractured and scored presumably during the dismembering of the animal, leaving characteristics signs of this butchery on the bones; the hominins who did this remain unknown, however, as there are no hominins bones associated with the archaeological material and fossils", Morley said.

But researchers were not able to determine what species  of rhino hunters and tool-makers had inhabited Luzon long time ago due to the lack of hominin fossils in the site.

If the age of the fossils which is around 700,000 years ago would be the basis, Thomas Ingicco who lead the Kalinga site discovery said Homo Erectus who seems to have been present on those years may be the tool-makers because these species were present all over those years in Asia. 

Where did these hominins come from and how did they come to Luzon? The teams conclude that hominins of some kind must have come originally from Borneo to the southwest or from Taiwan to the north and they could have used some sort of watercraft.

Scientists also uncovered different bones belonging to a species of brown deer, monitor lizards, freshwater turtles and stegodons - a kind of extinct mammal similar to elephants and mammoths.

Using different dating techniques like the electron-spin resonance methods, archaeologists were able to date the bones to be around 777,000 to 631,000 years ago. 

source || theConversation || Gizmodo.com