Pinoy archaeologist helps rewrite human history in Southeast Asia

via The Manila Times, 02 July 2023: More stories about the recent discoveries from Tam Pa Ling, focusing on the Philippine member of the team Vito Hernandes.

Analyses of fossils and sediments from Tam Pà Ling (“Cave of Monkeys” in Lao) by an international team of scientists — including a Filipino researcher formerly from the University of the Philippines (UP) and currently at the Flinders University Microarchaeology Laboratory in South Australia — have pushed back the time when we know our species, Homo sapiens, was present in Mainland Southeast Asia.

The newly-discovered fossils are almost 20,000 years older than most of the evidence from sites so far studied in Southeast Asia and add further confirmation of a pre-60,000-year-old dispersal of modern humans into East Asia.

“This discovery is helping us better understand the distribution of our direct ancestors at a time when we know other populations of humans, now extinct, existed,” said Vito Hernandez, the Filipino geoarchaeologist who is part of the team that published these recent findings from Tam Pà Ling.

Source: Pinoy archaeologist helps rewrite human history in Southeast Asia | The Manila Times

See also:

• Modern humans present in SE Asia 80,000 years ago | Business Mirror, 02 July 2023
• Filipino archeologist helps rewrite human history in SEA | Baguio Midland Courier, 02 July 2023
• Scientists: Homo sapiens were in SE Asia earlier than thought | Philippine Inquirer, 07 July 2023