Minerals, vitamins and proteins: for someone who does not know when a decent meal will finally land on plate, bone marrow is perfect food source. It contains many nutrients, concentrated inside of a few bones. It was true that our ancestors did not know more than half a million years ago. Neverless, y recycled ir hunting to last. This is a habit that may have ensured survival of early man and helped archaeologists in ir work today. Because to find out where man left his earliest traces, re must also be indirect evidence. There are still remnants of human bones not everywhere.

For example, stone tools and shattered rhino bones help. Both researchers have now been investigating Philippines. The traces provide new evidence that relatives of modern man Homo sapiens could have lived re about 709,000 years ago. This emerges from a study published in magazine Nature (Ingicco et al., 2018).

The researchers around archaeologist Thomas Ingicco investigated a finding that had already been excavated in 2013 in province of Kalinga on Philippine island of Luzon: 57 stone tools and around 400 animal bones, including an almost Completely preserved skeleton of an extinct Rhinozerosart (Rhinoceros philippinensis). 13 of se rhino bones were processed and partially smashed to get to bone marrow – so y showed clear signs of human processing. What is special about this is that people in Philippines have never been able to prove it so clearly – at least not with finds that are 700,000 years old.

The Any visit

The remains of rhino found archaeologists in province of Kalinga in north of largest Philippine island of Luzon.

Time Online

"This proof pushes period in which Philippines proven were settled to return hundreds of thousands of years," authors write in ir study. For first time in about 60 years, this was a finding that indicated a settlement of South Asian islands more than 100,000 years ago. However, re was no clear evidence for this. Just 67,000 years is oldest found, which occupies a human presence in Philippines: a single bone of an early relative of Homo sapiens, found in a cave in north of Luzon (Journal of Human Evolution: Mijares et al., 2010).

The first clues were in 1950s

Suspicions that early humans had come to Philippines and surrounding islands much earlier have been around since 1950s. At that time archaeologists hyposized that our ancestors – presumably Homo erectus or Denisovaner – could have lived in Philippines 126,000 to 781,000 years ago. Fossils of larger animals and stone tools were found in Cagayan Valley in north of Luzon. Sound evidence that supported this sis, however, was missing. The find remained only discovery of this kind for many years – nor was it possible to clearly see how old remains were.

The new find makes it more likely that ory of early human settlement is correct. Neverless, archaeologists and archaeologists around Thomas Ingicco remain reserved. Because how did people come to islands? It is still far fetched that y were able to build boats with which y could lay long distances to Philippine Islands, write in ir study.

Date Of Update: 03 May 2018, 12:02