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Ancient stone tools from an archaeological site on Sulawesi have pushed back the date of the earliest human occupation of the Indonesian island to at least 118,000 years ago.
The discovery, published today in Nature, overturns the view that humans first entered the island between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago as Homo sapiens dispersed out of Africa on the way to Australia.
Instead the finding suggests an ancient human species inhabited the island well before Homo sapiens arrived.
Lead author Dr Gerrit van den Bergh, from the University of Wollongong, said it was likely this earlier inhabitant was related to the dwarf-sized hobbit (Homo floresiensis) — whose fossils were found more than a decade ago on the nearby island of Flores.
This estimate was then supported by uranium dating of enamel on tooth fossils found at the site, which gave them a minimum age of 200,000 years old. Dr van den Bergh said although the Nature paper put the date of earliest human occupation at 118,000 years ago, this was a "very conservative" estimate.
Cave art on Sulawesi shows modern humans (Homo sapiens) lived in Sulawesi around 40,000 years ago, Dr van den Bergh said.
"These modern humans must have encountered these archaic humans and what happened we don't know yet," he said.
Stone tools found on the island of Flores show that early humans arrived there at least 800,000 years ago, but it’s not known how early humans got there as the nearest island is 9 km (6 mi) away across treacherous seas. Paleoanthropologists found many stone tools associated with H. floresiensis, and these tools are broadly similar to those found earlier on Flores and throughout the human evolutionary career (i.e., Lower Paleolithic tools in Asia or Oldowan tools in Africa).
originally posted by: rickymouse
Maybe people from the island went to Africa and started a civilization there. Maybe they got it all backward.
I never believed that everything rose out of Africa anyway, there are so many possibilities where humans were formed and I don't think they should have ever started that theory. Just because there is no evidence to the contrary yet doesn't mean that out of Africa theory is correct. It could be correct but I just don't want to believe something that may not be right. All I will say is that there is some evidence that man may have came from Africa.
our human family tree is rather more like an angry gnarled bush.
there is a huge chasm between having physical remains to work with and test while forming hypothesis and taking mistranslated scripture at face value because of confirmation bias. There are physical remains of H. Floresiensis. There are no remains of "giants" that are not within the scope of what H. Sapiens Sapiens can physically grow to.
originally posted by: Learningman
a reply to: randyvs
Except Hobbit is a slang name for Homo floresiensis, which we have evidence of existing. We have found them and studied them. So far, giants have not been discovered but i do not rule that out. Also, a hobbit and a halfling are the very same thing.
originally posted by: rickymouse
Maybe people from the island went to Africa and started a civilization there. Maybe they got it all backward. I never believed that everything rose out of Africa anyway, there are so many possibilities where humans were formed and I don't think they should have ever started that theory. Just because there is no evidence to the contrary yet doesn't mean that out of Africa theory is correct. It could be correct but I just don't want to believe something that may not be right. All I will say is that there is some evidence that man may have came from Africa.