EARLY MODERN HUMANS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

EARLIEST EVIDENCE OF MODERN HUMANS IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

The first modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) arrived in Southeast Asia as early as 90,000 years ago. The earliest evidence of modern humans in Southeast Asia comes from Tam Pa Ling Cave in the Annamite Mountains in northern Laos. According to Archaeology magazine Luminescence dating of sediments there that contain human bones indicates that Homo sapiens arrived in Southeast Asia between 86,000 and 68,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought. The new research also suggests that people traveled not only along coastal routes and seaways but along inland river valleys as well. In 2009 a skull recovered from Tam Pa Ling Cave was dated at least 46,000 years old, making it the oldest modern human fossil found to date in Southeast Asia. [Source: Archaeology magazine, September-October 2023, Wikipedia]

The earliest evidence of modern humans in Indonesia —63,000-73,000 years before present — is Lida Ajer cave in Sumatra. Teeth were found there in the 19th century. The earliest evidence of modern humans in Philippines —67,000 years before present — is Callao Cave. Archaeologists, Dr. Armand Mijares with Dr. Phil Piper found bones in a cave near Peñablanca, Cagayan in 2010 that were dated to be 67,000 years old. It's the earliest human fossil ever found in Asia-Pacific.

The oldest human settlement in Malaysia has been discovered in Niah Caves in Borneo. The human remains found there have been dated back to 40,000 to 65,000 years ago. Stone artifacts dating to 40,000 years ago have been found at Tham Lod Rockshelter in Mae Hong Son in Thailand. Archaeological evidence of Homo sapiens from central Myanmar has been dated to about 25,000 before the present. [Source: Wikipedia]

The first human migrations out of Africa are thought to have taken place over 100,000 years ago. They likely crossed India to reach Southeast Asia. According to PBS: “Migrants gradually made their way down India's coast over a few thousand years. The migration was possible because sea levels were 200 feet lower then they are now, allowing travel via long-since submerged land bridges. The migrants' descendants have been identified by DNA markers as far north as the Pakistani coast and as far south as the Kallar tribe on the Kerala coast in modern India, where entire villages share ancient DNA strains. Along India's west coast there remain pockets of tribal peoples who may have descended from these first human migrations. Until the modern age they have remained largely self-contained, endogamous (marrying within the tribe), physically distinctive in appearance and outside the Hindu caste system. Many retain their own languages, which are distinct from the main Northern and Southern Indian language groups. [Source: PBS, The Story of India, pbs.org/thestoryofindia]

Out of Africa Theory

There are various theories describing how migration patterns played a part in the development of early humans. The traditional, widely-accepted "Single Origin, Out of Africa Theory" of human evolution posits that earliest hominids evolved in Africa; that Australopithecus species evolved into Homo species in Africa; that early Homo species migrated to Asia and the Old World from Africa between a million and two million years ago; and that Homo sapiens also evolved in Africa.

According to the “Out of Africa" theory there were two migrations of African-born Homo species. First, Homo erectus began slowly moving into the Middle East, Europe and Asia between a million and two million years ago. Homo erectus splintered into numerous colonies that developed separately from one another. None of the colonies outside of Africa contributed to the development of Homo sapiens , which also originally evolved in Africa.

Hominids are thought to have most likely migrated across what is called the Levantine Corridor through what is now Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon or across southern Arabia. Genetic studies of 28 of China's 56 ethnic groups, published by the Chinese Human Genae Diversity Project in 2000, indicate that the first Chinese descended from Africans who migrated their way along the Indian Ocean and made their way to China via Southeast Asia.

Early Modern Man Migrates to Asia

The fact that some of earliest evidence of modern humans outside of Africa and the Middle East is in Australia suggests that the early man followed a coastal route through South Asia and Southeast Asia to Australia. It is believed that the migration was not a caravan-like journey but rather one in which some huts were set up on the beach and the migrants lived there for a while moving and then moved to a new location further to the east every couple of years. Traces of such a migration if it took place were covered in water and sediments when sea levels rose at the end of the Ice Age.

Around 40,000 years ago, it is thought, humans reached the steppes of Central Asia and pushed on into Siberia. There is evidence of human habitation on the northern Yana River in Siberia dated to 30,000 years ago.

Some genetic evidence indicates that a group of 4,000 modern humans left Africa between 75,000 and 50,000 years ago and ultimately populated Asia. All non-Africans share genetic markers (the M168 marker in particular) carried by these early immigrants. The descendants of these people replaced all earlier types of humans, notably Neanderthals. All-non Africans are descendants of these people. The Onge from the Andaman Islands in India carry some of the oldest genetic markers found outside Africa.

Many scientists believe the migration took place rather late and humans that took part in it spread very far, very quickly, This theory is backed in part by the features of skulls of ancient modern men found in Europe, Asia and even Australia with those of the Hofmeyr skull found in South Africa in the 195's and dated to be 33,000 to 42,000 years old. This finding was reported in a January 2007 article in the journal Science by team led by Frederick Grine at State University of New York at Stony Brook.

The dating of the Hofmeyer skull has provided an important piece of the puzzle. Before it was dated no human fossil existed for the period between 15,000 and 70,000 years ago when the great migration out of Africa was taking place. The skull was dated by Richard Baily at Oxford University using a new technology that measures the amounts of radiation absorbed by sand grains that filled its braincase after burial. When the skull was found this technology did not exist and it was originally thought to be undatable because no other bones were found near it and its original resting place had been disrupted by river sediments.

North-South Genetic Divide Among Native Populations in East Asia

Chinese researchers Feng Zhang, Bing Su, Ya-ping Zhang and Li Jin wrote in an article published by the Royal Society: “East Asia is one of the most important regions for studying evolution and genetic diversity of human populations. Its importance is associated with the extensive presence of humans and their claimed ancestors over the last 2 million years, and with being the crossroads connecting America and the Pacific Islands. [Source: “Genetic studies of human diversity in East Asia” by 1) Feng Zhang, Institute of Genetics, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, 2) Bing Su, Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, 3) Ya-ping Zhang, Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bio-resource, Yunnan University and 4) Li Jin, Institute of Genetics, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University. Author for correspondence (ljin007@gmail.com), 2007 The Royal Society, [Source: Genetic studies of human diversity in East Asia ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

***]

“China, one of the centres of human civilization, comprises most of the geographical span, ethnic groups and languages of East Asia. In the past two decades, much effort has been made by researchers in China and their international collaborators to characterize the structure of genetic diversity of human populations in China. The most significant progress of such studies started with the observation of genetic distinction between the southern and the northern East Asian populations (Zhao et al. 1987). ***

In recent years researchers in China have made substantial efforts to collect samples and generate data especially for markers on Y chromosomes and mtDNA. The hallmark of these efforts is the discovery and confirmation of consistent distinction between northern and southern East Asian populations at genetic markers across the genome. With the confirmation of an African origin for East Asian populations and the observation of a dominating impact of the gene flow entering East Asia from the south in early human settlement, interpretation of the north–south division in this context poses the challenge to the field. Other areas of interest that have been studied include the gene flow between East Asia and its neighbouring regions (i.e. Central Asia, the Sub-continent, America and the Pacific Islands), the origin of Sino-Tibetan populations and expansion of the Chinese. ***

Genetic markers are the tools in studying genetic variations. The most important genetic markers in human genetic diversity research (Du 2004) are: (I) blood groups that can be detected in red blood cells, including ABO, Rh and MNSs, (ii) human lymphocyte antigens and immunoglobulins, including Gm, Km and Am, (iii) isozyme markers, (iv) classic DNA polymorphisms using restriction fragment length polymorphism (RFLP), and (v) contemporary DNA markers, including short tandem repeat (STR or microsatellite) and single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs). However, it is the introduction of mtDNA and Y chromosome markers that has made a profound impact on our understanding of the genetic diversity of human populations (Wallace et al. 1999; Jobling & Tyler-Smith 2003; Pakendorf & Stoneking in press). ***

The north–south division raises the question of whether the southern and northern East Asians (NEAS) are descendants of the same ancestral population in East Asia or originated from different populations that arrived in East Asia via different routes. To date, three main hypotheses have been brought forward on the entry of modern humans into East Asia: (I) entry from Southeast Asia followed by northward migrations (Turner 1987; Ballinger et al. 1992; Chu et al. 1998; Su et al. 1999; Yao et al. 2002; Shi et al. 2005), (ii) entry from northern Asia followed by southward migrations (Nei & Roychoudhury 1993), and (iii) southern and NEAS are derived from different ancestral populations, i.e. southern populations from Southeast Asia and northern populations from Central Asia (Cavalli-Sforza et al. 1994; Xiao et al. 2000; Karafet et al. 2001). Therefore, to understand the mechanism of genesis and maintenance of the north–south division, much needs to be learnt about the origin and migration of the East Asians. ***

Autosomes are inherited from both the parents and recombination makes it hard to trace a particular autosomal segment in human evolution. In the past decade, the utilities of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and the non-recombining region of the Y chromosome (NRY) in studying population origin and divergence have been well recognized by both geneticists and anthropologists. Their advantages, including small effective population size and population-specific haplotype distribution, are powerful tools in tracing the demographic events of human evolution. NRYs are paternally inherited without recombination; therefore, they are transmitted completely to the next generation. In addition, the effective population size (Ne) of NRYs is smaller than that of autosomes. Therefore, genetic drift would result in more dramatic shifts of the frequencies of Y chromosome markers than autosomal markers during human migration and, in turn, lead to more prominent specific regional distributions of NRY variations.

Genetic Evidence of the Out of Africa Theory of Modern Men

Chinese researchers Feng Zhang, Bing Su, Ya-ping Zhang and Li Jin wrote in an article published by the Royal Society: “ The ‘out of Africa’ hypothesis asserts that modern humans originate from an ancestral population in Africa, which expanded and spread out of Africa and completely replaced archaic human populations (H. sapiens or H. erectus) outside Africa (Cann et al. 1987; Wilson & Cann 1992). Some anthropologists have claimed that anthropological evidence in China supported a regional evolution from H. erectus to modern human (Wu 1988). However, the phylogenetic tree of human mtDNA variations suggested that the ancestor of modern humans came out of Africa (Cann et al. 1987). From then on, more and more genetic data have been accumulated, most of which supported the out of Africa hypothesis (e.g. Bowcock et al. 1994; Hammer 1995; Tishkoff et al. 1996; Chu et al. 1998; Quintana-Murci et al. 1999; Su et al. 1999; Ingman et al. 2000; Ke et al. 2001). ***[Source: “Genetic studies of human diversity in East Asia” by 1) Feng Zhang, Institute of Genetics, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University, 2) Bing Su, Laboratory of Cellular and Molecular Evolution, Kunming Institute of Zoology, 3) Ya-ping Zhang, Laboratory for Conservation and Utilization of Bio-resource, Yunnan University and 4) Li Jin, Institute of Genetics, School of Life Sciences, Fudan University. Author for correspondence (ljin007@gmail.com), 2007 The Royal Society ***]

As the mtDNA data supporting the out of Africa hypothesis were formerly restricted to the control region and RFLP in the coding region, Ingman et al. (2000) utilized the complete mtDNA sequences of 53 humans of diverse origins in tracing human evolution. As before, the newly generated mtDNA phylogeny indicated an African origin of modern humans (Ingman et al. 2000). ***

By analysing the markers on NRYs in over 1000 male individuals, Underhill et al. (2000) constructed a parsimonious genealogy to trace the evolution of modern humans. According to the phylogenetic tree, all the tested men from outside Africa share the same mutation (M168), which arose in Africa between 35 000 and 89 000 years ago. There are three parallel mutations (M89, M130 and Y Alu polymorphism, YAP) downstream of M168. Ke et al. (2001) examined these markers in 12 127 men from 163 populations in Asia and found that every sample had inherited one of these markers. This finding indicates that all of them are descendants of a relatively recent common ancestor in Africa, which supports a complete replacement of local archaic populations by modern humans from Africa from the perspective of paternal lineages. ***

Migration Routes into East Asia

While more and more genetic evidence supports the out of Africa hypothesis, the migration route which leads to the peopling of Eurasia remains controversial. As mentioned previously, there are two possible migration routes (from Central Asia and Southeast Asia) that were involved in three hypothetical models of the entry of modern humans into East Asia. By the phylogenetic analysis of 30 autosomal microsatellite loci in 28 populations, Chu et al. (1998) showed that northern and southern Chinese belong to distinct clusters and indicated that the colonization of East Asia might be mainly attributed to the northward migration of the settlers from Southeast Asia. Yao et al. (2002) analysed the mtDNA gene pool of Han Chinese and observed a south-to-north cline based on the haplogroup frequency. In addition, the haplogroups in southern East Asians (SEAS) were found to be more ancient than those in the northern population (Yao et al. 2002). This evidence suggested that the southern route might play an important part in the peopling of East Asia. ***

On the paternal side, Su et al. (1999) examined 19 Y-SNPs and 3 Y-STRs in 925 males from a wide area of Asia and observed that SEAS are much more polymorphic than NEAS, which suggested the southern origin of northern populations and the migratory route from south to north after the initial Palaeolithic peopling of East Asia. Recently, in a systematic sampling and genetic screening of one East Asian-specific Y chromosome haplogroup (O3-M122) in 2332 males from diverse East Asian populations, Shi et al. (2005) showed that this haplotype was more polymorphic in SEAS than in NEAS, which suggested a southern origin of the O3-M122 mutation. According to the Y-STR data, it was estimated that the early northward migration of the O3-M122 lineages in East Asia occurred ca 25 000–30 000 years ago (Shi et al. 2005). ***

Though the evidence of various genetic markers suggests that the southern route makes the main contribution to the gene pool of East Asians, the effect of genetic admixture in Central Asia (including the northwest part of China) cannot be neglected. Different proportions of lineages in the admixture from Central Asia appears to be a reason for the division between NEAS and SEAS. ***

Similarity of some NEAS to Central Asians indicates that the genetic admixture associated with trade along the Silk Road might have played an important role in the diversity in East Asia. Zhao & Lee (1989) studied the Gm allotypes and found some Caucasian-related haplotypes in populations of Northwest China. Similarly, Yao et al. (2000) studied the HVS-I region of mtDNA and melanocortin 1 receptor-gene polymorphisms in the ethnic populations of Northwest China (including Uighur, Kazak and Tu), and extensive gene admixture of northern East Asian and West Eurasian along the Silk Road was indicated. In a consequent study, Yao et al. (2004) analysed 252 mtDNAs of five ethnic groups (Uygur, Uzbek, Kazak, Mongolian and Hui) from Xinjiang, China and divided them into the eastern and western Eurasian pools according to previous studies. Their results suggested that Central Asia is the main location of genetic admixture of the east and west. In addition, the frequency of the western Eurasian-specific haplogroups ranges from 42.6 to 6.7 percent across populations, indicating the different contributions of the west and east gene pools in the admixture process (Yao et al. 2004). ***

Recently, by examining mtDNA and physical characters of 134 human remains excavated from nine sites (dating from 2500 BC to AD 200) in Northwest China, Jin and colleagues found that both the genetic and physical characters of the East and West Eurasians could be observed in some individuals of these Bronze Age populations, indicating a genetic interaction of the East and West Eurasians before the rise of the Silk Road (Li Jin 2005, unpublished data). ***

Early People in Southeast Asia

The stone-age technology of the first modern humans in Southeast Asia remained little changed until a new Neolithic culture evolved about 10,000 years ago. Stone tools discovered in Houaphanh and Luang Prabang provinces in Laos attest to the presence of prehistoric man in the hunter-gatherer stage in Lao territory from at least 40,000 years ago. The Hoabinhian culture is named after an archaeological site in northern Vietnam. Hoabinhian hunter-gatherers spread throughout much of Southeast Asia, including Laos. Their descendants produced the first pottery in the region, and later bronze metallurgy. In time they supplemented their hunting, fishing and gathering by horticulture and eventually rice cultivation, introduced down the Mekong River valley from southern China.

Evidence of human habitation, estimated at around 33,000 years old, has been found at Golo and Wetef Island (northwest of New Guinea), coastal Sulawesi (Indonesia), the northern coast of New Guinea, the Bismark Archipelago (northeast of New Guinea), and the northern Solomon Islands (southeast of New Guinea),

Land ridges existed as late as 20,000 years, when seas levels were 120 to 130 meters lower than they are now. Some scholars have speculated that flood myths, common among many Southeast Asian minorities, as well as in the Bible, may have originated in Southeast Asia and refer to flooding caused by rising seas after the Ice Age. Most well-known early Neolithic sites in Southeast Asia are in protected caves. Many good sites are believed to date back to the ice age and are now underwater. [Book: “The Drowned Continent of Southeast Asia “ by Stephen Oppenheimer (Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1999)]

The first people to inhabit Southeast Asia, anthropologists believe, were dark-skinned, curly-haired hunter-gatherers similar to people found in New Guinea, the Solomon Islands Australia and Melanesia. They were late displaced by Chinese. The only survivors of the original hunter gathers that inhabited Southeast Asia are Semang Negritos of peninsular Malaysia and the Negritos of the mountains of Luzon and some islands of the Philippines.

Modern Humans in Tam Pà Ling Cave in Laos Over 75,000 Years Ago

A fragment of a human leg bone found in sediments Tam Pà Ling cave in Laos is believed to be as old as 86,000 years old. Human fossils — a partial skull and jawbone dating to between 46-63,000 years old — were first discovered there in 2009. Excavations there have revealed hundreds of animal and human fossils, suggesting Homo sapiens lived there for as long as 56,000 years.

The evidence from Tam Pà Ling cave has not been ironclad but has gotten better over time. James Ashworth of the Natural History Museum in London wrote: Initially it wasn’t known if the sediments containing the bones had been washed into the site, or whether they represented a gradual build up over time. After a decade of research at the cave, the scientists now are confident about their findings. Vito Hernandez, a PhD student and co-author of a 2023 study on the cave, says, ‘The results of our microarchaeological analyses have given us a better appreciation of the ground conditions in Tam Pà Ling in the past, allowing for a more precise interpretations of how and when these early modern human fossils were buried in this part of the cave.’ [Source: James Ashworth, Natural History Museum, June 15, 2023]

Studies of the sediment revealed that it had naturally built up over time, with heavy rains in the monsoon season washing it into the cave over thousands of years. There was little evidence that it had been disturbed after being put down, suggesting that it could be reliably dated. To do this, the team used a mixture of techniques, including luminescence dating and U-series dating. The former allows scientists to work out when an object was last exposed to light, and therefore when it was buried. U-series dating, meanwhile, looks at the decay of Uranium over time to give an estimate of age.

Together, these have allowed the team to create a timeline of the site. The earliest human fossil found at the site is a newly discovered leg bone around 77,000 years old, but could be even older. Meanwhile, the youngest fossil is at least 30,000 years old, suggesting that the cave was an important region for many generations of Homo sapiens. While attempts to extract DNA from the fossils failed, their presence alone shows that humans were living around Tam Pà Ling for 10,000 years longer than previously thought. The task for scientists now is to explain what happened to these early pioneers.

‘If the growing picture of a pre-60,000-year-old dispersal to east Asia is confirmed, then this implies that the DNA of these earlier populations has not come through to the present day at detectable levels,’ Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum says. ‘This means that these older populations either died out, or they were replaced or swamped by a more substantial later spread of Homo sapiens into the region.’

Whatever happened to the first Homo sapiens at Tam Pà Ling, humans would continue to visit the region for thousands of years. The researchers suggest the cave might have been used by people gradually migrating across Asia and down towards Australia. Along the way, it’s possible that Homo sapiens would have encountered its relatives which lived in the area, such as Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis. Finding more fossils in southeast Asia could help to reveal what relationship they might have had, as well as larger questions in

55,000-Year-Old Modern Humans from Tam Pa Ling Cave in Laos

A human skull was found in 2009 and a jaw was discovered in late 2010 from cave site known as Tam Pa Ling (The Cave of Monkeys). in Laos. Dated to 46,000 to 63,000 years ago, the bones are the oldest modern human fossil found in Southeast Asia. The discovery pushed back modern human migration to that region by about 20,000 years earlier than thought. [Source: Kambiz Kamrani in Physical Anthropology, anthropology.net 11, April 2015]

According to Archaeology magazine; The Tam Pa Ling Cave fossils are providing insights into how the first Homo sapiens settled Southeast Asia and later Australia. Archaeologists Fabrice Demeter of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris and Laura Shackelford of the Illinois State Geological Survey analyzed the skull. According to Shackelford, it does not show any evidence that the individual’s ancestors interbred with Homo erectus, a hominin species that lived in the area for more than one million years. The skull itself is small and belonged to a young adult at least 18 years old. No artifacts were found with the bones, but the cave’s location, far from the coast, shows that modern humans migrated through the river valleys and into the mountains of Laos as they continued their trek toward Australia, where they arrived at least 40,000 years ago. [Source: Zach Zorich, Archaeology, October 5, 2012]

But what is interesting is the mix of features, says Shackelford. In addition to being incredibly small in overall size, they has a mixture of traits that combine typical modern human anatomy, such as the presence of a protruding chin, with traits that are more common of our archaic ancestors like Neanderthals – for example, very thick bone to hold the molars in place.

According to pbs.org: “63,000 years ago, a woman died in the forested hills of northern Laos. She may have been looking for food or shelter - perhaps she was escaping a tropical storm. Whatever the reason, her final resting place was Tam Pa Ling Cave. Here she remained, until 2008, when archaeologists uncovered her skull and jawbone. Human fossils are extremely rare in the tropics because the climate is too wet to preserve bone, so this was a major discovery. It is the oldest definitively modern human skull found anywhere in Asia. People like her must have left Africa thousands of years previously, traveled deep into Asia and adapted to life in the rainforest – encountering a variety of new animals, parasites and plants. In the absence of flint, they learnt how make tools and weapons using the local supergrass, bamboo. Anthropologists have long assumed that humans migrated out of Africa by hugging the coast - but Tam Pa Ling is a thousand miles inland. Instead, it seems people moved along Asia’s river valleys, which served as natural corridors through the continent. [Source: pbs.org]

Determining the Diet of Modern Humans Living Laos

According to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology: Although there has been evidence of our species living in rainforest regions in Southeast Asia from at least 70,000 years ago, the poor preservation of organic material in these regions limits how much we know about their diet and ecological adaptations to these habitats. An international team of scientists led by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig and the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz has now applied a new method to investigate the diet of fossil humans: the analysis of stable zinc isotopes from tooth enamel. This method proves particularly helpful to learn whether prehistoric humans and animals were primarily eating meat or plants. [Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, October 14, 2021]

In this study, researchers analysed the zinc stable isotope ratios from animal and human teeth from two sites in the Huà Pan Province of Laos: Tam Pà Ling and the nearby site of Nam Lot. “The site of Tam Pà Ling is particularly important for palaeoanthropology and archaeology of Southeast Asia because it holds the oldest and most abundant fossil record of our species in this region”, explains Fabrice Demeter, researcher at the University of Copenhagen. However, there is little archaeological evidence, like stone tools, hearth features, plant remains, cut marks on bones, in Tam Pà Ling: only teeth and bones. This makes isotopic approaches the only way to gain insight into past dietary reliance.

Nitrogen isotope analysis, in particular, can help scientists learn if past humans were eating animals or plants. However, the collagen in bones and teeth needed to do these analyses is not easily conservable. In tropical regions like the one at Tam Pà Ling this problem is even more acute. “New methods – such as zinc isotope analysis of enamel – can now overcome these limitations and allow us to investigate teeth from regions and periods we could not study before”, says study leader Thomas Tütken, professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University’s Institute of Geosciences. “With zinc stable isotope ratios, we can now study Tam Pà Ling and learn what kind of food our earliest ancestors in this region were eating.”

The fossil human studied in this research dates from the Late Pleistocene, more precisely from 46,000 to 63,000 years ago. With it, various mammals from both sites, including water buffalos, rhinos, wild boars, deer, bears, orangutans, macaques, and leopards, were also analysed. All these different animals show various eating behaviours, making for an ideal background to determine what exactly humans were eating at the time. The more diverse the animal remains found at a particular site are, the more information the researchers can use to understand the diet of prehistoric humans.

When we compare the zinc isotope values from the fossil Homo sapiens of Tam Pà Ling to that of the animals, it strongly suggests that its diet contained both plants and animals. This omnivorous diet also differs from most nitrogen isotope data of humans in other regions of the world for that time period, where a meat-rich diet is almost consistently discerned. “Another kind of analysis performed in this study – stable carbon isotopes analysis – indicates that the food consumed came strictly from forested environments”, says Élise Dufour, researcher at the National Natural History Museum of Paris. “The results are the oldest direct evidence for subsistence strategies for Late Pleistocene humans in tropical rainforests.”

Researchers often associated our species with open environments, like savannahs or cold steppes. However, this study shows that early Homo sapienscould adapt to different environments. Together, the zinc and carbon isotope results may suggest a mix of specialized adaptations to tropical rainforests seen from other Southeast Asian archaeological sites. “It will be interesting, in the future, to compare our zinc isotope data with data from other prehistoric human species of Southeast Asia, like Homo erectus and Homo floresiensis, and see if we could understand better why they went extinct while our species survived”, concludes first author Nicolas Bourgon, a researcher at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology.

45,000-Year-Old Cave Art Found in Sulawesi

Rock art and hand prints found in caves in Sulawesi have been dated to nearly 40,000 years ago. Deborah Netburn wrote in the Los Angeles Times, “Archaeologists working in Indonesia say prehistoric hand stencils and intricately rendered images of primitive animals were created nearly 40,000 years ago. These images, discovered in limestone caves on the island of Sulawesi, are about the same age as the earliest known art found in the caves of northern Spain and southern France. The findings were published in the journal Nature. "We now have 40,000-year-old rock art in Spain and Sulawesi," said Adam Brumm, a research fellow at Griffith University in Queensland, Australia, and one of the lead authors of the study. "We anticipate future rock art dating will join these two widely separated dots with similarly aged, if not earlier, art." [Source: Deborah Netburn, Los Angeles Times, October 8, 2014 ~\~]

“The ancient Indonesian art was first reported by Dutch archaeologists in the 1950s but had never been dated until now. For decades researchers thought that the cave art was made during the pre-Neolithic period, about 10,000 years ago. "I can say that it was a great — and very nice — surprise to read their findings," said Wil Roebroeks, an archaeologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, who was not involved in the study. "'Wow!' was my initial reaction to the paper... This spectacular finding suggests that the making of images on cave walls was already a widely shared practice 40,000 years ago." ~\~

A well-preserved painting of a pig from the Leang Tedongne cave on Sulawesi may be the oldest known animal image. Dating back 45,500 years, the nearly life-size depiction of a small native warty pig was rendered using red ochre on a rock art panel and appear to be part of a narrative scene. [Source: Archaeology magazine, March 2021]

As many as 300 caves in the region have been found to contain paintings, making it one of the largest concentrations of early human wall art. [Source: Archaeology magazine, March 2021]

Niah Caves and Early Humans in Borneo

In 2018, scientists announced that modern humans or hominins had established themselves in Borneo — at the Niah Caves complex in Sarawak — by 65,000 years ago, a figure that far exceeded the previous estimate of 35,000 to 40,000 years ago. This new timeline was determined after five pieces of microlithic tools dated to 65,000 years ago and a human skull dated to 55,000 years old were discovered in Trader Cave, part of the Niah Caves complex, during excavation work. The discovery makes Trader Cave the oldest archaeological site in Borneo and the oldest archaeological site with human remains in Malaysia. The cave also has provided the earliest reliably date arrival time for modern human – in Southeast Asia. [Source: Sam Chua, Borneo Post, October 22, 2018]

Also in 2018, Borneo was added to a growing list of places with some very old cave art sites. National Geographic reported: Countless caves perch atop the steep-sided mountains of East Kalimantan in Indonesian Borneo. Draped in stone sheets and spindles, these natural limestone cathedrals showcase geology at its best. But tucked within the outcrops is something even more spectacular: a vast and ancient gallery of cave art. Hundreds of hands wave in outline from the ceilings, fingers outstretched inside bursts of red-orange paint. Now, updated analysis of the cave walls suggests that these images stand among the earliest traces of human creativity, dating back between 52,000 and 40,000 years ago. That makes the cave art tens of thousands of years older than previously thought. [Source: Maya Wei-haas, National Geographic, November 7, 2018]

But that's not the only secret in the vast labyrinthine system. In a cave named Lubang Jeriji Saléh, a trio of rotund cow-like creatures is sketched on the wall, with the largest standing more than seven feet across. The new dating analysis suggests that these images are at least 40,000 years old, earning them the title of the earliest figurative cave paintings yet found. The work edges out the previous title-holder—a portly babirusa, or “pig deer,” in Sulawesi, Indonesia—by just a few thousand years (since this article was written older animal figures have bee n found in Sulawesi)

Tabon Man and the First Modern Humans in the Philippines

Its estimated that the first people reached the Philippines at least 50,000 years ago, perhaps by a land bridge from Asia that was exposed when oceans receded during the Ice Age. Very old hominin remains have were found in Tabon Cave on the island of Palawan. It is possible there were people much earlier than this. People have lived in Australia for 60,000 years. Palawan was connected to Southeast Asia by a land bridge during the Ice Ages. Other Philippine islands such as Luzon were not.

Tabon Man refers to remains discovered in the Tabon Caves in Lipuun Point in Quezon, on the west coast Palawan in the Philippines. They were discovered by Robert B. Fox, an American anthropologist of the National Museum of the Philippines, in May 1962 and consist fossilized fragments of a skull of a female and the jawbones of three individuals dating back to 16,500 years ago. Later evidence of hominins dated to 47,000 years ago was found at the site (See Below). [Source: Wikipedia]

Tabon Caves appears to have been a kind of Stone Age factory, with both finished stone flake tools and waste core flakes having been found at four separate levels in the main chamber. Charcoal left from three assemblages of cooking fires there has been Carbon-14-dated to roughly 9,000, 22,000, and 24,000 years ago. The right mandible of a modern human (Homo sapien) which dates to 29,000 B.C., was discovered together with a skullcap. The Tabon skull cap is the oldest skull cap of a modern human found in the Philippines, and is thought to have belonged to a young female. The Tabon mandible is the earliest evidence of human remains showing archaic characteristics of the mandible and teeth.

In 2023, Archaeology magazine and Popular Science reported: It’s difficult to ascertain how long humans have used plant materials to make textiles, ropes, and baskets since these objects rarely survive in archaeological contexts, particularly in the world’s tropical regions, where warm and humid air breaks down green matter easier than stone or bone fragments.. However, microscopic imaging of three 39,000-year-old stone tools from the Tabon Caves identified plant residues and wear patterns likely caused when hard bamboo or palm stalks were stripped into pliable fibers that were easier to weave or tie. This is by far the earliest known evidence of people manipulating plants in Southeast Asia. These findings were described in a study published June 30, 2023 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE. [Source: Laura Baisas, Popular Science, July 1, 2023; Archaeology magazine, September-October 2023]

Negritos and the First People of the Malay Peninsula

Indigenous groups on the Malay Peninsula can be divided into three ethnicities, the Negritos, the Senois, and the proto-Malays. The first inhabitants of the Malay Peninsula were most probably Negritos, Mesolithic hunters were probably the ancestors of the Semang, an ethnic Negrito group who have a long history in the Malay Peninsula. [Source: Wikipedia +]

Another remain dated back to 9000 BC dubbed the "Perak Man" and tools as old as 75,000 years have been discovered in Lenggong, Malaysia. The oldest habitation discovered in the Philippines is located at the Tabon Caves and dates back to approximately 50,000 years; while items there found such as burial jars, earthenware, jade ornaments and other jewelry, stone tools, animal bones, and human fossils dating back to 47,000 years ago. Human remains are from approximately 24,000 years ago. +

The earliest anatomically modern humans skeleton in Peninsular Malaysia, Perak Man, dates back 11,000 years and Perak Woman dating back 8,000 years, were also discovered in Lenggong. The site has an undisturbed stone tool production area, created using equipment such as anvils and hammer stones. The Tambun Cave paintings are also situated in Perak. From East Malaysia, Sarawak's Niah Caves, there is evidence of the oldest human remains in Malaysia, dating back 40,000 years. [Source: Wikipedia +]

The Negritos are of an unknown origin. Some anthologist believe they are descendant of wandering people that "formed an ancient human bridge between Africa and Australia.” But it turn their genetic affinities are much more similar to the people around them. This suggests that Negritos and Asians had the same ancestors but that Negritos developed feature similar to Africans independently or that Asians were much darker and developed lighter skin and Asian features, or both. The Semang are probably descendants of the Hoabinhian rain forest foragers who inhabited the Malay Peninsula from 10,000 to 3,000 year ago. After the arrival fo agriculture about 4,000 years, some became agriculturalist but enough remained hunter gatherers that they survived as such.

The Senoi appear to be a composite group, with approximately half of the maternal DNA lineages tracing back to the ancestors of the Semang and about half to later ancestral migrations from Indochina. Scholars suggest they are descendants of early Austroasiatic-speaking agriculturalists, who brought both their language and their technology to the southern part of the peninsula approximately 4,000 years ago. They united and coalesced with the indigenous population. +

The Proto Malays have a more diverse origin, and were settled in Malaysia by 1000 B.C. Although they show some connections with other inhabitants in Maritime Southeast Asia, some also have an ancestry in Indochina around the time of the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20,000 years ago. Anthropologists support the notion that the Proto-Malays originated from what is today Yunnan, China. This was followed by an early-Holocene dispersal through the Malay Peninsula into the Malay Archipelago. Around 300 BC, they were pushed inland by the Deutero-Malays, an Iron Age or Bronze Age people descended partly from the Chams of Cambodia and Vietnam. The first group in the peninsula to use metal tools, the Deutero-Malays were the direct ancestors of today's Malaysian Malays, and brought with them advanced farming techniques. The Malays remained politically fragmented throughout the Malay archipelago, although a common culture and social structure was shared. +

In the early days the Semang may have interacted and traded with the Malay settlers when the arrived but relations soured when the Malays began taking them as slaves and then they retired into the forests. The Semang and other similar groups became known as the Orang Asli in peninsular Malaysia. Even though they were regarded as supposedly "isolated" they traded rattan, wild rubbers, camphor and oils for goods from China

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Last updated April 2024