Bones of a prehistoric man have been found in the Callao Cave on the Philippine island of Luzon. It is an entirely new species that lived on the island more than 50,000 years ago, scientists write in Nature.
Between 67,000 and 50,000 years ago, a hominin of a species of a species unknown to us roamed the Philippine island of Luzon. Scientists write this in Nature this week. Homo luzonensis, the researchers named this Philippine hominin. He has characteristics of both Homo sapiens (the species to which we ourselves belong) as the much older Australopithecus -species (which looked a bit more like a monkey, and lived between 4 and 1.5 million years ago).
It was already known that prehistoric people lived on Luzon. In 2007, scientists found a 67,000-year-old metatarsal bone of a prehistoric hominin on the island. However, that was not enough to be able to determine whether or not it was of an already known species. Now there are twelve additional finds from the same stratum to be reported, which must have come from at least three different individuals. It concerns teeth, phalanges of fingers, and the upper leg of a young person.
Pretty small
“This is great news,” says José Joordens, paleoecologist/archaeologist at Naturalis who specializes in the origin of humans. “Really very exciting”, says Hanneke Meijer, paleontologist at the University of Bergen in Norway. Both were not involved in the research themselves.
Finding a new human species is special in itself, and it also belongs to our own 'subsection' (genus) Gay .
It is impossible to say exactly what the Luzon people looked like on the basis of these finds, emailed paleontologist Florent Détroit of the National Museum of Natural History in Paris, lead author of the Nature article. "But they may have walked a bit more like a monkey than their contemporaries, and we think they were quite small for now." The teeth found are very small, Détroit explains, and in monkeys and humans that usually means they weren't very big themselves. “But that's not a golden rule, there are also exceptions.”
Are you sure?
Whether the finds on Luzon do indeed come from an entirely new species of human beings cannot be determined with one hundred percent certainty, says Joordens. The researchers did a good job, but ideally you would need a group of at least 30 hominin skeletons. “Differences between individuals can also be variations within a group. But yes, as a paleontologist you will never find that many complete individuals.”
Détroit does not contradict her. The main question is when you can call something a species, he emails when asked. “There is a fierce debate about this, but it will not be solved or complicated by our choice to Homo luzonensis as a new species.”
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For the time being, the researchers think they have enough clues to justify their choice. Some properties of Homo luzonensis can be seen in other species, but never in this combination. “And if new finds show that we're wrong, we adjust our theory again,” says Détroit lakonically. That's how science works.
Island Evolution
The Luzon people of more than 50,000 years ago were not the first hominids on the Philippine island. Stone tools and 700,000-year-old rhinoceros bones have previously been found in a valley not far from the new site, with carvings revealing that the animal had been slaughtered by humans.
The now found Homo luzonensis lived simultaneously with Homo floresiensis :a human species only one meter high, discovered in 2003 on the Indonesian island of Flores. Both Flores and Luzon have been continuous islands for the past 2.5 million years, accessible only by sea. That could explain why evolution led to different species, Détroit thinks.
Meijer, who specializes in island evolution, shares this view. It does not surprise her that there are also different types of people on different Asian islands. “I am a paleobiologist, so my own research does not focus on humans but on animals,” Meijer emphasizes. “With these animals you often see that each island has its own species. It applies to elephants, to rats… then it would not be surprising if it also applies to humans, I think.”
Likemates
“Right now we as human beings, Homo sapiens, the only extant species in the genus Homo,” adds Joordens. “Biologically speaking, that is very exceptional.” That we used to be with more is actually obvious, and is shown by more and more new finds. Next to Homo luzonensis, Homo sapiens, Homo floresiensis and Gay neanderthalensis was there also Homo naledi, in southern Africa. Joordens:“And I think it is only a matter of time before a new human species is also discovered on Sulawesi.”
Exactly how the new Luzon Man fits into the family tree—that is, how he is related to the Flores Man and to ourselves—has yet to be figured out. Unfortunately, we have not been able to isolate DNA from the fossil remains.