A new study has discovered that the Homo erectus, an ancient relative of modern humans, have survived until relatively recent times in South East Asia.
The study found new dating evidence that the Homo erectus, which evolved approximately two million years ago and was the first known human species to walk fully upright, survived until just over 100,000 years ago on the Indonesian island of Java.
This means that these ancient humans were still around long after it had vanished elsewhere and when the modern humans started walking the Earth.
The study, published in the journal Nature, relates to the 12 Homo erectus skull caps and two lower leg bones found in the 1930s in bone bed 20 meters above the Solo River at Ngandong in central Java. For decades, researchers have tried to date the fossils but complexity of the surrounding geology and details of the original excavations made it difficult.
The new study was conducted by researchers led by Professor Russell Ciochon of the University of Iowa and it involved opening up new excavations on the terraces beside the Solo River, as well as reanalyzing the site and its surroundings.
The researchers say that the definitive age for the bone bed is between 117,000 and 108,000 years old, making it the most recent known record of Homo erectus anywhere in the world. Prof. Ciochon claimed: "I don't know what you could date at the site to give you more precise dates than what we've been able to produce."
Professor Chris Stringer, research leader on human evolution at London's Natural History Museum, commended the study, saying:
"This is a very comprehensive study of the depositional context of the famous Ngandong Homo erectus partial skulls and shin bones, and the authors build a strong case that these individuals died and were washed into the deposits of the Solo River about 112,000 years ago."
"This age is very young for such primitive-looking Homo erectus fossils, and establishes that the species persisted on Java for well over one million years," he added.
