Scientists find possible artefacts of oldest known Wallacean hominids in Indonesia
Archaeologists from Australia and Indonesia discovered the small, chipped tools, used to cut small animals and carve rocks, beneath the soil in the Soppeng area of South Sulawesi. Radioactive tracing of these tools and the teeth of animals found around the site dated them to up to 1.48 million years ago.
The findings could transform theories of early human migrations, according to an article published by the archaeologists in the journal Nature in August.
The earliest Wallacean humans – prehistoric people known as Homo erectus – were previously thought to have settled only on Indonesia's Flores island and the Philippines' Luzon island around 1.02 million years ago, as they were believed incapable of long-distance sea travel. This makes the Sulawesi findings highly significant for migration theories.
"These were artefacts made by ancient humans who lived on the Earth long before the evolution of our species, Homo sapiens," said Adam Brumm, lead archaeologist from Griffith University in Queensland, Australia.
"We think Homo erectus somehow got from the Asian mainland across a significant ocean gap to this island, Sulawesi, at least 1 million years ago," Brumm said.
Wallacea is a region in eastern Indonesia that includes several islands such as Sulawesi, Lombok, Flores, Timor, and Sumbawa, lying between Borneo and Java, and Australia and New Guinea. The region is named after the naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace, who studied the fauna and flora of the area.
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