Experts find a new species of hominid in the Philippines
Fossils found in a cave in the Philippines suggest the existence of a new hominid that inhabited the island of Luzon during the late Pleistocene, according to a study released Wednesday by the journal Nature. The authors named the new species Homo Luzonensis, according to Nature.
The British scientific publication reports the discovery by a group of experts from the Natural History Museum of Paris of several standing and hand bones, a piece of femur and teeth belonging to ancient hominids in the cave of Callao.
These fossils provide evidence pointing to the existence of a new species of hominid, which lived on the island of Luzon during the late Pleistocene period, more than 50,000 years ago.
According to that research, the evidence found suggesting animal slaughters from 700,000 years ago, as well as the finding of a single foot bone, dating back 67,000 years, had previously suggested that hominids were present on the island of Luzon.
In the same stratigraphic layer of Callao, experts Florent Détroit, Armand Mijares, Philip Piper and a group of colleagues from the French museum found another twelve bones and teeth of at least three individuals.
According to the research team, the new specimens presented characteristics such as striking premolars, visibly different from those found in other hominids, such as Homo Floresiensis, another hominid from the islands of Southeast Asia.
The presence of other previously unknown hominid species in that region highlights the importance of the Southeast Asian island in the evolution of Homo.
