SYDNEY, June 14 (Xinhua) -- An international research team including Australian experts has made a groundbreaking discovery from fossils unearthed at Tam Pa Ling Cave in Laos, providing evidence of the early human presence in mainland Southeast Asia between 86,000 and 68,000 years ago.
The findings, recently published in the Nature Communications journal, shed light on the earliest human migrations from Africa to Australia and suggested alternative migration paths beyond coastlines and islands.
Unlike previous focus on island locations, the excavation at Tam Pa Ling Cave in 2009 unearthed a human skull and jawbone, shifting attention to the mainland as a significant migration path.
The scientists employed luminescence dating, a technique based on light-sensitive signals that accumulate in buried sediments over time.
Through luminescence dating, the researchers determined that the fossils were at least 46,000 years old, aligning with the expected timing of Homo sapiens' arrival in Southeast Asia.
Moreover, further excavations conducted between 2010 and 2023 revealed seven fragments of a human skeleton at different depths within the sediment layers. Additional dating methods, such as uranium-series dating and electron-spin resonance dating, confirmed the age estimates obtained from luminescence dating.
The established chronology showed that humans have inhabited the region for over 56,000 years, with the earliest arrival estimated to be between 86,000 and 68,000 years ago.
This discovery pushed back the timeline for human presence in mainland Southeast Asia by approximately 40,000 years. ■
