A foot bone found in the Philippines may not be Homo sapiens (skull, right). It may belong to the hobbit Homo floresiensis (skull left) or Homo habilis.
Credit: AFP
MANI MANILA: A foot bone discovered in the Philippines may proove it was first settled by humans 67,000 years ago, thousands of years earlier than previously thought, according to the Philippines National Museum.
The bone, found in an extensive cave network, predates the 47,000-year-old Tabon Man that is previously known as the first human to have lived in the country, said Taj Vitales, a researcher with the museum's archaeology section.
"This would make it the oldest human remains ever found in the Philippines," Vitales said.
Fossil is called 'Callao Man'
Archaeologists from the University of the Philippines and the National Museum dug up the third metatarsal bone of the right foot in 2007 in the Callao caves near Penablanca, about 335 kilometres (210 miles) north of Manila.
Their report on 'Callao Man' was released in the latest edition of the Journal of Human Evolution, and tests in France established the fossil's age, said Armand Mijares, the expedition leader.
"It broke the barriers," Mijares said, explaining that previous evidence put the first human settlements in the Philippines and nearby islands around Tabon Man. "It pushed that back to nearly 70,000 years."
Hunting with tools
Cut marks on bones of deer and wild boar found around it suggest Callao Man could have hunted and was skilled with tools, although no cutting or other implements were found during the dig, according to Mijares.
"This individual was small-bodied. It's difficult to say whether he was male or female," he said.
Mijares stressed the finding that Callao Man belongs to Homo sapiens was still only provisional. Some of the bone's features were similar to Homo habilis and Homo floresiensis - which are distinct species from humans.
Human, hobbit or habilis?
Existing evidence suggests that Homo sapiens, modern man, first appeared in Africa about 200,000 years ago.
Homo habilis is considered a predecessor to Homo sapiens while Homo floresiensis is thought to be a short, human-like species that once existed on an Indonesian island in the Late Pleistocene stage.
To determine whether Callao Man was human, Mijares said his team planned to secure permits to pursue further excavations in the Callao caves and hopefully find other parts of the skeleton, tools, or fossils of other potential humans.
