For years, archaeologists assumed that the old Gay erectus Population that lived on present -day Java in general wasolation of nearby island relatives. A few fossilized skull fragments that have recently been found off the Javanese coast help experts of the region again to contextualize H. Erectus Populations like they existed about 140,000 years ago. According to a study published on 15 May in the magazine Quaternary environments and peopleLife for the Javanese H. Erectus Was not always as lonely as we thought.
Nowadays Indonesia consists of several islands between Asia and Australia, but that has not always been the case. Start about 2.6 million years agoThe larger area occasionally exists in periods of lower ocean levels as a larger, united lowland country mass known as Sundaland. While H. Erectus Fossils were previously found on Java itself, it was known that there was no point in areas such as the Strait of Madura, which separates the islands of Madura from Central Java.
That all changed thanks to more than 176.5 million cubic foot sand. The massive amount of sediment became dredging in 2014 to 2015 as part of an Indonesia Land Advertising Project, but it soon became clear that the sand also contained valuable historical remains. Searching the material eventually resulted in approximately 6,000 fossil samples of old fish, reptiles and mammals – including the unexpected pair H. Erectus skull fragments.
According to Harold Berghuis, co-author and archaeologist at Leiden University in the Netherlands, the discoveries of their team are ‘really unique’.
“The fossils come from a drowned river valley, which was full of river sand over time [dating to] about 140,000 years ago, “he said in one correspondence.
Berghuis described that era as the ‘penultimate ice period’. The northern hemisphere of the earth was so populated with glaciers that global sea level was on average almost 1,100 feet lower than today. Therefore, Sundaland in the time of H. Erectus Watched strongly on the African savannah of today – long -term dry grassland broken up by large rivers surrounded by narrow strips of forests.
“Here they had water, shellfish, fish, edible plants, seeds and fruit all year round,” Berghuis said.
Sundaland also contained a variety of animals, including several types of elephants, rhinos and crocodiles. Striking, the bones that the team has found even have proof of butcher shop H. Erectus.
“One of our new finds are cut figures on the bones of water durjes and large numbers of broken forth bones, which indicate the hunting and consumption of bone marrow,” Berghuis added.
While this contrasts with earlier Javanese H. Erectus Populations, it was previously documented in more modern human species that lived on the Asian mainland. According to the authors of the study, this indicates that Sundaland’s H. Erectus Maybe those techniques have learned from them.
“This suggests that there may have been contact between these Hominin groups, or even genetic exchange,” theoretized Berghuis.
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