Fossils in Laos cave imply modern humans were in Asia 86,000 years ago
Human skull and shinbone fragments found in a cave in northern Laos suggest modern humans may have been in South-East Asia between 68,000 and 86,000 years ago, considerably further back than the previous estimates of around 50,000 years
By Chen Ly
13 June 2023
Tam Pà Ling cave in northern Laos, where several human fossils dating back tens of thousands of years have been found
Fabrice Demeter
Fossils from a Laos cave provide the earliest evidence of modern humans in mainland South-East Asia. Uncovered fragments of bone belonging to Homo sapiens may date back 86,000 years, shedding new light on how our species migrated from Africa to Asia.
Since 2009, several modern human fossils – dating to between 46,000 and 70,000 years ago – have been discovered in Tam Pà Ling, a cave in north-east Laos. Now, Fabrice Demeter at the University of Copenhagen, Denmark, and his colleagues have added two more fossils to the collection.
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“One of my Laos colleagues saw what we thought was a big piece of stone,” says Demeter. “After we removed it, I realised that it was white. I [then] knew it was a piece of bone.” Upon analysis, the fossil turned out to be small fragment of a human skull. The researchers also unearthed a piece of a human tibia, or shinbone.
Using radioactive isotopes to date the sediment surrounding the fossils in the cave, the team estimates they are between 68,000 and 86,000 years old. “In mainland South-East Asia, this is the first time we’ve got such old specimens,” says Demeter.
The findings suggest that early modern humans travelled to South-East Asia earlier than previously thought. Prior estimates put this at around 50,000 years ago, with these humans migrating out of Africa and beginning to populate the rest of the world, including Asia. Most people alive today are descended from these early humans, aside from Indigenous Australians, whose ancestors may have left Africa even earlier than this.
