Amazing stuff! This may well rewrite history of humanity! Ever wondered why e.g. such an advanced ancient civilization developed in China? I speculate we may discover similar things in India.
"DNA leaves little doubt: All non-Africans alive today descend from a single wave of migration out of Africa, perhaps sometime between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. But over the years, scientists have found a handful of modern human sites that suggest our species may have wandered from its birthplace even earlier. A study published ... provides some of the strongest evidence yet of such an early dispersal, thousands of kilometers from Africa. Inside a cave in Laos, scientists have dated a pair of modern human bones to between 68,000 and 86,000 years ago. Although these precocious migrants likely didn’t contribute much genetically [??? speculative] to modern populations, they blazed a trail into Southeast Asia followed by later generations. ..."
From the abstract:
"The timing of the first arrival of Homo sapiens in East Asia from Africa and the degree to which they interbred with or replaced local archaic populations is controversial. Previous discoveries from Tam Pà Ling cave (Laos) identified H. sapiens in Southeast Asia by at least 46 kyr. We report on a recently discovered frontal bone (TPL 6) and tibial fragment (TPL 7) found in the deepest layers of TPL. Bayesian modeling of luminescence dating of sediments and U-series and combined U-series-ESR dating of mammalian teeth reveals a depositional sequence spanning ~86 kyr. TPL 6 confirms the presence of H. sapiens by 70 ± 3 kyr, and TPL 7 extends this range to 77 ± 9 kyr, supporting an early dispersal of H. sapiens into Southeast Asia. Geometric morphometric analyses of TPL 6 suggest descent from a gracile immigrant population rather than evolution from or admixture with local archaic populations."
Early presence of Homo sapiens in Southeast Asia by 86–68 kyr at Tam Pà Ling, Northern Laos (open access)
Fig. 3: Stratigraphic sections of the main excavation (trench 3) at Tam Pà Ling [cave].
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