M.W. Moore
Scientists speculate that tools will have been produced by homo erectus or Homo Floresiensis, the famous hobbit of Flores Island.
A new archaeological discovery on Sulawesi’s Indonesian Island is challenging everything that was thought to know about the Presence of human ancestors in the Southeast Asian region.
A set of stone tools, dated between 1.04 and 1.48 million years old, indicates that unknown hominsine inhabited the island long before From the appearance of our own species, Homo sapiens.
O, published in the journal Nature, describes Seven Stone Artifacts found in excavations made between 2019 and 2022 in the locality of Calio. According to Adam Brumm, archaeologist at Griffith University in Australia, the instruments are made of a rock called Sleep and were produced by chipping technique, with one of the pieces to show signs of retouching for sharpening. “They are simple tools, with sharp edges, that would have been Useful for cutting and shaving”The investigator told.
These findings constitute the oldest evidence of the presence of homineals in the Wallacea region – an island chain between the continental platforms of Asia and Australia. This revelation is particularly surprising, since the older human fossils so far found in Sulawesi dates from Only 25 thousand to 16 thousand years. In addition, the previously older tools on the island were only about 194,000 years old.
The discovery raises important questions about what species made these tools. Although no associated fossils have been found, scientists believe they may have been produced by Homo Erectus, a species known to have arrived at Java Island about 1.6 million years ago, or a group similar to Homo Floresiensis, The famous hobbit of Flores Island.
The team has not yet managed to determine exactly to what the instruments were served, although they may have been used in the Obtaining food or in the manufacture of tools from wood or other perishable materials. Interestingly, no cutting marks were identified in the bones of animals found at the site.
For investigators, this discovery may mean that Sulawesi was a point of crucial passage in the migration of homineals through the region, possibly even the origin of the small humans of Flores and Luzon. However, until fossils are found, the true author of these tools will continue a mystery.
