Filipino archaelogists have discovered a new human species in Callao Cave in Cagayan province.
The new species is called homo luzonensis, named after Luzon, the island where the fossils were found.
It started in 2007 when an excavation team led by Armand Mijares, archaelogist at the University of the Philippines, saw a toe bone from the floor of the limestone cavern of Callao Cave .
He says “There’s something peculiar with this bone,” thinking its not a modern human bone. So they kept digging for four years. And in 2011, digged more toe bones, as well as finger bones, part of a thigh bone and seven teeth.
It took eight more years for the team, with the help of other international archaelogists, to verify and conclude that the fossils are from three individuals, probably 4 feet tall, and lived sometime between 50,000 and 67,000 years ago.
And the international scientific community became excited — a new human species was discovered and further deepened the mystery of human evolution.
Scientists are puzzled — the fossils of homo luzonensis is a melting pot of modern man and ape. The toe bone, for example, looks more like the toe of Australopithecus, a tree-climbing ape-like creatures that lived before humans evolved.
The teeth are also a mix of modern human and that of ancestors that lived millions of years ago.
“For the first time, the Philippines is part of the evolutionary debate,” Mijares said. “We can see now that the islands are a playground of human evolution and natural selection.”
