This Article is From Aug 04, 2010

67,000-year-old human bone found

Manila, Philippines: A Filipino archaeologist presented on Tuesday, a bone fragment indicating that humans inhabited the Philippines as early as 67-thousand years ago, much earlier than previously thought.

Archaeology professor at the University of the Philippines, Armand Mijares, said he and other scientists discovered the bone from the right foot of a four-foot-high pygmy-like adult in 2007. The discovery was made near the entrance to the Callao Cave in northern Cagayan province.

"The find is basically a foot bone or technically called a right third metatarsal," he explained.

"We used laser ablation U-series dating and the average date of the bone goes roughly 67-thousand years ago, making it one of the oldest Homo sapiens remain in the Asia Pacific,"  said Mijares.

If the findings are accurate the bone would be older than the 47-thousand year old remains of Tabon Man, who was previously thought to be the country's oldest human.

A report on the discovery was published last month in the Journal of Human Evolution and its authors have stressed that the findings are so far only provisional.
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