Boffins find mystery seafaring ancestor in the Philippines

London, June 04 (ANI): Anthropologists have discovered a foot bone during an excavation of Callao cave in Luzon, which has led to researchers' claim that humans reached the islands off south-east Asia at least tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought.

Armand Mijares of the University of the Philippines Diliman, and his colleagues insist the bone is definitely human, and they are provisionally calling it a lightly built modern human.

Mijares pointed out that its shape was unusual, and its size fell within the ranges of Homo habilis and Homo floresiensis.

It suggests that humans arrived on Luzon, the largest and northernmost major island in the Philippines, at least 67,000 years ago.

"The arrival of people in Australia 50,000 to 60,000 years ago is a good comparison," New Scientist quoted expedition member Florent Detroit of the National Museum for Natural History in Paris, France, as saying.

"It seems coherent for us to think that in; south-east Asia and Australia, humans had sea-faring capabilities by 60,000 to 70,000 years ago." (ANI)