Ancient Human Remains Reveal Our Early Ancestors were Physically Diverse

An ancient human skull and jawbone discovered a few meters apart in a cave in northern Laos suggests that early modern humans were physically diverse, possessing a mix of modern and archaic traits.

The skull, discovered in 2009 in a cave known as Tam Pa Ling in the Annamite Mountains of present-day Laos, is the oldest modern human fossil found in Southeast Asia. Its discovery actually pushed back the date of modern human migration through the region by as much as 20,000 years. More specifically, it revealed that early humans who migrated to the islands and coasts of Southeast Asia after migrating out of Africa also traveled inland much earlier than previously thought, some 46,000 to 63,000 years ago.

"In addition to being incredibly small in overall size, this jaw has a mixture of traits that combine typical modern human anatomy, such as the presence of a protruding chin, with traits that are more common of our archaic ancestors like Neanderthals-for example, very thick bone to hold the molars in place," said Laura Shackelford, the leader of the new study, in a news release.

The combination of archaic and modern human traits isn't all that unusual. In fact, other ancient human fossils from Africa, Eastern Europe and China also exhibit this combination of characteristics.

"Some researchers have used these features as evidence that modern humans migrating into new regions must have interbred with the archaic populations already present in those regions," Shackelford said. "But a more productive way to look at this variation is to see it as we see people today-showing many traits along a continuum."

The findings reveal a bit more about our ancient ancestors and tell researchers a bit more about human evolution.

The findings are published in the journal PLOS One.

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