Back in 1958 , shovel in the so - called “ Hell Trench ” at the westerly final stage of the Niah Cave in Borneo reveal what was undeniably a human skull . At the time , the oldest dated object lesson of a modern man came from a 33,000 - year - old male , and researchers incorrectly reckon thatHomo sapiensdirectly descended fromHomo neanderthalensisin Europe .
This breakthrough , anticipate " Deep Skull , " rocked the scientific cosmos when it was found to go to a man that pre - dated the previous example by 4,000 years , meaning that modern humans survive alongside Neanderthals , at least on this particular archipelago . Today , many think that this human is related to the Indigenous Australians , but a new study in the journalFrontiers in Ecology and Evolutiondisagrees .
This fresh piece of research involve the most complex and detailed psychoanalysis on the skull to escort . compare the Deep Skull ’s intricate features to those of dissimilar skulls of different populations in and around the neighborhood , it has been concluded that it likely came from a radical of people that were closely related to the current , native populations of Borneo itself .
This new information suggests that the early universe of humans that bring down on Borneo have remained morphologically consistent for ten of thousands of geezerhood . “ Our analysis overturns long - hold aspect about the other history of this realm , ” lead researcher Darren Curnoe of the University of New South Wales , said in astatement .
Back in 1960 , striking British anthropologist Don Brothwell reason that the Deep Skull belonged to an adolescent male and present a group of world either straightaway ancestral to or tight related to to Indigenous Australians , most likely Tasmanians . These research worker have concluded that not only was this assessment invalid , but that the skull did n’t even go to a teenage male child . or else , they hint that it probably go to an senior woman .
The Deep Skull has long been hold as a key part of grounds for a migration hypothesis known as the “ two - layer ” model : In this scenario , South - East Asia was antecedently thought to have been colonized by both Indigenous Australians and those from New Guinea , before being replace by farmers from southern China .
“ Brothwell ’s ideas have been highly influential and stood mostly untried , so we wanted to see whether they might be correct after almost six decade , ” Curnoe added .
Not only does this new analytic thinking suggest the other influx of Indigenous Australians to Borneo may be more fabrication than fact , but it also implies that the Indigenous Borneans were not replaced on a transmitted point by migrating farmers spreading advanced agricultural techniques around 3,000 long time ago . Rather , it appears that they only adopted it , and did not greatly widen their genetic population consortium .
range of a function in text : fragment of the 37,000 - twelvemonth - one-time Deep Skull . Darren Curnoe
