Beruflich Dokumente
Kultur Dokumente
Archaeological Studies Program, Palma Hall, University of the Philippines, Diliman, Quezon City 1101, Philippines
UMR 7194, CNRS, Dpartement de Prhistoire du Musum national dhistoire naturelle, 57, rue Cuvier, 75005 Paris, France
Research School of Earth Sciences, Bldg 61 Mills Road The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia
d
School of Archaeology and Anthropology, AD Hope Building, The Australian National University, Canberra ACT 0200, Australia
e
Archaeology Division, National Museum of the Philippines, P Burgos Ave., Manila, Philippines
b
c
a r t i c l e i n f o
a b s t r a c t
Article history:
Received 24 August 2009
Accepted 22 April 2010
Documentation of early human migrations through Island Southeast Asia and Wallacea en route to
Australia has always been problematic due to a lack of well-dated human skeletal remains. The best
known modern humans are from Niah Cave in Borneo (40e42 ka), and from Tabon Cave on the island of
Palawan, southwest Philippines (47 11 ka). The discovery of Homo oresiensis on the island of Flores in
eastern Indonesia has also highlighted the possibilities of identifying new hominin species on islands in
the region. Here, we report the discovery of a human third metatarsal from Callao Cave in northern
Luzon. Direct dating of the specimen using U-series ablation has provided a minimum age estimate of
66.7 1 ka, making it the oldest known human fossil in the Philippines. Its morphological features, as
well as size and shape characteristics, indicate that the Callao metatarsal denitely belongs to the genus
Homo. Morphometric analysis of the Callao metatarsal indicates that it has a gracile structure, close to
that observed in other small-bodied Homo sapiens. Interestingly, the Callao metatarsal also falls within
the morphological and size ranges of Homo habilis and H. oresiensis. Identifying whether the metatarsal
represents the earliest record of H. sapiens so far recorded anywhere east of Wallaces Line requires
further archaeological research, but its presence on the isolated island of Luzon over 65,000 years ago
further demonstrates the abilities of humans to make open ocean crossings in the Late Pleistocene.
2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords:
Cave faunas
Hominin dispersal
Southeast Asia
U-series dating
Introduction
Hominin movement into Island Southeast Asia has always been
problematic due to the lack of well-dated human remains. The
humid tropical environment of Island Southeast Asia contributes to
the problems of bone preservation. Early modern human remains
have, however, been recovered in Niah Cave in Sarawak, Malaysian
Borneo (Harrisson, 1975; Barker et al., 2002), dating to 42 ka
(Barker et al., 2007), and from Tabon Cave in Palawan (Fox, 1970;
Dizon et al., 2002), dating to 47 10/11 ka (Dtroit et al., 2004).
Borneo is located on the Sunda shelf and was possibly joined by dry
land to Sumatra, Java and Peninsular Malaysia during periods of
lowered sea level in the Pleistocene. The island of Palawan may
have been intermittently attached to northeastern Borneo when
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: armand.mijares@up.edu.ph (A.S. Mijares).
0047-2484/$ e see front matter 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2010.04.008
sea levels reached their minima during the most extreme climatic
phases. Thus, migrating human populations could have reached
both islands without necessarily requiring a sea crossing. To reach
the rest of the Philippine archipelago and other islands in the
Wallacean group (e.g., Sulawesi, Flores, Timor) that were never
attached to either mainland Asia or Australasia (Sahul), open sea
crossings were required. The Lake Mungo remains from Australia
dating to 40 2 ka (Bowler et al., 2003) are evidence that modern
humans were capable of making very early sea crossings. Homo
oresiensis, discovered on the islands of Flores, Indonesia, is another
hominin that managed to cross the Wallace line. While its remains
are only dated to 18e38 ka (Morwood et al., 2004), Flores also has
stone artifact assemblages suggesting that a hominin of unknown
afnity reached the island more than 800 ka years ago (Brumm
et al., 2006). Our recent excavations (2007) in Callao Cave (Fig. 1)
have produced what is probably one of the earliest hominin fossils
east of Wallaces Line, from the island of Luzon, northern
Philippines.
124
Figure 2. Stratigraphic prole of Square 2, Callao Cave. Layer 14 is the breccia that
contained the human metatarsal (Callao MT3).
Dating
Three osseous samples from the breccia were selected for
dating. Two cervid teeth (Callao 1 and Callao 2) recovered from 275
to 295 cm below present ground surface were dated by Electron
Spin Resonance (ESR) and Uranium Series (U-series) analysis. Laser
ablation U and U-series analysis was carried out at by R. Grn at the
Australian National University (see Eggins et al., 2003, 2005 for the
experimental set-up and Grn et al., 2005, 2006, 2008 for previous
applications). The ESR dating of the teeth followed procedures
routinely applied in the ANU ESR dating laboratory (Grn et al.,
2001). For ESR dose analysis, the enamel was powdered and
aliquots were successively irradiated in ten steps to 372 Gy.
Radiation doses were monitored with alanine dosimeters and
evaluated against a calibrated dosimeter set provided by A. Wieser,
Messtechnik, Mnchen. Dose values were determined by partial
spectrum tting (Grn, 2002). The external dose rate was determined from a single representative sample from the breccia. The
U-concentration in the dentine of the two cervid teeth had only
small variations along the laser track, 71.6 8.2 ppm U for Callao 1
and 100 5 ppm U for Callao 2, as usually observed in dentine.
In order to obtain an age estimate for the hominin metatarsal,
the Callao MT3 was also directly analyzed. A diamond wire saw was
used to cut the bone 2 mm away from the break described below.
Four laser ablation scans were then recorded on the cross-section
(Fig. 3).
Preservation, conservation and cleaning of the Callao MT3
The Callao specimen with National Museum of the Philippines
accession number II-77-J3-7691 is a right third metatarsal (Fig. 4). It
is broken in two parts around the mid-shaft, but with the exception
of the distal head, which is broken, the bone is almost complete.
The missing head has not been identied among the other bones
recovered from the same layer. The overall state of preservation of
the bone is rather good, most being preserved under a thin
yellowish coat of calcium carbonate concretions. Several small
patches of hard and compact sediment are also attached to the
bone. Smaller scratches (which occurred presumably during excavation) are visible on the medial and lateral surfaces of the shaft
where the white cortex of the bone is exposed.
Both surfaces (proximal and distal) of the transverse break
around mid-shaft are covered by a very thin layer of carbonate
concretions, which indicates that the fracture is ancient. However,
it is neither oblique nor spiral, and has no helicoidal morphology.
No scars or peeling around the fracture are visible. This indicates
that breakage did not occur on fresh bone. This transverse break,
125
almost perpendicular to the long axis of the shaft, resulted from the
post depositional fracture of already dry bone (Lyman, 1994). The
two parts of the metatarsal join almost perfectly at the fracture, and
only the presence of a thin layer of concretion inhibits a perfect
retting.
Before cleaning the bone, a complete set of photographs, a 3D
surface scan and a mCT-scan were made for archival records and
future analysis. The object of cleaning the bone was to remove the
thickest patches of sediment in order to observe its shape and
morphological features. Whenever possible, the thin carbonated
coating was kept intact to avoid damaging the underlying surface,
which was cleaned using dental tools under a stereo-microscope.
Only puried water and a 50e50 mix of puried water and alcohol
were used to soften the compact sediment.
Except where noted, all descriptions and comparisons were
made after cleaning. Observations and measurements were made
directly on the original specimen and on the 3D surface scan, after
virtual retting of the proximal and distal portions of the bone at
the mid-shaft fracture.
Results
Faunal remains
From the 2007 eld season, the Callao Cave excavations
produced a late Pleistocene vertebrate assemblage of 807 fragments of bone. In Layer 11, just a few isolated and potentially
re-worked fragments of animal bone, including several skeletal
elements of deer, were recovered. There was no evidence of
anything that could be considered an in situ human-derived bone
accumulation and no evidence of butchery or lithics. Humans,
however, appear to have been present during this period of deposition, given the discovery of a terminal foot phalanx in Spit 36
(180 cm BS), with an interpolated date of 30 ka.
Bone concentrations increased below Spit 47 (Layer 12). Down
to Spit 53 (265 cm BS), all of the bone fragments were recovered
from clayey silt sediments and were very poorly preserved. Spit 54
contained numerous mid-dark brown skeletal elements, similar in
appearance to those recovered throughout the clayey silt deposits
above, as well as a few weathered and eroded fragments with
a creamy appearance, similar to those from the underlying breccia
(Layer 14). It is likely that, after the Layer 14 breccia had formed,
erosional processes caused some bones to be redistributed into the
accumulating clayey silt sediments above. Alternatively, it is
possible that the boundary between clayey silt and breccia has
migrated downwards as the breccia has decalcied, and that Spit 54
(270 cm BS) forms a transitional zone between breccia and clay.
126
The breccia contains by far the greatest number of bone fragments (66%, or 533 fragments), indicating that bone survival was
good within the calcium carbonate precipitate. As a result, bones
from the breccia are in much better physical condition than the
pieces of bone recovered from the overlying clayey silts.
Surface modications consistent with subsurface weathering,
erosion and water-transport suggest that the bones were derived
from elsewhere in the cave system and were redeposited against
the wall, where they were incorporated into a carbonate-cemented
sandy silt loam breccia. The complete absence of any evidence
for bone-accumulating large carnivores and porcupines in the
Philippines (excluding Palawan), in addition to the presence of
three parallel cut-marks caused by a sharp implement on the
medial surface of a deer tibia shaft fragment (Fig. 5), indicates that
the bone assemblage was almost certainly derived from human
activity (Piper and Mijares, 2007). The lack of any lithics from the
1980 (Cuevas, 1980) and present excavations at the depth of the
breccias in Callao Cave could imply the use of organic tools. Alternatively, the differential transport of bones has caused spatial
separation of archaeological materials in the cave entrance.
Three large species of mammal were recorded in the Callao Cave
breccia: the native brown deer (Cervus mariannus), the Philippine
warty pig (Sus philippensis), and an extinct bovid evidenced by two
small tooth fragments (Piper and Mijares, 2007). Brown deer
constitute more than 90% of the identiable bone fragments. The
articular ends of long bones and metapodials are relatively
common in the assemblage. Loose maxillary and mandibular teeth
indicate that crania were originally present, and scapula, pelvic and
vertebral fragments indicate the deposition of axial elements as
well. This suggests that whole, or different skeletal elements of
various deer carcasses were possibly once brought into the cave on
occasion.
while Callao 2 did not yield a result (the closed system ESR age
estimate was younger than the U-series result). The discrepant
combined ESR/U-series results point to some reworking, as
conrmed by taphonomic examination of the bones from the
breccia.
It can be seen that the U-concentration varies greatly along the
proles (Fig. 6). We carried out U-series age estimates for all
concentration features to check whether delayed uptake or leaching has taken place, such as peaks and troughs (Fig. 6). We found
only a small number of results (seven of 69) where the 1 s
weighted means did not overlap. This is somewhat less than
expected from a normal statistical distribution and points to the
fact that our error bars are probably somewhat too large.
On the whole, there is no relationship between U-concentration
and age estimate (Fig. 7). This points to a rapid uptake and excludes
leaching along pores. Instead, as an indication for U-leaching, the
drops in U-concentration are probably caused by heterogeneities in
the bone structure, which had little inuence on the mode of
U-mobilization.
Single age estimates may be affected by a number of processes
rendering them inaccurate, and for this reason the U-series results
must be considered minimum estimates. This alone precludes any
claim for accuracy. In this regard, the interpretation of APNIAH1 in
Barker et al. (2007) has been used to cast doubt on the results of
U-Series dating at Niah. Barker et al. (2007, p. 253) write .a
Age determination
The cervid two teeth yielded U-series ages of 52 1.4 ka
(Callao 1) and 54.3 1.9 ka (Callao 2). Sub-sampling of small peaks
and troughs in the U-concentration had yielded U-series age estimates that were in the same statistical population as the mean
values. We could not identify any regions that may indicate delayed
U-uptake or leaching, compared with the average values. Thus, the
U-uptake must have taken place over a relatively short period of
time (Pike et al., 2002). However, as U-accumulation in bones may
be delayed after burial, any U-series age estimates have to be
considered minimum age estimates. ESR dating yielded a combined
ESR/U-series result (Grn et al., 1988) for Callao 1 of 66 11/9 ka,
127
Figure 6. Comparative diagrams of the four laser ablation scans on the Callao metatarsal.
uniform date prole [of APNIAH1] may also be reached after further
uptake or leaching of uranium, which would give an erroneous result,
so on its own the date should only be taken as provisional.. In the
context of MT3, we do not have to consider further U-uptake,
because this would only lower the calculated apparent U-series
128
100
80
60
40
20
0
0
20
40
60
U concentration (ppm)
80
100
Figure 7. Apparent U-series age versus U-concentration (error bars omitted for
clarity).
129
Figure 8. Comparison of (A) the Callao MT3 in proximal, dorsal and medial views with right third metatarsals of (B) Homo sapiens, male Negrito; (C) Homo habilis, OH 8 e mirrored
3D model of a cast of the left MT3; (D) Macaca, (E) Hylobates; and (F) Pongo. 3D models obtained by surface scanning with a NextEngine Desktop 3D Scanner.
130
Figure 9. CT-scan views of the Callao MT3. A: midsagittal CT slice; B: 3D model with transparency (lateral view); C: close-up view of a sagittal CT slice of the distal extremity
(the slice is parallel to A but more medially located). Images A and C show the distal extremity of the MT3, which is broken and partially lled-up by sediment. No transverse
metaphyseal surface is visible.
131
Table 1
Comparative measurements of the Callao metatarsal with Negrito samples
Total length
Partial length
(from the base to
the medial tubercle)
Shaft
Dorso-plantar
diameter
52.58
Callao
60.99a
Facet 1 (dorsal)
for metatarsal 2
Facet for
metatarsal 4
Medio-lateral
diameter
Dorso-plantar
height
Length
Height
Length
6.58
5.99
11.28
8.69
5.76
3.82
6.46
4.92
55.66
1.033
49.4
60.5
56.8
8.51
0.107
8
9.1
8.5
7.32
0.268
6.5
9.6
7.1
18.79
0.427
16
21.1
18.8
11.72
0.245
10.2
13.3
11.7
6.46
0.418
4.5
8.9
6.3
4.74
0.269
3.2
6.3
4.7
8.02
0.277
7
10.2
8
7.73
0.323
6
9
7.7
51.33
0.357
49.2
53.5
51.15
7.33
0.091
6.9
7.8
7.35
6.42
0.179
5.1
7.3
6.45
16.87
0.209
15.5
17.9
16.95
10.88
0.211
9.5
12.3
10.8
6.54
0.198
5
7.4
6.8
4.95
0.131
4.3
5.9
4.8
8.06
0.353
6.2
10.5
7.9
7.98
0.329
5.7
9.9
8
Medio-lateral
breadth
Height
a
Estimated from the regression of total length against partial length for the pooled-sex sample of 23 adult Negrito metatarsals III (r 0.93, p < 0.01;
Ltot 1.022Lpart 7.2519).
Conclusions
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