Archaeologists from Australian and United Kingdom universities have found that ancient humans lived in Timor Leste some 44,000 years ago – or more than 35,000 years before the ancient Egyptians built the first pyramids.
These new insights came to light after thousands of stone artefacts and animal bones were found in a deep cave known as the Laili rock shelter in northern Timor Leste, according to a news report by Al Jazeera.
Meanwhile, this discovery may rewrite how humanity arrived in Australia, a report by Science Alert has pointed out.
The report acknowledges that humans arrived in the Australian continent at least 65,000 years ago, based on archaeological evidence – part of an early wave of humans travelling eastwards from Africa, through Eurasia and into Australia and New Guinea.
This, however, was only one of many waves of human migration across the globe, which were probably driven by climate change and the ability of groups to adapt to a wide range of environments.
The Science Alert report also points out that, based on new research published in Nature Communications, there has been evidence that a large wave of migration reached the island of Timor – which has long been regarded as a potential stepping-stone island for the first human migration between mainland Southeast Asia and Australia and New Guinea – not long after 50,000 years ago.
The discovery at the Laili Rock shelter suggests that the people who first reached Australia about 65,000 years ago came via New Guinea, while Timor and other southern islands were only colonised by a later wave of settlers.
Furthermore, there has been evidence from other research that humans arrived at other sites in Timor Leste and the nearby Indonesian island of Flores between 47,000 and 45,000 years ago, which strongly supports the view that humans only arrived in this particular region around this time.
Photo: Ony de Jesus
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