Researchers have recovered
Homo erectus bones from the seafloor, which points to an unknown hominin population hunting on
land that is now underwater in Southeast Asia.

© Harold BerghuisResearchers found the Homo erectus bones in a cache of more than 6,000 fossils dredged up in the Madura Strait, Indonesia.
Bones from an extinct human ancestor have been
recovered from the seafloor, revealing a previously unknown
Homo erectus population in Southeast Asia that may have interacted with more modern humans, new studies find.
The
H. erectus bones were among a cache of more than 6,000 animal fossils hoovered up as part of a construction project off the island of Java in Indonesia. This is the first time scientists have seen fossils from the submerged parts of the Indonesian archipelago, which connected islands like Java to the Asian mainland during the
last ice age, when sea levels were lower.
These lost lands, called drowned Sundaland, were once vast open plains interspersed with rivers around 140,000 years ago. The newly discovered fossils revealed the rivers were teeming with fish, turtles, river sharks, hippos and other marine life, while terrestrial giants such as elephants, the elephant-like
Stegodon and water buffalo populated the plains, according to the studies.
H. erectus' presence on this landscape confirms that
our ancient ancestor was taking advantage of drowned Sundaland's fertile hunting grounds, at least between Java and another, smaller island called Madura. This region, once a valley, is now submerged in a body of seawater called the Madura Strait.
The researchers found cut marks on some of the fossils that confirmed the Madura Strait hominins (humans and our close relatives) were hunting turtles โ the earliest evidence of this in Southeast Asia โ and large game. The remains also suggested that these hominins were selectively targeting cow-like bovids in their prime, which Indonesian
H. erectus isn't known for. This hunting strategy is associated with more modern humans on the Asian mainland,
raising the possibility that the newly discovered H. erectus population copied the strategy from other human relatives.
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