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Published (Version of record)CC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open Access
Published (Version of record)CC BY-NC-ND V4.0, Open
Journal article
Hominins on Sulawesi during the Early Pleistocene
Nature, Vol.Online first, pp.1-30
06/08/2025
PMID: 40770096
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Abstract
The dispersal of archaic hominins beyond mainland Southeast Asia (Sunda)1 represents the earliest evidence for humans crossing ocean barriers to reach isolated landmasses2,3,4. Previously, the oldest indication of hominins in Wallacea, the oceanic island zone east of Sunda, comprised flaked stone artefacts deposited at least 1.02 ± 0.02 million years ago (Ma) at Wolo Sege on Flores5. Early hominins were also established on the oceanic island of Luzon (Philippines), as indicated by both stone artefacts and cut marks on faunal remains dating to between 777 and 631 thousand years ago (ka) at Kalinga6. Moreover, fossils of extinct, small-bodied hominins occur on Flores (Homo floresiensis)7,8,9,10,11,12 and Luzon (Homo luzonensis)13. On Sulawesi, the largest Wallacean island, previous excavations revealed stone artefacts with a minimum age of 194 ka at the open site of Talepu in the Walanae Depression14, long preceding the earliest known presence of modern humans (Homo sapiens) in the region (73–63 ka in Sunda)15. Here we show that stone artefacts also occur at the nearby site of Calio in fossiliferous layers dated to at least 1.04 Ma and possibly up to 1.48 Ma, using palaeomagnetic dating of sedimentary rocks and coupled Uranium-series (U-series) and electron-spin resonance (US–ESR) dating of fossil teeth. The discovery of Early Pleistocene artefacts at Calio suggests that Sulawesi was populated by hominins at around the same time as Flores, if not earlier.
Details
- Title
- Hominins on Sulawesi during the Early Pleistocene
- Creators
- Budianto Hakim - Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi NasionalUnggul Prasetyo Wibowo - Bandung Institute of TechnologyGerrit D van den Bergh - University of WollongongDida Yurnaldi - Meteorological, Climatological, And Geophysical AgencyRenaud Joannes-Boyau - Southern Cross UniversityAkin Duli - Hasanuddin UniversitySuryatman - Departemen Arkeologi, Universitas Hasanuddin, Makassar, IndonesiaRatno Sardi - Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi NasionalIndah Asikin Nurani - Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi NasionalMika Rizki Puspaningrum - Bandung Institute of TechnologyIrfan Mahmud - Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi NasionalAfdalah Haris - Indonesian Association of Archaeologists (IAAI Komda Sulawesi)Khairun Al Anshari - Indonesian Association of Archaeologists (IAAI Komda Sulawesi)Andi Muhammad Saiful - Hasanuddin UniversityP Arman Bungaran - Indonesian Association of Archaeologists (IAAI Komda Sulawesi)Shinatria Adhityatama - Griffith UniversityPutra Hudlinas Muhammad - Indonesian Association of Archaeologists (IAAI Komda Sulawesi)Anwar Akib - Pemerhati dan Pelestari Budaya di Soppeng, Soppeng, IndonesiaNani Somba - Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi NasionalFakhri - Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi NasionalBasran Burhan - Griffith UniversityZubair Mas'ud - Pusat Kolaborasi Riset Arkeologi Sulawesi (BRIN-Universitas Hasanuddin), Makassar, IndonesiaMark W Moore - University of New EnglandYinika L Perston - Griffith UniversityWenjing Yu - Southern Cross UniversityMaxime Aubert - Southern Cross UniversityAdam Brumm - Griffith University
- Publication Details
- Nature, Vol.Online first, pp.1-30
- Publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- Grant note
- This research was funded by a research grant awarded to B.H. by Indonesia’s National Research and Innovation Agency (Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional (BRIN)) and an Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellowship awarded to A.B. (FT160100119), with further financial support from Griffith University.
- Identifiers
- 991013307126702368
- Copyright
- Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2025
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Science and Engineering; Science
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Journal article