New Fossil Discovery Pushes Back Early Human Migration to Asia

Two fossils found in a cave in northern Laos suggest that Homo sapiens was living in the region some 86,000 years ago, challenging the prevailing idea that humans’ path across the globe was linear and took place in a single wave about 50,000 to 60,000 years ago. The fossils were estimated to be 68,000 to 86,000 years old, with the leg bone fragment being the older find. The site also challenges conventional thinking that humans’ earliest journeys in the region would have involved skirting coastlines and island locations such as Sumatra, Philippines and Borneo.