Java Man not so old after all

[Minimalist]

https://cosmosmagazine.com/palaeontolog ... -after-all

The oldest human remains in Southeast Asia aren’t as old as we thought they were.

An Indonesian-Japanese team of scientists has overturned a decades-old estimate of Homo erectus remains from Central Java in Indonesia, shaving off several hundred thousand years from the age of the globe-trotting hominin, the first to disperse out of Africa.

The new estimate, published in the journal Science, puts Homo erectus at the fossil-rich Sangiran dome by around 1.3 million years ago, and certainly no earlier than 1.5 million years ago

I still think the key to understanding human evolution is Homo Erectus.

[circumspice]

I agree min. HE is possibly the unidentified hominid whose DNA has been found alongside the Neanderthal & Denisovan DNA in the modern human genome. Until geneticists can get their hands on some HE fossils that have recoverable DNA, we won't know for certain. What we do know is that HE was an intrepid explorer who blazed the trail throughout the world for the rest of humankind.

[Cognito]

I agree min. HE is possibly the unidentified hominid whose DNA has been found alongside the Neanderthal & Denisovan DNA in the modern human genome.

In an email correspondence with M. Wolpoff of the Univ. of Michigan a few years back he made the same comment as you did and referred to the anomalies as traces of "Asian Erectus". Makes perfect sense.

[circumspice]

I've always jokingly referred to Milford Walpoff as a throwback to an earlier breed of hominin... I think it was the heavy brow ridges... Put him in animal hide clothing & you could place him in a Neanderthal diorama in any museum... The man both irritates & fascinates. However, that doesn't detract from his intelligence, which I fully acknowledge.