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Last appearance of Homo erectus at Ngandong, Java, 117,000–108,000 years ago
Rizal Y., Westaway K.E., Zaim Y., van den Bergh G.D., Bettis E.A., Morwood M.J., Huffman O.F., Grun R., Joannes-Boyau R., Bailey R.M., Sidarto, Westaway M.C., Kurniawan I., Moore M.W., Storey M., Aziz F., Suminto, Zhao J.-X., Aswan, Sipola M.E., Larick R., Zonneveld J.-P., Scott R., Putt S., Ciochon R.L.
[vc_row][vc_column][vc_row_inner][vc_column_inner][vc_separator css=”.vc_custom_1624529070653{padding-top: 30px !important;padding-bottom: 30px !important;}”][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][vc_row_inner layout=”boxed”][vc_column_inner width=”3/4″ css=”.vc_custom_1624695412187{border-right-width: 1px !important;border-right-color: #dddddd !important;border-right-style: solid !important;border-radius: 1px !important;}”][vc_empty_space][megatron_heading title=”Abstract” size=”size-sm” text_align=”text-left”][vc_column_text]© 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.Homo erectus is the founding early hominin species of Island Southeast Asia, and reached Java (Indonesia) more than 1.5 million years ago1,2. Twelve H. erectus calvaria (skull caps) and two tibiae (lower leg bones) were discovered from a bone bed located about 20 m above the Solo River at Ngandong (Central Java) between 1931 and 19333,4, and are of the youngest, most-advanced form of H. erectus5–8. Despite the importance of the Ngandong fossils, the relationship between the fossils, terrace fill and ages have been heavily debated9–14. Here, to resolve the age of the Ngandong evidence, we use Bayesian modelling of 52 radiometric age estimates to establish—to our knowledge—the first robust chronology at regional, valley and local scales. We used uranium-series dating of speleothems to constrain regional landscape evolution; luminescence, 40argon/39argon (40Ar/39Ar) and uranium-series dating to constrain the sequence of terrace evolution; and applied uranium-series and uranium series–electron-spin resonance (US–ESR) dating to non-human fossils to directly date our re-excavation of Ngandong5,15. We show that at least by 500 thousand years ago (ka) the Solo River was diverted into the Kendeng Hills, and that it formed the Solo terrace sequence between 316 and 31 ka and the Ngandong terrace between about 140 and 92 ka. Non-human fossils recovered during the re-excavation of Ngandong date to between 109 and 106 ka (uranium-series minimum)16 and 134 and 118 ka (US–ESR), with modelled ages of 117 to 108 thousand years (kyr) for the H. erectus bone bed, which accumulated during flood conditions3,17. These results negate the extreme ages that have been proposed for the site and solidify Ngandong as the last known occurrence of this long-lived species.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_separator css=”.vc_custom_1624528584150{padding-top: 25px !important;padding-bottom: 25px !important;}”][vc_empty_space][megatron_heading title=”Author keywords” size=”size-sm” text_align=”text-left”][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_separator css=”.vc_custom_1624528584150{padding-top: 25px !important;padding-bottom: 25px !important;}”][vc_empty_space][megatron_heading title=”Indexed keywords” size=”size-sm” text_align=”text-left”][vc_column_text][/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_separator css=”.vc_custom_1624528584150{padding-top: 25px !important;padding-bottom: 25px !important;}”][vc_empty_space][megatron_heading title=”Funding details” size=”size-sm” text_align=”text-left”][vc_column_text]Acknowledgements This research, including the Solo River survey and the Sembungan and Menden terrace excavations, was funded by the Australian Research Council Discovery grant (DP1093049) to K.E.W. and (DP0343334 and DP0770234) to M.J.M. The 2008–2010 excavations at Ngandong were supported by the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research (ICRG-92), University of Iowa (UI) Center for Global and Regional Environmental Research (CGRER), UI Office of the President, UI Dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the UI Office of the Vice-President for Research (to R.L.C.). The Menden excavations were financially supported by the Geological Survey Institute in Bandung (GSI). Laboratory costs were funded, in part, by the Human Evolution Research Fund at the University of Iowa Foundation. The 40Ar/39Ar dating was funded by the Villum Foundation. The authors acknowledge the invaluable support provided by A. D. Wirakusaman, and the support of E. A. Subroto. Excavations at Sembungan were undertaken under a recommendation letter from the Provincial Government of West Java to the Governor of the Central Java Province no. 070.10/237; a recommendation letter from the latter to the local government of the Blora Regency no. 070.10/237; and a research permit issued by the Blora Regency no. 071/457/2005. Excavations at Ngandong were carried out with the permission and recommendation of Wahyu, Head of the Foreign Researchers Licensing Secretariat of the State Ministry of Research and Technology (SMRT), which issued research permits 03799/SU/KS/2006, 1718/ FRP/SM/VII/2008, and 04/TKPIPA/FRP/SM/IV/2010 for the fieldwork at Ngandong. The excavations at Sembungan and the Menden Terrace site in the Blora Regency were carried out under research permit no. 2785/FRP/SM/XI/2008. We thank K. M. Patel for help with figure creation and editorial assistance with the manuscript.[/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_separator css=”.vc_custom_1624528584150{padding-top: 25px !important;padding-bottom: 25px !important;}”][vc_empty_space][megatron_heading title=”DOI” size=”size-sm” text_align=”text-left”][vc_column_text]https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1863-2[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][vc_column_inner width=”1/4″][vc_column_text]Widget Plumx[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_separator css=”.vc_custom_1624528584150{padding-top: 25px !important;padding-bottom: 25px !important;}”][/vc_column][/vc_row]