WEBVTT 00:00:11.579 --> 00:00:16.410 Throughout history, there have been a number of human species- and researchers are continually 00:00:16.410 --> 00:00:17.910 discovering new ones. 00:00:17.910 --> 00:00:22.710 A recent discovery in the Philippines has changed our understanding of when our ancestors 00:00:22.710 --> 00:00:27.380 first reached the islands- and this is surprising because the country, as we know it, is completely 00:00:27.380 --> 00:00:31.239 surrounded by water- so who are they, and how did they get there? 00:00:31.239 --> 00:00:34.940 Homo Sapiens, our species, were not the first type of human to live on earth. 00:00:34.940 --> 00:00:39.449 You’ll have probably heard of Neanderthals, who first appeared about 230,000 years ago… 00:00:39.449 --> 00:00:44.129 but there have been at least 17 others species of humans- with the oldest known ancestor, 00:00:44.129 --> 00:00:50.449 the Orrorin tugenensis, walking the earth about 5.8 million years ago. 00:00:50.449 --> 00:00:55.359 The original humans lived in Africa, and it wasn’t until about 1.5 million years ago 00:00:55.359 --> 00:01:00.890 that the Homo erectus, the first of our ancestors that was a hunter-gatherer, began to migrate 00:01:00.890 --> 00:01:05.089 beyond Africa to as far away as Asia. 00:01:05.089 --> 00:01:10.710 Homo Sapiens first developed about 195,000 years ago, and soon began to migrate across 00:01:10.710 --> 00:01:11.710 Europe and Asia. 00:01:11.710 --> 00:01:16.350 Speech is thought to have developed 45,000 years later, and it was only 12,000 years 00:01:16.350 --> 00:01:18.710 ago that they reached the Americas. 00:01:18.710 --> 00:01:23.300 Until about 12,000 years ago, there were still other species of human, alongside our own. 00:01:23.300 --> 00:01:28.240 It had long been thought that the first species to reach the Philippines was our own Homo 00:01:28.240 --> 00:01:30.650 Sapiens about 100,000 years ago. 00:01:30.650 --> 00:01:35.950 A recent discovery has changed the understanding of when humans first arrived in the Philippines, 00:01:35.950 --> 00:01:36.950 though. 00:01:36.950 --> 00:01:41.061 In May of 2018, a paper was released that detailed the discovery of evidence that they 00:01:41.061 --> 00:01:44.030 were there a lot earlier than previously thought. 00:01:44.030 --> 00:01:47.180 During an archaeological dig at a site at Kalinga, in the Cagayan Valley of the northern 00:01:47.180 --> 00:01:51.040 Luzon in the Philippines, researchers found 57 stone tools alongside the skeletons of 00:01:51.040 --> 00:01:56.890 stegodon, Philippine brown deer, turtles, monitor lizards and, most importantly a Rhinoceros 00:01:56.890 --> 00:01:57.890 philippinensis. 00:01:57.890 --> 00:02:03.100 Crucially, this Rhinoceros skeleton has clear signs of scratching from butchery- an act 00:02:03.100 --> 00:02:05.610 that has only ever been performed by humans. 00:02:05.610 --> 00:02:09.200 This, in itself, may not be too surprising, because similar evidence is found around the 00:02:09.200 --> 00:02:14.500 world, but these tools and skeletons were found within a clay-rich bone bed that has 00:02:14.500 --> 00:02:19.069 been dated to between 727 and 701 thousand years ago. 00:02:19.069 --> 00:02:23.720 This proves that a human species was present around that time, many hundreds of thousands 00:02:23.720 --> 00:02:26.440 of years earlier than had been thought. 00:02:26.440 --> 00:02:31.760 The species believed to be most likely present at this time is Homo erectus, but no human 00:02:31.760 --> 00:02:33.650 bones have been found at the site. 00:02:33.650 --> 00:02:38.540 In Indonesia, about 3,000 kilometers away, evidence of a new species of human, the Homo 00:02:38.540 --> 00:02:43.010 floresiensis, has been discovered, which could suggest that there were many more that we 00:02:43.010 --> 00:02:47.480 don't know about, and there could even have been a different species that evolved independently 00:02:47.480 --> 00:02:50.230 to one another on each island in the region. 00:02:50.230 --> 00:02:55.520 The strange thing about this discovery is that the Philippines are completely surrounded 00:02:55.520 --> 00:02:58.620 by ocean, so how did our ancestors reach these islands? 00:02:58.620 --> 00:03:01.790 The answer is not, as you might think, due to the earth's changing geography. 00:03:01.790 --> 00:03:05.990 The sea levels used to be a lot lower than they are today, particularly during ice ages, 00:03:05.990 --> 00:03:09.380 but it would have still been too deep to simply walk across. 00:03:09.380 --> 00:03:14.380 Instead, it's thought that they were carried to these islands by accident- whether it be 00:03:14.380 --> 00:03:20.040 on tsunami waves or floating lands of debris that were carried across in storms. 00:03:20.040 --> 00:03:25.850 It's not thought that Homo erectus purposefully crossed the water, but it's still a possibility. 00:03:25.850 --> 00:03:26.920 Recent research in the Mediterranean has found evidence that stone age people were using 00:03:26.920 --> 00:03:27.920 boats more than 130,000 years ago, which suggests that ancient human species were far more capable 00:03:27.920 --> 00:03:28.920 than we tend to think. 00:03:28.920 --> 00:03:30.209 Humans have lived on this planet in various guises for millions of years. 00:03:30.209 --> 00:03:36.270 While our own species is the only one that remains and has been around for almost 200,000 00:03:36.270 --> 00:03:39.700 years, there have been many more that predate us. 00:03:39.700 --> 00:03:43.459 We know very little about most of these species, though, or how they lived- and it's virtually 00:03:43.459 --> 00:03:46.620 impossible to be sure how many others there have been. 00:03:46.620 --> 00:03:51.260 It's no surprise that new species, and evidence of human life, is being found- such as in 00:03:51.260 --> 00:04:15.269 the discovery in the Philippines- Our understanding of our ancestors is only 00:04:15.269 --> 00:04:21.459 just beginning!