Early humans were exploring the islands of Indonesia much sooner than anyone imagined

A recent study published in the journal Nature has revealed a surprising fact: ancient humans were exploring the islands of Indonesia much earlier than we ever thought. An international team of scientists—including Dr. Mika Rizki Puspaningrum from the Faculty of Earth Sciences and Technology at the Bandung Institute of Technology—found evidence that our ancient relatives lived in Sulawesi over one million years ago!

This discovery completely changes our understanding of how early humans spread across the globe.

The Evidence and the Mystery

The proof comes from stone tools and animal bones found by scientists in Sulawesi. These artifacts are so old that they date back to the Early Pleistocene era, a time when experts previously believed only animals lived there. For a long time, it was thought that early humans didn’t arrive on these islands until much later.

Why is this so important? For one, Sulawesi is surrounded by deep ocean. The fact that early humans were able to reach it suggests they had the skill and courage to cross the sea, possibly on simple rafts. This shows our ancestors were far more resourceful and resilient than we had ever given them credit for.

Who Were They?

This discovery also raises a huge question: who were these early explorers? Could they have been Homo erectus, the first known humans to leave Africa? Or, could they have been another group we don’t know about yet?

The question is even more intriguing because Homo erectus was also found in Java. Meanwhile, to the south there’s Homo floresiensis and to the north Homo luzonensis, both of which were dwarf-sized. These different possibilities are what scientists are now working hard to uncover, searching for more clues to solve the mystery.

What’s clear is that this finding is rewriting the story of human migration in Asia. It proves that our distant relatives were moving, adapting, and surviving in new environments far earlier than we thought possible. The adventure of human history just got a lot more exciting.

(For context, Sulawesi is an island located in Wallacea, a group of oceanic islands between Asia and Australia. The important sites of Talepu and Calio are located in the southwestern part of Sulawesi.)