{"id":13256,"date":"2025-08-15T16:20:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T16:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/fitb.itb.ac.id\/?p=13256"},"modified":"2025-08-15T16:27:19","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T16:27:19","slug":"early-humans-were-exploring-the-islands-of-indonesia-much-sooner-than-anyone-imagined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/multisite.itb.ac.id\/fitb\/early-humans-were-exploring-the-islands-of-indonesia-much-sooner-than-anyone-imagined\/","title":{"rendered":"Early humans were exploring the islands of Indonesia much sooner than anyone imagined"},"content":{"rendered":"

Early humans were exploring the islands of Indonesia much sooner than anyone imagined<\/strong><\/p>\n

Based on the original paper; blog post written by: Dasapta Erwin Irawan<\/a><\/p>\n

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A recent study published in the journal Nature<\/b> has revealed a surprising fact: ancient humans were exploring the islands of Indonesia much earlier than we ever thought. An international team of scientists\u2014including Dr. Mika Rizki Puspaningrum<\/b> from the Faculty of Earth Sciences and Technology at the Bandung Institute of Technology\u2014found evidence that our ancient relatives lived in Sulawesi<\/b> over one million years ago<\/b>!<\/p>\n

This discovery completely changes our understanding of how early humans spread across the globe.<\/p>\n

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The Evidence and the Mystery<\/h3>\n

The proof comes from stone tools<\/b> and animal bones<\/b> 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.<\/p>\n

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

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Who Were They?<\/h3>\n

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

The question is even more intriguing because Homo erectus<\/b><\/a> was also found in Java. Meanwhile, to the south there’s Homo floresiensis<\/b><\/a> and to the north Homo luzonensis<\/b><\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n

What’s clear is that this finding is rewriting the story of human migration in Asia<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

(For context, Sulawesi is an island located in Wallacea<\/b>, a group of oceanic islands between Asia and Australia. The important sites of Talepu and Calio are located in the southwestern part of Sulawesi.)<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Early humans were exploring the islands of Indonesia much sooner than anyone imagined Based on the original paper; blog post written by: Dasapta Erwin Irawan 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1631,"featured_media":13251,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112,103],"tags":[891,895,893,897,899],"class_list":["post-13256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-article","category-news","tag-homo-erectus","tag-homo-florensiensis","tag-homo-luzonensis","tag-human-migration","tag-human-palaentology-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/multisite.itb.ac.id\/fitb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/multisite.itb.ac.id\/fitb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/multisite.itb.ac.id\/fitb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multisite.itb.ac.id\/fitb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1631"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multisite.itb.ac.id\/fitb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13256"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/multisite.itb.ac.id\/fitb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13259,"href":"https:\/\/multisite.itb.ac.id\/fitb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13256\/revisions\/13259"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multisite.itb.ac.id\/fitb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/multisite.itb.ac.id\/fitb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multisite.itb.ac.id\/fitb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/multisite.itb.ac.id\/fitb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}