The earliest signs that hominins had colonised the island of Luzon in the Philippines took the form of crude stone tools found around half a century ago. Re-excavation of one of the sites uncovered yet more tools buried in a river-channel deposit, along with remains of a butchered rhinoceros dated at around 700 ka by two methods (see Clear signs of a hominin presence on the Philippines at around 700 ka May 2018). The primitive nature of the tools and their age suggested that Asian Homo erectus had managed to reach the Philippine archipelago, despite it being separated from larger islands by deep water. Even during large falls in sea level (up to 130 m) during glacial periods that exposed Sundaland, which linked the larger islands of Indonesia to mainland Eurasia, at best only a narrow stretch of sea (~20 km) connected the Philippines to the wider world. For most of the time since the earliest known colonisation any hominins on the islands would have been cut off from other populations.
The first hominin fossil found by archaeologists in 2007 was a 67 ka old toe bone (metatarsal) in cave sediments from Northern Luzon. It was undoubtedly from Homo, but which species was unclear. More recent excavations added a mere 12 fossil fragments, probably from three individuals; 7 teeth, 4 adult finger- and toe bones and part of the femur of a juvenile (Détroit, F. and 8 others 2019. A new species of Homo from the Late Pleistocene of the Philippines. Nature, v. 568, p. 181–186; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1067-9). The finger bones, being curved, are unlike those of modern humans and H. erectus. The teeth are even more different; for instance the premolars show two or three roots – ours have but one – and their unusually tiny molars only a single root. The combined features are sufficiently distinct to suggest a separate species (H. luzonensis). The small teeth may indicate that the adults may have been even smaller that the ‘Hobbits’ of Flores and anatomically different.
Like H. floresiensis, as a result of isolation the new human species probably evolved to become small, possibly from very low number of H. erectus original colonisers. But an even stranger possibility is suggested by their curved toe and finger bones. They may have been habitual climbers as much as walkers – unlike us and H. erectus. Could that indicate that their ancestors left Africa already distinct from the rest of Late Pleistocene humans? That is also a disputed hypothesis for the origins of H. floresiensis remains of whom are more complete. Similarly, they pose the issue of how their progenitors managed to get to the archipelago: deliberately by boat or being carried there clinging in desperation to vegetation torn-up by tsunamis and transported seawards by the back-wash.
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