New Human Species Discovered In Philippines Changes What We Know About Ancestors [PHOTOS]

An extinct species of human has been discovered in the Philippines.

Found in the country's largest island Luzon, the newly discovered small-bodied hominin, named Homo luzonensis, lived there at least 50,000 to 67,000 years ago. According to a study published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, researchers in the Philippines identified the ancient human species from remains that consisted of seven teeth and six small bones.

Study co-author and project leader Armand Mijares, an archaeologist at the University of the Philippines Diliman and a National Geographic grantee, and his team found that the species share physical features with our ancient human ancestors and modern humans, leading them to believe that primitive humans left Africa and eventually ended up in Southeast Asia.

The discovery of H. luzonensis makes Luzon the third Southeast Asian island in the last 15 years to have been found with ancient human activity. Mijares said in a statement that the Philippines had previously been "more or less left out" in the study of human evolution, but this has changed with the landmark discovery.

Three or more human species had already been living in the region around the same time H. luzonensis arrived, including Homo floresiensis.

The so-called "Hobbit" species lived on the island of Flores in Indonesia until they disappeared 50,000 years ago.

"After the remarkable finds of the diminutive Homo floresiensis were published in 2004, I said that the experiment in human evolution conducted on Flores could have been repeated on many of the other islands in the region," Professor Chris Stringer, from London's Natural History Museum, told BBC News of the discovery.

"That speculation has seemingly been confirmed on the island of Luzon... nearly 3,000km away," he continued.

It was actually the discovery of H. floresiensis that inspired Mijares to dig a little deeper into Callao Cave, where he previously found 25,000-year-old signs of human activity back in 2003.

In 2010, Mijares and his team revealed the fossil they found that dated back to 67,000 years ago. They initially believed it to have been the remains of a small-bodied member of Homo sapiens. However, the project leader suspected that it belonged to an entirely different species of human and thus kept digging to find more fossils.

Currently, Mijares is still searching for more remains of H. luzonensis in Luzon's Biak na Bato National Park.

“I'm very proud because as a Filipino and Southeast Asian, we tend to be on the periphery of this debate. Now, we can be actively engaged in the debate, because our areas—our sites—are now recognized,” Mijares said. “And that is, I guess, my legacy in this world.”