Tracing the steps of early migration

The thick 7-meter-deep sediment that forms the Tam Pa Ling cave floor. KIRA WESTAWAY/FOR CHINA DAILY Fossil finds suggest modern humans were in Southeast Asia 86,000 years ago, leaving Africa much earlier than scientists previously thought. A paper published on June 13 in the scientific journal Nature Communications said the "find demonstrated beyond doubt that modern humans spread from Africa through Arabia and to Asia much earlier than previously thought". Kira Westaway, a geochronologist with Australia's Macquarie University and one of the lead scientists involved in the project, said the significance of the fossil find at the Tam Pa Ling cave should not be underestimated. "Human fossil evidence is very rare in Southeast Asia, so a site that contains seven individual skeletal parts over a 56,000-year period is incredible," she told China Daily.