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dc.contributor.authorCurnoe, D
dc.contributor.authorDatan, I
dc.contributor.authorTaçon, PSC
dc.contributor.authorLeh Moi Ung, C
dc.contributor.authorSauffi, MS
dc.date.accessioned2018-01-25T12:30:25Z
dc.date.available2018-01-25T12:30:25Z
dc.date.issued2016
dc.identifier.issn2296-701X
dc.identifier.doi10.3389/fevo.2016.00075
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/10072/100807
dc.description.abstractThe Deep Skull from Niah Cave in Sarawak (Malaysia) is the oldest anatomically modern human recovered from island Southeast Asia. For more than 50 years its relevance to tracing the prehistory of the region has been controversial. The most widely held view, originating with Brothwell's 1960 description and analysis, is that the Niah individual is related to Indigenous Australians. Here we undertake a new assessment of the Deep Skull and consider its bearing on this question. In doing so, we provide a new and comprehensive description of the cranium including a reassessment of its ontogenetic age, sex, morphology, and affinities. We conclude that this individual was most likely to have been of advanced age and female, rather than an adolescent male as originally proposed. The morphological evidence strongly suggests that the Deep Skull samples the earliest modern humans to have settled Borneo, most likely originating on mainland East Asia. We also show that the affinities of the specimen are most likely to be with the contemporary indigenous people of Borneo, although, similarities to the population sometimes referred to as Philippine Negritos cannot be excluded. Finally, our research suggests that the widely supported “two-layer” hypothesis for the Pleistocene peopling of East/Southeast Asia is unlikely to apply to the earliest inhabitants of Borneo, in-line with the picture emerging from genetic studies of the contemporary people from the region.
dc.description.peerreviewedYes
dc.languageEnglish
dc.language.isoeng
dc.publisherFrontiers Research Foundation
dc.relation.ispartofpagefrom1
dc.relation.ispartofpageto17
dc.relation.ispartofissue75
dc.relation.ispartofjournalFrontiers in Ecology and Evolution
dc.relation.ispartofvolume4
dc.subject.fieldofresearchBiological (physical) anthropology
dc.subject.fieldofresearchArchaeology of Asia, Africa and the Americas
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode440103
dc.subject.fieldofresearchcode430102
dc.titleDeep Skull from Niah Cave and the Pleistocene peopling of Southeast Asia
dc.typeJournal article
dc.type.descriptionC1 - Articles
dc.type.codeC - Journal Articles
dcterms.licensehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
dc.description.versionVersion of Record (VoR)
gro.rights.copyright© 2016 Curnoe, Datan, Taçon, Leh Moi Ung and Sauffi. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
gro.hasfulltextFull Text
gro.griffith.authorTacon, Paul S.


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