Scientists in the Philippines have this week published a paper on the discovery of a previously unknown species of ancient human.

The specimen, which has been named Homo luzonensis, was found in a cave on Luzon Island in The Philippines - and its discovery has thrown quite the curveball into our previous understanding of human evolution, as it is believed they coexisted with our ancestors.

The remains have been dated to 50,000-67,000 years ago, meaning that this species of human had existed outside of Africa (where our ancestors are believed to have dispersed from) possibly before early Homo sapiens had left the continent.

"We now know that it was a much more complex evolutionary history, with several distinct species contemporaneous with Homo sapiens, interbreeding events, extinctions," said Florent Détroit, one of the paper's authors. "Homo luzonensis is one of those species and we will [increasingly see] that a few thousand years back in time, Homo sapiens was definitely not alone on Earth."

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Callao Cave Archaeology Project]]

The site did not produce an intact skeleton, but the remains that were found - seven teeth, two hand bones, three foot bones and one thigh bone - are believed to have belonged to two adults and one child, and yielded enough information for scientists to deduce some key information about Homo luzonensis.

The size of the teeth suggest that the early humans would have stood less than four feet in height, and the curved toe bones would indicate that they had an ability to walk upright on two legs, but also that they were adapted to climb trees.

"Maybe the way they were walking was distinct," said Détroit. "This is something we plan to work on in the near future."

Researchers have found that the remnants closely resemble another ancient species, Homo floresiensis (sometimes described as a "Hobbit"), which was also found in south-east Asia and believed to have lived around the same period.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Callao Cave Archaeology Project]]

As exciting as the discovery is for researchers, there are a number of questions and mysteries that remain unanswered on account of there being so little evidence to analyse. The most troubling one being: how did these ancient humans arrive on Luzon Island? The land is not believed to have ever been connected to the mainland, which suggests that the ancient species was somehow able to traverse the sea - either deliberately, by some sort of raft, or perhaps accidentally, by a tsunami or some other natural event.

"Arrival by accident … is favoured by many scholars, but this is mainly because of arguments like ‘Homo erectus were not clever enough to cross the sea on purpose,'" said Détroit. "But the fact is that we have now more and more evidence that they successfully settled on several islands in the remote past in south-east Asia, so it was probably not so accidental."

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Callao Cave Archaeology Project]]

For many in the field, this discovery is not entirely surprising, however.

One scientist, Professor Chris Stringer, from the National History Museum, said: "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.

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

If these recent findings are any indication of what is yet to come, it could be that we are yet to discover key information about our origins as a species - and who knows where those realisations will take us.

Science gives us the ability to understand the universe around us; what its rules are, what has come before us and what we can become. It's a wonderful thing, but one of the most compelling things about it is not just that we can discover new things, but that previously-held theories can be altered as we learn more and technology advances. In the spirit of challenging what we know about the world, a recent study has suggested that everything we know about where humans originated from may be wrong. It is widely believed that humanity dates back to Africa millions of years ago, but the people behind this new study claim that this may not be entirely true. Researchers have found a footprint in Crete, Greece, which fundamentally changes our ideas about early human evolution, showing that our ancestors may have been in Europe far earlier than we previously thought. Our initial ideas were based on fossils found in South and East Africa, but a recent footprint found in Crete dates back 5.7 million years, putting the chronology of the species into question. Speaking to The Independent, Professor Per Ahlberg, the author of the study said: "This discovery challenges the established narrative of early human evolution head-on and is likely to generate a lot of debate" "Whether the human origins research community will accept fossil footprints as conclusive evidence of the presence of hominins in the Miocene of Crete remains to be seen." Ahlberg examined the footprint, and noticed something different about the toes. "There's something slightly funny about the big toe," he said, "Its position and shape are very similar to those of a modern human, but it seems more mobile". The researchers believe that it didn't have claws, walked on two feet and had longer inner toes than outer ones. The conclusion that they have come to is that the foot belonged to an early human ancestor, showing that the species was in Europe far earlier than we thought possible. On the other hand, there are some that deny the possibility that we could have originated from anywhere but Africa. Speaking to New Scientist, David Begun from the University of Toronto said: "There are people who simply dismiss the idea because they think it's just not possible" "But it's widely accepted that what became the African savannah fauna - giraffes, antelopes, rhinos - those species lived in the southern Balkans and migrated from there into Africa." But there does seem to be some validity to this new discovery, and some are firmly standing behind it. "They are almost without doubt actual footprints of a bipedally-walking animal," Robin Crompton, from the University of Liverpool, said. Whether it turns out to be a human ancestor is yet to be absolutely proven, but it shows that we may not actually know the complete story of our species' history quite yet.

In a groundbreaking archeological discovery, a human-sized penguin fossil has been discovered in New Zealand.

The discovery, on New Zealand's South Island, was announced earlier today by scientists. They revealed that the adult penguin came in at 1.6 meters (5ft 2") high and weighed 80 kilograms (176 lbs). This is four times heavier and 40 cm taller than the Emperor Penguin, the BBC has reported.

The giant penguin was a species known as "crossvallia waiparensis", which, 66-56 million years ago, lived on the coast of New Zealand.

[[imagecaption|| Credit: Getty]]

While the discovery was announced today, it was made last year by an amateur archeologist, who found the bird's bones. After careful examination, scientists concluded that they belonged to a new species in a study published in Alcheringa: An Australasian Journal of Palaeontology this week.

However, this is not the first time that a giant penguin has been discovered, Canterbury Museum researcher Vanesa De Pietri revealed.

"It further reinforces our theory that penguins attained great size early in their evolution," she said.

Think penguins are cute? Think again! This gang of penguins was taken into custody after causing trouble in a Wellington sushi store:

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When these giant penguins existed, some of the largest marine mammals known today like toothed whales and seals did not, and scientists have hypothesized that when they came into being, the giant penguins died out as a result.

In an interview with the BBC, Gerald Mayr said: "At the time giant penguins evolved, the large marine reptiles just had become extinct."

"In Antarctica and New Zealand, there were no large marine competitors until the arrival of toothed whales and pinnipeds (seals) many million years later."

The new species has now been dubbed the "Monster Penguin" by Canterbury Museum.

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Museum curator Paul Scofield told the BBC that the penguin was native to the waters of the Southern hemisphere and "is one of the largest penguin species ever found."

He continued: "We think that at the time, animals were evolving very rapidly. Water temperatures around New Zealand were ideal back then, around 25C (77F) compared to the 8C we have now."

It is often said that if you want to discover new life forms, you'd have more luck exploring the bottom of the ocean than the limits of outer space. And, considering that an estimated 99 per cent of the ocean floor remains undiscovered, it's pretty scary to think about what could be lurking down there. We already know about the existence of giant squid, which have eyes the size of dinner plates, and anglerfish, which look arguably more extra-terrestrial than any other creature on the planet. However, there are trenches and depths that we have not yet been able to access, and the chances are that whatever is down there could be even worse. Despite this, scientists are committed to uncovering the secrets hiding beneath the ocean - especially those which will give us more of an understanding of the Earth's past. Recently, archaeologists discovered a 515-million-year-old sea creature that was "strange beyond measure". Martin Smith, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Durham University, said that the specimen was "like a mythical beast". It was only 1.5cm long, and barely 3mm wide, but it is more alienlike than any other creature recently discovered. With armor-plated skin and a hard shell covering its head ("almost as if it's wearing a bike helmet," according to Smith) the slug-like critter was equipped with some extreme defense systems. Most prominent of all, however, "are the cocktail-stick-like spines that emerge from its sides like the rays of a sunburst," which were obviously an essential feature in the vicious prehistoric world. The professor went on to say, "We don't know much about the animal underneath these mineralized plates — whether it had legs or a slug-like foot, [and] whether it had teeth or tentacles." Scientists have named the creature "Orthrozanclus elongata", which refers to its stretched out body. "These fossils are incredibly rare," Smith said in an interview Live Science. "Only two specimens have been found, amidst the tens of thousands of other creatures known from the same deposits." The creepy armored critter is said to be an example of the diversity amongst extinct animals, and could potentially help scientists understand the links between ancient creatures and the modern ones we still see today. It also adds weight to the Cambrian Explosion theory, with suggests that the animal kingdom saw a massive injection of diversity and variety about 541 million years ago. Because of how well-preserved this specimen is, it could give a lot of clues about a group of animals called brachiopods. These creatures still exist today, but are often referred to as "living fossils" because they appear to have stopped evolving some time ago. "Whereas many lineages show evolutionary trends towards greater activity and complexity, brachiopods seem to have settled down to a sedentary existence, like a retiree settling down in a favorite armchair," said Smith. Hopefully, archaeologists will uncover more specimens of the catchily-titled Orthrozanclus elongata very soon, as they could very well be the key to understanding an incredibly important period in our planet's history.        

After a 20-year mystery, the identity of body that washed up on a Washington State beach has finally been identified.

The human remains washed ashore in 2006, sparking widespread confusion and a mystery that has only just been solved.

Revolutionary DNA technology came to the rescue

Back in 2006, the skeletal remains of a human washed up on the Pacific coast of the USA.

It has now been finally ascertained that those remains are that of Clarence Edwin ‘Ed’ Asher, a former mayor from Oregon who was presumed to have drowned on a fishing trip.

Asher went missing while out on a trip in Tillamook Bay, a coastal inlet in Oregon.

At the time of his disappearance in 2006, a significant Coast Guard operation took place, but was suspended just a day later, on September 6 of that year.

The former mayor of the town of Fossil was 72 years old at the time of his disappearance.

The authorities presumed that he had drowned after his wife told them that he couldn’t swim and wasn’t in the habit of wearing a life jacket.

Then, in November 2006, some skeletal remains washed ashore at Taholah, a small unincorporated village on a Quinault Indian Reservation some 185 miles to the north of where he went missing.

Grays Harbor Sheriff’s Office and the local coroners tried to identify the remains, but with no success.

So, they were listed with the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System and eventually just became lost the queue of missing persons.

Until a revolutionary DNA testing lab stepped in…

Clarence Edwin Asher’s remains were eventually identified

In 2025, some forensic evidence was sent to Othram Labs in Texas, a company that is doing amazing things in DNA work.

They managed to create a profile, which eventually led them to determine that the remains were that of Asher.

Sadly, it was too late for his wife Helen, who died aged 85 in 2018, having had a ‘large hole’ left in her heart by his disappearance.

Asher was a legend in his local area, dedicating his life to the people of Fossil.

After working as a lineman for the local telephone company, as well as owning a variety store and volunteering as a fireman and ambulance driver, he became the mayor of the town before retiring in 1995.

He left behind 21 grandchildren and 17 great-grandchildren, according to his wife’s obituary.