Fragments of a human skull found at Tam Pa Ling Cave in Laos have been dated to between 46,000 and 63,000 years old.
Notes on verification
Confirmed by original 2012 PNAS paper and multiple independent corroborating sources including follow-up peer-reviewed studies (2015, 2017, 2023). Minor scholarly debate over stratigraphic interpretation exists but does not undermine the core dating range, which remains the consensus figure in subsequent literature.
Sources
- Digs & Discoveries - Settling Southeast Asia - Archaeology Magazine - November/December 2012 (archaeology.org)
- https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.1208104109 (pnas.org)
- https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-oldest-human-fossils-in-southeast-asia-16207900/ (smithsonianmag.com)
- https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0121193 (journals.plos.org)
- https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2023/june/fossils-reveal-early-modern-humans-southeast-asia-77000-years-ago.html (nhm.ac.uk)