The late Middle Pleistocene Homo erectus of the Madura Strait, first hominin fossils from submerged Sundaland

Eastern Asia yielded a rich fossil record of Pleistocene hominins, ranging from Homo erectus and the diminutive island species Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis , to post- erectus grade late archaic Homo (including Denisovans), and finally to anatomically modern humans. The Sunda Shelf played an important role in the dispersal and evolution of hominin populations. The shelf has been widely exposed during most of the Pleistocene, forming a landmass known as Sundaland. Today, the area holds the world’s largest shelf sea. Thus far, hominin fossils from submerged Sundaland were not available. Here we report on the finding of two hominin cranial fragments from the submerged Sunda Shelf, retrieved during a dredging work in the Madura Strait, off the Java coast. The specimens derive from the sandy fill of a late Middle Pleistocene submerged valley of the Solo River and consist of a frontal fragment and a parietal fragment. Metric and morphological comparisons with Pleistocene skulls from the Asian mainland, Java and Flores point to a relation with the late Homo erectus of Java, in particular with the crania from Sambungmacan. The Madura Strait hominins were probably part of an MIS6 population that lived along the Solo, which in this period continued eastward over the exposed shelf area of the Madura Strait. Probably, the large perennial rivers of Sundaland offered good living conditions for Homo erectus , in a late Middle Pleistocene climate setting that was relatively dry.

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Publication Details

Journal
Quaternary Environments and Humans
Published
2025-05-15
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.qeh.2025.100068
Citations
7
Primary Topic
Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
79.42

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article

The late Middle Pleistocene Homo erectus of the Madura Strait, first hominin fossils from submerged Sundaland

Josephine C.A. Joordens, H.W.K. Berghuis, Shinatria Adhityatama, Unggul Prasetyo Wibowo et al.
7 citations
Quaternary Environments and Humans
Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
79.42
article

The late Middle Pleistocene Homo erectus of the Madura Strait, first hominin fossils from submerged Sundaland

Josephine C.A. Joordens, H.W.K. Berghuis, Shinatria Adhityatama, Unggul Prasetyo Wibowo, Sofwan Noerwidi, Gerrit D. van den Bergh, Eduard Pop, Rusyad Adi Suriyanto, A. Veldkamp, Thijs van Kolfschoten, Indra Sutisna, Yousuke Kaifu, Iwan Kurniawan
article en
7 citations

Abstract

Eastern Asia yielded a rich fossil record of Pleistocene hominins, ranging from Homo erectus and the diminutive island species Homo floresiensis and Homo luzonensis , to post- erectus grade late archaic Homo (including Denisovans), and finally to anatomically modern humans. The Sunda Shelf played an important role in the dispersal and evolution of hominin populations. The shelf has been widely exposed during most of the Pleistocene, forming a landmass known as Sundaland. Today, the area holds the world’s largest shelf sea. Thus far, hominin fossils from submerged Sundaland were not available. Here we report on the finding of two hominin cranial fragments from the submerged Sunda Shelf, retrieved during a dredging work in the Madura Strait, off the Java coast. The specimens derive from the sandy fill of a late Middle Pleistocene submerged valley of the Solo River and consist of a frontal fragment and a parietal fragment. Metric and morphological comparisons with Pleistocene skulls from the Asian mainland, Java and Flores point to a relation with the late Homo erectus of Java, in particular with the crania from Sambungmacan. The Madura Strait hominins were probably part of an MIS6 population that lived along the Solo, which in this period continued eastward over the exposed shelf area of the Madura Strait. Probably, the large perennial rivers of Sundaland offered good living conditions for Homo erectus , in a late Middle Pleistocene climate setting that was relatively dry.

Quaternary Environments and HumansVol. 3(2)
Griffith University (AU), Diponegoro University (ID), Leiden University (NL), Naturalis Biodiversity Center (NL), Bandung Institute of Technology (ID), Universitas Gadjah Mada (ID), Qingdao Binhai University (CN), University of Wollongong (AU), Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (NL), University of Tokyo Hospital (JP), Direktorat Jenderal Peternakan dan Kesehatan Hewan (ID), Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (DE), Department of Cultural Heritage (LT), Ministry of Education and Culture (ID), Pusat Penelitian Arkeologi Nasional (ID), The University of Tokyo (JP), University of Twente (NL)
Badan Riset dan Inovasi Nasional, Universiteit Leiden, Koninklijke Nederlandse Akademie van Wetenschappen, Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek, University of Tokyo, Japan Society for the Promotion of Science
Life below water
Openalex Percentile: Top 0%
Pleistocene-Era Hominins and Archaeology
79.42
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