The 25th SPAFA SESH started around 1 pm and ended at 3 pm BKK time. The program flow was as follows: a brief introduction about the SESH, Dr Fabrice Demeter and Dr Debbie Argue’s presentations, and a short Q&A with the audience.
Dr Demeter talked about the early modern humans and Denisovans in northern Laos. He presented two cave sites in Laos, the Tam Pa Ling and Tam Ngu Hao 2. The Tam Pa Ling cave site contained remains (dated at least 70 ka ago) with morphological features of both archaic and modern humans. In the Tam Ngu Hao 2 cave site, they discovered a Middle Pleistocene molar tooth that possibly belonged to a Denisovan, based on the extracted DNA and its morphology.
Dr Argue mainly discussed the features of Homo floresiensis, theories about its origin, and the possibility that some archaic human populations originated in Southeast Asia.
If you joined us for the live broadcast of this SPAFA SESH, please complete the questionnaire (approximately 3 to 5 minutes) to help us improve future SPAFA SESHes: https://bit.ly/EvaluationForm_UpdatesonPaleoanthropologyinSEAsia
Date: 27 January 2023
Time: 1 p.m. (Bangkok time)
Online Platform: Facebook Live https://www.facebook.com/seameo.spafa/ and on *Zoom. *JOIN on the Zoom platform, here: https://bit.ly/SPAFA-SESH-Registration-Updates_on_Paleoanthropology_in_SEAsia)
Synopsis:
This SPAFA SESH will explore two prominent extinct species of archaic humans discovered in Southeast Asia, the Homo floresiensis and the Denisovans. Dr Debbie Argue‘s presentation will be about the features of Homo floresiensis – to see where this species fits on the human evolutionary tree and to look at the implications this has for our understanding of human evolution. Moreover, Dr Fabrice Demeter will discuss recent findings about the Denisovan DNA extracted from a molar found in northern Laos.
Guest Speakers: Dr Debbie Argue (Australian National University) and Dr Fabrice Demeter (Lundbeck Foundation GeoGenetics Centre)
Moderator: SEAMEO SPAFA Researchers, Supitcha Sutthanonkul and Anne Marie Valera
