Overview

• Griffith University and Indonesia’s BRIN unearthed seven chert flakes at the Calio site in South Sulawesi, dating them to at least 1.04 million years ago.
• The team applied paleomagnetic analysis of sandstone and uranium-series dating of a nearby pig fossil to confirm the tools’ age.
• The find extends Wallacea’s hominin record by over 800,000 years and indicates early sea crossings into the archipelago.
• The artifacts are simple, sharp-edged flakes likely used for general-purpose cutting and scraping tasks.
• No hominin fossils have been discovered at Calio, and researchers are planning further excavations to recover remains and identify the toolmakers.