(KPL) Ancient human fossils aged around 11,000 years old have been found in Luang Prabang province, said an archaeologist.

Dr. Joyce C White, who is also Senior Research Scientist at University of Pennsylvania, the United States, held a press conference here last week saying the Middle Mekong Archaeological Project (MMAP) with co-operation with the Heritage Department, the Ministry of Culture and Information and the University of Pennsylvania, had found five ancient human fossils in Vangtaleo Cave, Ban Phadeng Neung, Luang Prabang district in the same name province.

The discovery was the oldest human fossils ever found on the earth, said Dr. White.
In 2007, MMAP discovered a grave with ancient human fossils identified to have at least 1,800 years old in Phouphakhao Cave in Phonesavad village, Luang Prabang district, Luang Prabang province.

The Middle Mekong Archaeological Project in Laos was approved by the government in 2005. It is a survey conducted along three rivers such as Nam Khane, Nam Seuang and Nam Ou in Luang Prabang. A few months after its approval the project discovered 58 ancient caves in the province.

A rock rat discovered in Laos in 1998 has turned out to be a "fossil species" - the sole survivor of a family thought to have disappeared 11 million years ago.

The little rodent has the face of a mouse and the furry tail of a squirrel. Watch a video of the Laotian rock rat in action. It was discovered by biologists in markets in Laos 1998, where it was skewered, roasted and sold (see Strange new rodent discovered as Asian snack).

In 2005, researchers at the Natural History Museum in London, UK, suggested that the rodent marked the discovery of a whole new mammalian family and was a relative of guinea pigs, African mole rats and porcupines.

But six months later, other researchers disputed this, suggesting that the Laotian rock rat was not part of a new family but a very old one: the Diatomyidae, which was thought to have gone extinct 11 million years ago. However, that work was based solely on fossil data and so was controversial, according to Dorothee Huchon at Tel Aviv University in Israel.


Photo: The Gundi, of which there are just five known species - all in Africa - are the Laotian rock rat's closest living relative (Image: David Redfield/Uthai Treesucon/Florida State University)...more info and photos

Huchon set about resolving the issue by studying the family tree of the Laotian rock rat, Laonastes aenigmamus, using seven genes. The team compared the genes in the rock rat to those in all major taxonomic groups of living rodents in order to build up a picture of where it fit in the evolutionary tree. "The data we got is really, really strong," she says. "We can rule out that Laonastes is most closely related to guinea pigs."

Huchon says her study strongly supports the theory that Laonastes is the only known survivor of the Diatomyidae family. The team was also able to estimate that the Diatomyidae diverged from their closest living relatives, gundis (see picture, right), 44 million years ago.

Journal reference: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0701289104)

environment.newscientist.com