Nature | Vol 577 | 16 January 2020 | 381Article
Last appearance of Homo erectus at
Ngandong, Java, 117,000–108,000 years ago
Yan Rizal1,21, Kira E. Westaway2,21*, Yahdi Zaim^1 , Gerrit D. van den Bergh^3 , E. Arthur Bettis III^4 ,
Michael J. Morwood3,22, O. Frank Huffman^5 , Rainer Grün^6 , Renaud Joannes-Boyau^7 ,
Richard M. Bailey^8 , Sidarto^9 , Michael C. Westaway6,1 0, Iwan Kurniawan^9 , Mark W. Moore^11 ,
Michael Storey^12 , Fachroel Aziz^9 , Suminto9,22, Jian-xin Zhao^13 , Aswan^1 , Maija E. Sipola^14 ,
Roy Larick^15 , John-Paul Zonneveld^16 , Robert Scott^17 , Shelby Putt1 8,1 9 & Russell L. Ciochon^20 *Homo erectus is the founding early hominin species of Island Southeast Asia, and
reached Java (Indonesia) more than 1.5 million years ago^1 ,^2. Twelve H. erectus calvaria
(skull caps) and two tibiae (lower leg bones) were discovered from a bone bed located
about 20 m above the Solo River at Ngandong (Central Java) between 1931 and 1933^3 ,^4 ,
and are of the youngest, most-advanced form of H. erectus^5 –^8. Despite the importance
of the Ngandong fossils, the relationship between the fossils, terrace fill and ages have
been heavily debated^9 –^14. Here, to resolve the age of the Ngandong evidence, we use
Bayesian modelling of 52 radiometric age estimates to establish—to our knowledge—
the first robust chronology at regional, valley and local scales. We used uranium-series
dating of speleothems to constrain regional landscape evolution; luminescence,(^40) argon/ (^39) argon ( (^40) Ar/ (^39) Ar) and uranium-series dating to constrain the sequence of
terrace evolution; and applied uranium-series and uranium series–electron-spin
resonance (US–ESR) dating to non-human fossils to directly date our re-excavation of
Ngandong^5 ,^15. We show that at least by 500 thousand years ago (ka) the Solo River was
diverted into the Kendeng Hills, and that it formed the Solo terrace sequence between
316 and 31 ka and the Ngandong terrace between about 140 and 92 ka. Non-human
fossils recovered during the re-excavation of Ngandong date to between 109 and
106 ka (uranium-series minimum)^16 and 134 and 118 ka (US–ESR), with modelled ages
of 117 to 108 thousand years (kyr) for the H. erectus bone bed, which accumulated
during flood conditions^3 ,^17. These results negate the extreme ages that have been
proposed for the site and solidify Ngandong as the last known occurrence of this long-
lived species.
Our current understanding of H. erectus in Asia largely derives from
evidence from the Solo River region of central Java in the Indonesian
archipelago^7. However, this region presents great challenges to con-
structing solid chronologies for hominin occupation, evolution and
dispersal^9. These problems relate to finding appropriate materials
for dating, confusion over the location of previous excavations and
find spots, a lack of direct association between the fossils and material
being dated, taphonomic differences within the faunal assemblages,
reworking of surrounding fluvial deposits and fossils and the leaching of
uranium from the fossils being dated. Nowhere are these complications
and misperceptions more apparent than at the site of Ngandong^12 ,^18 –^20.
In 1996, late-Pleistocene age estimates from uranium-series (U-series)
and ESR dating were reported for mammalian bone within the 20-m
terrace fill at Ngandong and other nearby localities^9. These unexpect-
edly young results (corresponding to ages of 53 to 27 kyr) triggered
debate regarding the taphonomy of the Ngandong fossil assemblage
and the sedimentological context of the dated material^12. More dating
followed: direct gamma-spectrometric^230 Th/^234 U dating of H. erectus
https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1863-2
Received: 29 May 2019
Accepted: 4 November 2019
Published online: 18 December 2019
(^1) Department of Geology, Institute of Technology Bandung, Bandung, Indonesia. (^2) Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia.
(^3) Centre for Archaeological Science, School of Earth, Atmospheric and Life Sciences, University of Wollongong, Wollongong, New South Wales, Australia. (^4) Department of Earth and
Environmental Sciences, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.^5 Department of Anthropology, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA.^6 Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution
(ARCHE), Environmental Futures Research Institute, Griffith University, Nathan, Queensland, Australia.^7 Southern Cross GeoScience, Southern Cross University, Lismore, New South Wales,
Australia.^8 School of Geography and the Environment, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK.^9 Geology Museum, Geological Agency, Bandung, Indonesia.^10 School of Social Science, University of
Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.^11 Archaeology and Palaeoanthropology, University of New England, Armidale, New South Wales, Australia.^12 Quadlab, Natural History Museum of
Denmark, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark.^13 School of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia.^14 Chemistry and
Geology Department, Minnesota State University, Mankato, MN, USA.^15 Bluestone Heights, Shore Cultural Center, Cleveland, OH, USA.^16 Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences,
University of Alberta, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.^17 Department of Anthropology and Center for Human Evolutionary Studies, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ, USA.^18 The Stone Age
Institute, Indiana University, Bloomington, IN, USA.^19 Department of Sociology and Anthropology, Illinois State University, Normal, IL, USA.^20 Department of Anthropology and Museum of
Natural History, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA.^21 These authors contributed equally: Yan Rizal, Kira E. Westaway.^22 Deceased: Michael J. Morwood, Suminto. *e-mail: kira.westaway@mq.
edu.au; [email protected]