A tiny ancient human that lived on Luzon Island in the Philippines over 50,000 years ago died at the age of 31 , according to a young analysis of the specimen ’s teeth . Belonging to the speciesHomo luzonensis , the miniature hominid was probably less than 1.2 meters ( 4 base ) tall when fully grown and may have partake in some of its characteristics with modern - mean solar day chimpanzees .

To date , the only traces ever found of this strangediminutive humanare in the form of a few hand and invertebrate foot bones and a scattering of dentition , all of which were discovered at Luzon ’s Callao Cave . Belonging to three separate individuals , the oldest remains are think to have a minimum age of 67,000 years , while some of the teeth have been go steady to at least 50,000 old age ago .

In an as - yet un - peer review study , investigator describe how they used synchrotron radiation therapy imaging to count the annual cementum lines in three teeth from a single individual . In doing so , they noticed thatH. luzonensishad a dental eruption rule similar to that of chimps , but which is also present in about five percent of the mod human population .

This , in play , suggest that the coinage might have had an ape - comparable developmental pattern . Assuming this to be the instance , the cement lines present in the specimen ’s dentition show that it reach the august old age of 31 .

utter to IFLScience , study author Dr Anneke van Heteren explained that “ this is the first time we ’ve used multiple tooth from the same mortal to find something out about the developmental pattern , in this event of a metal money that we do n’t know much about because we ’ve only got a duet of digit and toe bones , part of a juvenile thigh bone and a couple of tooth . ”

Because developmental pattern is correlate with traits like brain size , life expectancy and age at first reproduction , the results of this study convey us closer to sympathise more about the physiology ofH. luzonensis . For instance , if the specie really did exhibit chimp - similar development then “ a lot of the life history trait might have been more exchangeable to apes or perhaps average between humans and emulator , ” van Heteren says .

“ So you would expect age of first breeding to be sooner , you would expect them to stop develop sooner than modern human beings , and you would also expect them to die sooner than modern humans . ”

For now , though , van Heteren order that such assumptions are “ just speculation ” as it ’s impossible to retrace the animation account of a species from a single individual . “ To draw end about an entire species we feel is too speculative at the moment but it ’s something that is theoretically possible in the future if we have more information from more specimen , ” she says .

“ If you have more individuals you’re able to depart saying matter about life expectancy – is it normal for them to die in their thirties or was he or she a very old or a very untried individual to die at that age ? ” . Bearing in mind that we do n’t know if this specimen died of rude causes , it ’s far too soon to start making any generalisation about this enigmatic species .

In their write - up , the author draw some interesting comparisons betweenH. luzonensisandHomo floresiensis – another island - brood miniature hominid that lived in Indonesia until about 50,000 years ago . Despite the late disappearance of the species , analyses have suggest that it had abrain sizecomparable to that of chimpanzees , thus establish the opening that the same could be truthful of the ancient inhabitants of Luzon .

The subject field is presently uncommitted as a preprint onbioRxiv .