The skull of the woman from Tam Pa Ling
63,000 years ago a woman lived among the forested hills of northern Laos. We know because her final resting place was Tam Pa Ling (The Cave of Monkeys) where the remains of her skull were found in 2008.
Finding her was a major archaeological discovery as she is the oldest definitively dated modern human found in Asia.
And though at first glance there's precious little of it, the woman from Tam Pa Ling's skull speaks volumes.
It shows no sign of being elongated, or possessing large, bony brow ridges above the eye sockets—features typical of archaic humans like Homo neanderthalensis and Homo erectus.
Instead, her skull possesses a beautifully smooth, rounded brain case that is typical of modern humans.
Her existence is proof modern people arrived in Southeast Asia at least 20,000 years earlier than previously thought.
And given that her remains were found deep within landlocked present-day Laos, the woman from Tam Pa Ling suggests that people traveled to Asia by following rivers like the Mekong.