A paper, published on October 4th in World Archaeology, details exciting finds in the Xiaoma Caves in Taiwan. A 6,000-year-old skull and leg bones prove the existence of an ancient Indigenous people in Taiwan.

The research paper was titled “Negritos in Taiwan and the wider prehistory of Southeast Asia: new discovery from the Xiaoma Caves.” And was compiled by an archeological research team. The team had researchers from Australia, Japan, Taiwan, and Vietnam.

Local legends confirmed

The skull and femur bones along with some other artifacts prove the stories passed down through generations of Taiwanese are true. This is the first real proof that an ancient tribe of short, dark-skinned people that lived in the Xiaoma Caves region of the islands.

It had long been speculated that there were Indigenous Southeast Asians known as “Negritos” in northern Luzon. This study resolves the pre-recorded history mystery of the ‘little black people’ that once lived amongst the Formosan Austronesian tribes.

"The cranial morphometric study of human skeletal remains unearthed from the Xiaoma Caves in eastern Taiwan, for the first time, validates the prior existence of small-stature hunter-gatherers 6000 years ago in the preceramic phase," the research team explained.

Ancient finds uncovered in Xiaoma Caves 

The research team believes the archaeology find confirms the existence of the ancient people in Taiwan. There are still questions about what happened to the Negritos. They had disappeared by the time other early Austronesian groups arrived in the area.

Some groups believe they were descended from the Xiaoma Cave dwellers. In other legends the “people of the mountains” were enemies. There is also some evidence that the ancient people were killed off around 1,000 years ago.

The researchers point out that small, dark-skinned people were mentioned in documents from the Qin Dynasty. And most of the 16 Austronesian groups living in Taiwan today have handed-down stories describing small, dark-skinned people who once lived in the mountain caves.

A study of the DNA from the skull shows it is genetically linked to African samples of the same period. The skull's size and shape closely resemble that of a people who once lived in South Africa. And also, in the Philippines.

A study of the bones confirms that the person was around 4 ft. tall. And had a small body size. 

"The observations of the Xiaoma burial remains, together with 258 traditional Austronesian legends, indicate that ‘little dark people at one time had lived in Taiwan, resembling the Negrito groups in Southeast Asia," the abstract confirms.