Fig 1.
Map of southeast Asia indicating the location of the Trader’s Cave and the Pleistocene archaic human and early H. sapiens sites discussed in the text.
Imagery reproduced from the GEBCO_2024 Grid, GEBCO Compilation Group (2022) GEBCO_2024 Grid (https://doi.org/10.5285/e0f0bb80-ab44-2739-e053-6c86abc0289c) which is in the public domain and may be used free of charge (https://www.gebco.net/data-products/gridded-bathymetry/terms-of-use).
Fig 2.
A. View north from the southern-most entrance to the cave; B. View northwest from central-east wall of the cave overlooking the two excavation areas taken during 2025 (Location A is in the foreground and Location B in the background); and C. Location A excavations at the end of the 2019 field campaign.
Fig 3.
Harrisson test excavation trench in the Trader’s Cave (photographed in 2025, view looking north).
The wooden poles are from the historic birds nest trader’s camp in the cave.
Fig 4.
Representative OSL growth curve and decay curve (above) and De values of the OSL plotted on a radial plot (below) for sample NJU-2763.
Table 1.
Comparative samples used for metric analysis (note: complete dataset available in S3 Table).
Table 2.
Results of Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL) dating.
Table 3.
Results of AMS 14C dating.
Table 4.
Results of uranium-series (U-Th) dating.
Fig 5.
Plan of the Trader’s Cave highlighting the location of the excavation trenches for Location A and the single test pit for Location B.
Table 5.
Description of sediment layers documented in east section wall of trench S2E3.
Fig 6.
Section profiles for Trench A (North and East walls) and Trench AA (East wall) indicating OSL and AMS 14C dating results.
Table 6.
Metric dimensions of SMD-TC-AA210.
Table 7.
Comparison of the crown mesiodistal and labiolingual diameters of SMD-TC-AA210†.
Table 8.
Comparison of the crown area and crown shape index of SMD-TC-AA210†.
Fig 7.
Specimen SMD-TC-AA210 (RI1) in labial (left), lingual (middle left), left lateral (middle right) and occulal (right) views.
A: photographic image of the tooth. B: Rendered model of external surface from Micro-CT scans. C: Rendered model of enamel-dentine junction from Micro-CT scans.
Fig 8.
Mesiodistal and labiolingual diameters in SMD-TC-AA210 and comparative samples.
Key: Late H. sapiens = Sri Lanka Recent, Hungry Medieval, Niah Caves Metal Age, European Mesolithic, West Malaysian Late Prehistroic and Eurasian Upper Palaeolithic; Early H. sapiens = Middle Palaeoltihic Humans. The remainder of the samples are defined in Table 1.