The National Museum of Natural Science in Taiwan has unearthed a jawbone from an ancient human ancestor in the Pescadores trench off the western coast of the island.

According to a team of scientists, the jawbone, of an adult Pescadores primitive, is between 190,000 and 450,000 years old and presumably older than Zuozhen man, the ancestor of aboriginals on the island.

By virtue of the abundant natural resources in Taiwan, Pescadores primitives retained most features of the Homo Erectus, an extinct species of early man that lived throughout most of the Pleistocene era.

The topic is being researched by the National Museum of Natural Science along with Japanese and Australian experts, while the Pescadores jawbone will be put on display at the museum, in Taichung city, from February 2015.