LAOS: When modern humans first journeyed toward Australia, they stopped for a period in northern Laos. Luminescence dating of sediments in Tam Pà Ling Cave that contain human bones indicates that Homo sapiens arrived in Southeast Asia between 86,000 and 68,000 years ago, tens of thousands of years earlier than previously thought. The new research also suggests that people traveled not only along coastal routes and seaways but along inland river valleys as well.