A study on two spotted hyena teeth that were found in the southern province of Krabi two years ago has confirmed a theory that the southern region was dominated by savannah vegetation 200,000 years ago, according to a fossil expert from Chulalongkorn University.
Kantapon Suraprasit, a lecturer with the Faculty of Science's Department of Geology, said the discovery has made more likely a theory that Thailand was once part of a path that ancient humans took to get from Africa to Australia.
Speaking at a press briefing, Mr Kantapon said the research team has spent a lot of time proving the theories that savannah territory existed in southern Thailand.
To do so, they compared isotopes belonging to the ancient hyenas with those from current ones found in Africa.
The results of the study were published last month in Quaternary Science Reviews.
"It could be confirmed that the southern part of Thailand was made up of savannah and rainforest before the last ice age," he said.
He said his team would conduct more studies on fossils found in a cave in Krabi province, in the hope they will turn out to be human fossils.
If they are, it will prove that ancient humans had once taken the savannah route from Africa through Thailand, Indonesia and Australia, and that it would be the first-ever evidence to conclude such a belief.
On May 30, 2017, a group of local people found fossils in Yai Ruak Cave in Krabi's Ao Luk district and contacted the department for their examination.
The team found that they belonged to a Malayan porcupine, sambar deer, Javan rhinoceros and spotted hyena. All the fossils were from the animals' teeth.
The animals were expected to have lived 80,000 to 200,000 years ago, the period that is known as the middle to late Pleistocene or the last ice age.
The researchers said the fossils could have been carried by water currents to the cave.
They also said the weight of the spotted hyena was likely around 20kg, which is the size of the present-day hyenas in Africa. Africa is the only place in the world that hyenas currently inhabit, he said.
Sommai Techawan, chief of the Department of Mineral Resources, said the department plans to make the cave an official survey and research site under the Fossil Act.
The department also plans to work with the local administrative organisation to develop it as a tourism-learning site.