According to a study published May 15 in the journal Quaternary Environments and Humans, life for the Javanese H. erectus wasn’t always as lonely as we thought. Scouring the material ultimately yielded around 6,000 fossil specimens from ancient fish, reptiles, and mammals–including the unexpected pair of H. erectus skull fragments. Strikingly, the bones the team found even have evidence of butchery by H. erectus. While this contrasts with earlier Javanese H. erectus populations, it had previously been documented in more modern human species who lived on the Asian mainland. According to the study’s authors, this indicates that Sundaland’s H. erectus may have learned those techniques from them.