The Philippines, Indonesia, and Timor-Leste were never connected to the Asian mainland during the Paleolithic era.
Notes on verification
Strongly supported by mainstream biogeographic and paleogeographic scholarship for Wallacea (Indonesia's eastern islands) and Timor-Leste, and for the majority of the Philippine archipelago. However, Palawan is a documented exception, having been intermittently connected to Borneo/Sunda Shelf during the Pleistocene, which introduces a caveat to the blanket claim about 'the Philippines.' [cascade flags: wikipedia_dropped_other_sources_exist | tier=silver indep_score=1.0 clusters=2 claim_tier=notable | framework convergence=partial on Sunda Shelf/Wallacea/Sahul Shelf paleogeographic model based on bathymetry and sea-level reconstructions (upstreams: Wallace Line/Huxley Line biogeographic boundary studies, Voris 2000 sea-level/shelf mapping, Heaney 1985 zoogeographic studies) — publishers independent, evidence may not be | kind=empirical eligibility=high]
Sources
- News - Humans in Southeast Asia 40,000 Years Ago May Have Been Skilled Seafarers - Archaeology Magazine (seed:history_and_archaeology)
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0277379105001617 (corroboration)
- https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/full/10.1086/694252 (corroboration)
- https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0031018225004717 (corroboration)