the fossilised teeth up close. looks like toes

Ancient jaw bone found in Israel shows modern humans left Africa 180,000 years ago

Modern humans were wandering out of Africa at least 180,000 years ago — some 60,000 years earlier than previously thought.

Key points:

  • Oldest evidence for Homo sapiens outside Africa was found in a cave in Israel
  • A partial jaw bone, teeth and stone tools were dated to around 180,000 years old
  • The fossil find raises the possibility that modern humans migrated to Europe much earlier than thought

The new migration date comes after ancient stone tools and part of a fossilised Homo sapiens jaw bone with teeth were discovered in a cave in northern Israel.

Until now, the oldest evidence for modern humans outside Africa were only 90,000 to 120,000 years old.

The fossil jaw and tools, presented today in the journal Science, challenges currently accepted ideas about how modern humans dispersed from Africa, according to Peter Hiscock, an archaeologist at the University of Sydney.

 

Read the full article by Belinda Smith at ABC News.