Researchers were astonished to discover the oldest remains that could extend the timeline of humanity by an additional 30,000 years.
New discovery could change human history. Photo: SWNS
This discovery is significant for the archaeological community, as these artifacts demonstrate that modern humans appeared on Earth approximately 230,000 years earlier than previously known. Although the fossil, known as “Omo I,” was discovered in Ethiopia in 1967, scientists have struggled to accurately estimate the age of these remains.
Now, an international team of experts led by researchers from the University of Cambridge has determined that this fossil is much older than earlier calculations suggested. They arrived at this conclusion by dating the chemical traces of volcanic ash found above and below the sediment layer where the fossils were located.
The lead author of the study, Dr. Céline Vidal, stated, “Using these methods, the generally accepted age of the Omo fossil is under 200,000 years, but there is still a lot of uncertainty surrounding this figure.”
During this four-year project, Dr. Vidal and her colleagues aimed to date all major volcanic eruptions in the Ethiopian Rift around the time Homo sapiens emerged, during the Late Middle Pleistocene.
The research team collected pumice samples from volcanic sediments and ground them down to sizes smaller than a millimeter. Dr. Vidal explained, “Each eruption has its own distinct traces; you have to identify them along the magma path. After grinding the rock, you release the minerals inside, and then you can date them and identify the chemical signatures of the volcanic glass that holds the minerals together.”
Co-author of the study, Professor Asfawossen Asrat from Addis Ababa University in Ethiopia, noted, “Upon closer examination of the stratigraphy of the Omo Kibish Formation, particularly the ash layers, we found that we need to push back the age of the oldest Homo sapiens in the area by at least 230,000 years.”
Co-author Dr. Aurélien Mounier added, “Unlike other Middle Pleistocene fossils believed to belong to the early stage of the Homo sapiens lineage, Omo I exhibits clear modern human traits, such as a rounded skull and a chin. In fact, the new dating estimate makes it the oldest Homo sapiens in Africa.”
