The earliest modern humans outside Africa

Israel Hershkovitz (1) , Gerhard Weber (2) , Rolf Quam (3) , Mathieu Duval (4) , Rainer Grün (4) , Leslie Kinsley (5) , Avner Ayalon (6) , Miryam Bar-Matthews (6) , Helene Valladas (7, 8) , Norbert Mercier (9) , Juan Luis Arsuaga (10) , María Martinón-Torres (11, 12) , José María Bermúdez de Castro (11, 12) , Cinzia Fornai (2) , Laura Martín-Francés (11) , Rachel Sarig (1) , Hila May (1) , Viktoria Krenn (13) , Viviane Slon (1) , Laura Rodríguez (14) , Rebeca Garcia (14) , Carlos Lorenzo (15) , Jose Miguel Carretero (14) , Amos Frumkin (16) , Ruth Shahack-Gross (17) , Daniella Bar-Yosef Mayer (18) , Yaming Cui (19) , Xinzhi Wu (19) , Natan Peled (20) , Iris Groman-Yaroslavski (21) , Lior Weissbrod (21) , Reuven R. Yeshurun (21) , Alexander Tsatskin (21) , Yossi Zaidner (21) , Mina Weinstein-Evron (21)

1 Sackler Faculty of Medicine
2 Department of Anthropology [University of Vienna]
3 Binghamton University [SUNY]
4 ARCHE
5 ANU - Australian National University
6 GSI - Geological Survey of Israel
7 LSCE - Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement [Gif-sur-Yvette]
8 GEOTRAC - Géochrononologie Traceurs Archéométrie
9 IRAMAT-CRP2A - IRAMAT-Centre de recherche en physique appliquée à l’archéologie
10 UCM - Universidad Complutense de Madrid = Complutense University of Madrid [Madrid]
11 CENIEH - Centro Nacional de Investigación sobre la Evolución Humana
12 Department of Anthropology [University College of London]
13 University of Vienna [Vienna]
14 Universidad de Burgos
15 Universitat Rovira i Virgili
16 HUJ - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem
17 University of Haifa [Haifa]
18 TAU - Tel Aviv University
19 CAS - Chinese Academy of Sciences [Beijing]
20 Carmel Medical Center
21 Zinman Institute of Archaeology [Haifa]

To date, the earliest modern human fossils found outside of Africa are dated to around 90,000 to 120,000 years ago at the Levantine sites of Skhul and Qafzeh. A maxilla and associated dentition recently discovered at Misliya Cave, Israel, was dated to 177,000 to 194,000 years ago, suggesting that members of the Homo sapiens clade left Africa earlier than previously thought. This finding changes our view on modern human dispersal and is consistent with recent genetic studies, which have posited the possibility of an earlier dispersal of Homo sapiens around 220,000 years ago. The Misliya maxilla is associated with full-fledged Levallois technology in the Levant, suggesting that the emergence of this technology is linked to the appearance of $Homo\ sapiens$ in the region, as has been documented in Africa.

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Biodiversity; Populations and Evolution [q-bio.PE]; Humanities and Social Sciences; History

Israel Hershkovitz, Gerhard Weber, Rolf Quam, Mathieu Duval, Rainer Grün, et al.. The earliest modern humans outside Africa. Science, 2018, 359 (6374), pp.456 - 459. ⟨10.1126/science.aap8369⟩. ⟨cea-01886188⟩