The earliest modern humans outside Africa - CEA - Commissariat à l’énergie atomique et aux énergies alternatives Access content directly
Journal Articles Science Year : 2018

The earliest modern humans outside Africa

Israel Hershkovitz
Rolf Quam
Mathieu Duval
Rainer Grün
  • Function : Author
Rachel Sarig
Hila May
Viktoria Krenn
Viviane Slon
Rebeca Garcia
Yaming Cui
  • Function : Author
  • PersonId : 1037029

Abstract

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.

Dates and versions

cea-01886188 , version 1 (01-07-2021)

Identifiers

Cite

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⟩
184 View
0 Download

Altmetric

Share

Gmail Facebook Twitter LinkedIn More