Scientists discover oldest human fossil in Israel

TEL AVIV: Oldest-known human jawbone has recently been discovered in a cave in Israel which suggests that our ancestors left Africa far earlier than we had thought.

The fossil dates back to nearly 2000 years ago making it plausible to believe that the first humans migrated from Africa into Eurasia some 100,000 years ago, as opposed to the notions held previously that the migration took place 60,000 years back.

“What Misliya [cave] tells us is that modern humans left Africa not 100,000 years ago, but 200,000 years ago,” said Prof Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University. “This is a revolution in the way we understand the evolution of our own species.”

The find suggests that there were multiple waves of migration across Europe and Asia and could also mean that modern humans in the Middle East were mingling, and possibly mating, with other human species for tens of thousands of years.