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Richard Farr

Early Homo sapiens – we were wrong, again!

In the timeline at the end of Infinity’s Illusion, which isn’t even officially published until next week, I apologize slightly for stretching the known facts, as follows (with emphasis added):

130-75,000 BCE: Some H. sapiens leave Africa for the Middle East, possibly in multiple waves, and spread north and east into Europe and Asia. (60-40,000 BCE was given as a plausible ‘Out of Africa’ date for H. sapiens until recently; anything before 75,000 BCE remains controversial, but is supported by some recent genetic and tool evidence.)

Now it turns out that the earlier, more “speculative” dates are hopelessly conservative: a primitive but undoubtedly H. sapiens jawbone has been found in a cave in Israel … and the date range is 177,000 – 194,000 years old.

So cool. Until recently, they thought the species had barely got going in Africa 194,000 years ago. Rewrite the textbooks!

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