Fed: New fossil dates show humans could be much older

AAP General News (Australia)
02-17-2005
Fed: New fossil dates show humans could be much older

An Australian scientist has made a discovery which shows the human race could be almost
200,000 years old.

Geochronologist Professor IAN MCDOUGALL, from the Australian National University, has
dated fossilised skulls from Ethiopia at 195,000 years old.

That's 40,000 years older than the existing oldest known human remains in the world.

The remains from the Kibish Formation, adjacent to the Omo River in southern Ethiopia,
were originally discovered by palaentologists in 1967, and previously thought to be 130,000
years old.

But scientists at the time were unsure of the validity of the dating, believing it
was unlikely modern humans lived more than 100,000 years ago.



The details have been published in the Nature journal.

AAP RTV jab/sb/jv/rt

KEYWORD: HUMANS (CANBERRA)

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