Hominins are likely to have left Africa far earlier than thought, scientists say
Paris — The remains of crudely fashioned stone tools unearthed in China advances the presence of human ancestors in Asia by about 200 millennia to 2.1-million years ago, scientists said on Wednesday. If correctly dated, the find means that hominins — the group of humans and our extinct forefather species — left Africa earlier than archaeologists have been able to demonstrate thus far, a team reported in the scientific journal Nature. "Our discovery means that it is necessary now to reconsider the timing of when early humans left Africa," said study co-author Robin Dennell of Exeter University in England. Hominins are believed to have emerged in Africa more than six-million years ago. They left the continent in several migration waves starting about two-million years ago. The first migrants were likely members of the species Homo erectus (upright man) or Homo ergaster (working man) — extinct predecessors of our own group, Homo sapiens (wise man), which first emerged about 300,000 yea...
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