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Scientists Discover the Oldest Human Fossils Outside Africa (npr.org)
Archaeologists in Israel have discovered the oldest fossil of a modern human outside Africa, suggesting that humans first migrated out of the content much earlier than previously believed. NPR reports: The scientists were digging in a cave called Misliya, on the slopes of Mount Carmel on the northern coast of Israel. "The cave is one of a series of prehistoric caves," says Mina Weinstein-Evron of the Zinman Institute of Archaeology at the University of Haifa, who led the team. "It's a collapsed cave, but people lived there before it collapsed." The cave had been occupied for several hundred thousand years, she says. All the archaeological evidence suggested that the ancient people who lived in the cave were hunter-gatherers. "They were hunting animals, mainly ungulates, like fallow dear, gazelle, aurochs [an extinct species of wild cattle] and other small animals," says Weinstein-Evron. "They built fireplaces throughout the length of the cave, again and again, in the same place, in the same sort of defined arrangement."
Weinstein-Evron says she and her team wanted to find out which species of ancient humans lived in the cave. So, she says, they kept digging. "And among the animal bones and flint tools we found a jawbone, an upper jawbone of an individual," she says. A detailed analysis of the jawbone and the teeth confirmed that it indeed belonged to someone of our species, Homo sapiens. And when they dated the fossil, it turned out to be between 177,000 and 194,000 years old, making it the oldest known such fossil outside the African continent.
Weinstein-Evron says she and her team wanted to find out which species of ancient humans lived in the cave. So, she says, they kept digging. "And among the animal bones and flint tools we found a jawbone, an upper jawbone of an individual," she says. A detailed analysis of the jawbone and the teeth confirmed that it indeed belonged to someone of our species, Homo sapiens. And when they dated the fossil, it turned out to be between 177,000 and 194,000 years old, making it the oldest known such fossil outside the African continent.
Ahem, from the introduction of the first article you linked (emphasis mine): "the first wave took place between 130,000 and 115,000 years ago via northern Africa, and appears to have mostly died out or retreated".
Besides that, there is a lot of evidence that early humans migrated back and forth from Africa, multiple times.
I thought the first humans didn't leave Africa until about 60,000 years ago. This has been stated authoritatively again and again. Now it seems it is 117,000 years to 194,000 years. What an error rate. My guess is the methods they are using for dating materials is a complete joke, but no one likes to admit it.
Your thought was wrong.
About 60,000 years ago was when the ancestors of the current modern human population outside of Africa departed.
This says nothing at all about earlier, short distance emigrations that died out, which is what this research describes. It is only 250 miles from this cave to Africa.
Guessing in ignorance is a fruitless activity. Try doing some research on the topic next time.
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