Age of the oldest known Homo sapiens from eastern Africa

Céline M. Vidal (), Christine S. Lane, Asfawossen Asrat, Dan N. Barfod, Darren F. Mark, Emma L. Tomlinson, Amdemichael Zafu Tadesse, Gezahegn Yirgu, Alan Deino, William Hutchison, Aurélien Mounier and Clive Oppenheimer
Additional contact information
Céline M. Vidal: University of Cambridge
Christine S. Lane: University of Cambridge
Asfawossen Asrat: Addis Ababa University
Dan N. Barfod: University of Glasgow, SUERC
Darren F. Mark: University of Glasgow, SUERC
Emma L. Tomlinson: University of Dublin
Amdemichael Zafu Tadesse: Université Libre de Bruxelles
Gezahegn Yirgu: Addis Ababa University
Alan Deino: Berkeley Geochronology Center
William Hutchison: University of St Andrews
Aurélien Mounier: Musée de l’Homme
Clive Oppenheimer: University of Cambridge

Nature, 2022, vol. 601, issue 7894, 579-583

Abstract: Abstract Efforts to date the oldest modern human fossils in eastern Africa, from Omo-Kibish1–3 and Herto4,5 in Ethiopia, have drawn on a variety of chronometric evidence, including 40Ar/39Ar ages of stratigraphically associated tuffs. The ages that are generally reported for these fossils are around 197 thousand years (kyr) for the Kibish Omo I3,6,7, and around 160–155 kyr for the Herto hominins5,8. However, the stratigraphic relationships and tephra correlations that underpin these estimates have been challenged6,8. Here we report geochemical analyses that link the Kamoya’s Hominid Site (KHS) Tuff9, which conclusively overlies the member of the Omo-Kibish Formation that contains Omo I, with a major explosive eruption of Shala volcano in the Main Ethiopian Rift. By dating the proximal deposits of this eruption, we obtain a new minimum age for the Omo fossils of 233 ± 22 kyr. Contrary to previous arguments6,8, we also show that the KHS Tuff does not correlate with another widespread tephra layer, the Waidedo Vitric Tuff, and therefore cannot anchor a minimum age for the Herto fossils. Shifting the age of the oldest known Homo sapiens fossils in eastern Africa to before around 200 thousand years ago is consistent with independent evidence for greater antiquity of the modern human lineage10.

Date: 2022
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04275-8 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:nature:v:601:y:2022:i:7894:d:10.1038_s41586-021-04275-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-021-04275-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature is currently edited by Magdalena Skipper

More articles in Nature from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().