Thanks to a new fossil discovered in Saudi Arabia, scientists now have reason to believe humanity began to spread across the planet much earlier than first estimated.
Science News reports on anthropological digging happening at Al Wusta in the Nefud desert. During the dig, a fossilized finger bone found to be from a human was unearthed, dated to be around 86,000 years old.
Both the age and location of this fossil are quite significant, as it seemingly destroys the long held belief by the scientific community that humanity did not migrate out of Africa until roughly 60,000 years ago. Because of the bone’s age, as well as the fact it’s located deep into Saudi Arabia, this can only mean that humans have been moving around since millennia prior to when we first believed.
According to archaeologists Huw Groucutt and Michael Petraglia who led the dig team, this is the oldest known human fossil ever found outside of Africa to date. As far as location goes, this makes some sense, as the Al Wusta region was actually water-rich and human friendly during the time the fossil was dated to come from, making it an ideal place for people to settle down.
This fossil’s discovery came with several others, including hundreds of stone tools and animal bones. Even so, the actual information about the fossil or its owner is quite minimal so far, with little known other than the fact it likely came from the middle finger of an adult human.
Another major revelation this fossil indicates is that, rather than migrate in one or so large movements, humans likely traveled out of Africa several times in different groups. Given the fossil’s age and the age of fossils found elsewhere, this would have to be the case for the timelines to match up easily. The current theory holds that this was possible due to periods of increased rainfall providing the ideal conditions for movement between continents.
What more we might be able to learn from this fossil has not yet been uncovered, though further research into it and the dig site it was uncovered from will no doubt carry on well into the future.
