Human ancestors may have left Africa earlier

EARLY ancestors of modern humans may have left Africa far earlier than was previously thought, new research suggests.

Stone tools unearthed in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) imply that pioneering groups of homo sapiens arrived on the Arabian Peninsula as long as 125,000 years ago.

Until now, most evidence has pointed to an exodus 60,000 years ago along the Mediterranean Sea or Arabian coast.

Scientists found what they describe as an “ancient human toolkit” at the Jebel Faya archaeological site.

It included primitive hand-axes along with scrapers and perforators, and resembled technology used by early humans in east Africa.

The stone tools are between 100,000 and 125,000 years old, said the report in the journal Science.

“These ‘anatomically modern’ humans — like you and me — had evolved in Africa about 200,000 years ago and subsequently populated the rest of the world,” said lead researcher Dr Simon Armitage, from Royal Holloway, University of London.

“Our findings should stimulate a re-evaluation of the means by which we modern humans became a global species.”

Research suggested that lowered sea levels more than 100,000 years ago would have allowed humans to cross the Bab al-Mandab Strait, which separates Arabia from the Horn of Africa.