Omo remains

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The Omo remains are a collection of hominid bones, discovered by Richard Leakey and others at the Omo Kibish site near the Omo River in the Omo National Park in south-western Ethiopia by the International Paleontological Research Expedition. The remains from the 2 sites, Omo Kibish 1 and 2, are the earliest known fossils of Homo sapiens. The results of Potassium-Argon dating of the tuffs were published in February 2005 ^[1] attributing them to circa 195,000 years ago, and making Ethiopia the current choice for the 'cradle of Homo Sapiens' ^[2].

The bones, which include two partial skulls, four jaws, a legbone, around two hundred teeth and several other parts, were found between 1967 and 1974.

They are now assumed to be considerably older than the 160,000-year-old Herto remains, which had been thought to be the earliest humans, and suggests that, if humans did originate in Africa as is currently thought, they did not expand from there for much longer than previously thought. It also suggests that H. sapiens sapiens evolved alongside other hominids for a considerable period of time before the other hominids became extinct.