Ancient bones suggest first humans travelled further than we think

The relic is the oldest human (Homo sapiens) fossil to have been found outside of Africa and the immediately adjacent Levant, and suggests that people travelled further than initially thought during the first reported human migration into Eurasia. An international consortium of researchers including Oxford University, the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History and the Saudi Commission for Tourism and National Heritage, conducted fieldwork in the Nefud Desert of Saudi Arabia, where they discovered an ancient bone belonging to an early human of the Homo sapiens species which they were able to directly date. Prior to this discovery, it was widely believed that early ventures from Africa into Eurasia had been unsuccessful and only ever reached the parameters of the neighboring Mediterranean forests of the Levant. However, the results published in Nature Ecology and Evolution , detail the team's discovery made at Al Wusta, an ancient fresh-water lake located in what is now the Nefud Desert. The excavation led to the discovery of a small (just 3.3 cm long), well preserved human fossil which was clearly recognisable as a finger bone. In addition to the human remains, a number of other animal fossils were found including remnants from a hippopotamus and fresh water snails as well as abundant stone tools made by humans To be sure of their find and date its origins, the bone was scanned in 3D and its shape compared against fingers bones from other Homo sapiens, other early humans, such as Neanderthals and species of primates.