New fossil find ages humans 100,000 years

THE HISTORY of human evolution has been dramatically revised after new fossil discoveries revealed Homo sapiens are at least 100,000 years older than previously thought.

- By Julia Kuttner

The revelation comes in the BBC's new documentary Human, which begins tomorrow on BBC Two.

The major five-part series explores how recent discoveries are transforming our understanding of where we come from.

For decades, scientists believed modern humans emerged in East Africa around 200,000 years ago. But fossils found at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco have been dated to approximately 300,000 years ago.

That suggests we evolved across the African continent rather than in a single location, a theory now known as the Pan-African Evolution.