In the 1960s, paleoanthropologists uncovered the remains of anatomically modern Homo sapiens — known as Omo I — in the lower Omo valley of southern Ethiopia. Earlier attempts to date the Omo I fossils suggested they were 197,000 years old, but the new research shows they must be older than a major explosive eruption of Shala volcano in the Main Ethiopian Rift that took place 230,000 years ago and represent the earliest evidence of our...
