Scientists from Griffith University have played a crucial role in helping an international team of archaeologists rewrite the timeline of human evolution and the migration of modern humans out of Africa.
It had been widely accepted that Homo sapiens had moved out of Africa between 90,000 and 120,000 years ago but that has now been revised after a team of archaeologists uncovered the earliest-ever human fossil found outside the continent.
The fossil, a piece of maxilla, was found in the sedimentary deposits of Misliya Cave in Israel on the edge of Mount Carmel in 2002.
Researchers from Griffith University were able to conduct a range of dating methods on the fossil which indicated an age range of between 177,000 and 194,000 years, pushing back by around 50,000 to 60,000 years the earliest evidence of modern humans ever discovered outside Africa.
Professor Rainer Grun and his ARCHE Team dated the fossil to around 180,000 years