Fossil Find May Back ‘Out of Africa’ Theory

Scientists now have more evidence to support the claim that modern humans arose from one common ancestor in Africa. The recent discovery of the remains of two adults and a child from 160,000 years ago in northeast Ethiopia closes "a temporal and geographical gap" in the route on which human ancestors moved north out of Africa, to the Middle East and other regions of the world. Other scientists oppose this 'Out of Africa' theory, though, saying that this latest discovery is not of great importance because the theory itself is too limited. They contest its claim that all previous species in all parts of the world went extinct and that modern humans arose only from this one ancestor on this one continent – "It's just another fossil," they say. Despite the criticism, the leader of the research team in Ethiopia says of the three fossils, "in their faces, we see many of the features that we see in our own." – YaleGlobal