Remains aid modern human theory

Human remains between 270,000 and 300,000 years old found in Kenya add weight to theories that our ancestors looked and acted like modern humans much sooner than anthropologists had thought, according to research published today.

An international team says in the science journal Nature that an ancient skull with all its top teeth, and a thigh bone found near Lake Turkana were both from an almost modern human. It had previously been thought that modern humans, Homo Sapiens Sapiens, emerged about 40,000 years ago. Archaic Homo Sapiens were believed to have emerged 90,000 years ago.