50 Top 10 Lists of 2007

Top 10 Scientific Discoveries

#8. Man's Migration Out of Africa

Early this year, an international team of scientists announced that analysis of a skull discovered in South Africa in 1952 revealed the first fossil evidence that modern humans left Africa between 65,000 and 25,000 years ago. Scientists determined the age of the skull, unearthed near Hofmeyr, South Africa, by testing the levels of radiation in sand that had filled the braincase. They figured it was about 36,000 years old — give or take 3,000 years — and matched skulls found in Europe, eastern Asia and Australia, in age and appearance, which supports the theory that modern man originated in sub-Saharan Africa and fanned out from there.

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