Omo I

Omo I

Exhibit item

Site: 

Omo River, Ethiopia

Date of discovery: 

1967

Discovered by: 

A team led by Richard Leakey

Age: 

About 195,000 years old

Species: 

Homo sapiens

One of the earliest modern humans

This skull is one of the oldest known Homo sapiens braincases. It was originally thought to be about 130,000 years old, but the sediments in which it was found were re-dated in 2008 using original video footage, photographs, and hand-drawn maps from the 1967 discovery.

Image Credit: Copyright Smithsonian Institution