Two skulls originally found in 1967 have been shown to be about 195,000 years old, making them the oldest modern human remains known to science. The age estimate comes from a re-dating of Ethiopian rock layers close to those that yielded the remarkable fossils. The skulls, known as Omo I and II, push back the known presence of Homo sapiens in Africa by 40,000 years. The latest dating work is reported in the science journal Nature. It puts the specimens close to the time expected for the evolutionary emergence of our species. Genetic studies have indicated Homo sapiens arose in East Africa - possibly Ethiopia or Tanzania - just over 200,000 years ago.

"These are the earliest known examples of our own species and that suggests they lived earlier still," commented Nature senior editor Dr Henry Gee. "But I am not sure how much further back you could go and still have Homo sapiens - before they graded into some other, earlier species," he told the BBC News website. The skulls were first brought to the attention of the world by the famous fossil hunter Richard Leakey, whose team unearthed the specimens in sediments along the Omo River in southernmost Ethiopia, near the town of Kibish.

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