200,000 years ago, in southern Ethiopia, a tall, gracile woman lived by the banks of the Omo River; She stood at six feet, her body slender and agile, reflecting the resilience and adaptability of early modern humans; This region, rich with rivers and abundant wildlife, was a cradle of humanity; Her remains, discovered in 1967 by Richard Leakey, are the oldest known fossils of fully modern humans; Her skull, delicate yet strong, was fully modern, with a rounded braincase and smaller, refined facial features; This discovery revolutionized our understanding of human evolution, placing Ethiopia as a key origin point in the story of humanity; She was apparently the only fully modern human that walked the Earth 200,000 years ago, according to the reconstruction of her highly fragmented skull by the British Museum; She may even be the mythical "Mitochondrial Eve".

0:00 THE OMO RIVER FOSSILS OF ETHIOPIA
5:00 THE OMO 1 CONTROVERSY
9:00 OMO 1 AND OTHER AFRICAN FOSSIL
12:00 MITOCHRONDRIAL EVE

SOURCES:
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28552...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science...
https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/homosap...

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