Homo erectus wasn't the first human species to leave Africa 1.8 million years ago, fossils suggest

Homo georgicus. On the left, reproduction of the skull D2282 probably of a young woman. On the right, reproduction of the skull D2700 and the jaw D2735 corresponding to a male. Lower Pleistocene. Found in Dmanisi (Georgia).

Early, ancestral members of the human lineage may have left Africa earlier than widely thought, a new study of fossil teeth suggests.

Modern humans, Homo sapiens, are the only living member of the human lineage, Homo, which is thought to have arisen in Africa about 2 million to 3 million years ago and first left that continent a few hundred thousand years ago. But many other extinct human species previously roamed Earth, such as Homo habilis, suspected to be among the first stone-tool makers, and Homo erectus, the first to regularly keep the tools it made.