Homo sapiens idaltu (Afar: Idaltu; “elder” or “first born”), also called Herto Man, is the name given to a number of early modern human fossils found in 1997 in Herto Bouri, Ethiopia. They date to around 160,000 years ago. The fossils represent the probable immediate ancestors of anatomically modern humans; the fossil evidence from Omo-Kibish and Herto establishes that modern human morphology does indeed initially appear in Africa.
Homo sapien, which means “wise man” in Latin, is the term used for modern-day humans. The genus Homo consists of a few species, including homo erectus and homo habilis. Homo sapiens are the only living member species today. Homo sapiens have been traced back over 315,000 years to Africa.
