The idea of a “cradle of humanity” in east Africa has long had a powerful hold over scientific thought and popular imagination. Until recently most fossil evidence suggested that the area around Kenya and Ethiopia nourished not only the first hominids who evolved from apes several million years ago but also the later emergence of Homo sapiens, our own species, around 200,000 years ago.

https://www.ft.com/content/ffcb2b38-4d09-11e7-a3f4-c742b9791d43