Herto Man refers to human remains discovered in 1997 from the Upper Herto member of the Bouri Formation in the Afar Triangle, Ethiopia. The remains have been dated as between 154,000 and 160,000 years old. The discovery of Herto Man was especially significant at the time, falling within a long gap in the fossil record between 300 and 100 thousand years ago and representing the oldest dated H. sapiens remains then described.
Herto Man
Cast of the left side of BOU-VP-16/1 at the National Museum of Ethiopia.
Stone tools from Herto (left), the Omo 2 skull (middle), and the juvenile BOU-VP-16/5 skull (right) at the National Museum of Ethiopia
Ethiopia, officially the Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia, is a landlocked country located in the Horn of Africa region of East Africa. It shares borders with Eritrea to the north, Djibouti to the northeast, Somalia to the Northeast, East and Southeast, Kenya to the South, South Sudan to the West, and Sudan to the Northwest. Ethiopia covers a land area of 1,112,000 square kilometres. As of 2023, it is home to around 128 million inhabitants, making it the 13th-most populous country in the world, the 2nd-most populous in Africa after Nigeria, and the most populated landlocked country on Earth. The national capital and largest city, Addis Ababa, lies several kilometres west of the East African Rift that splits the country into the African and Somali tectonic plates.
A Homo sapiens idaltu hominid skull
Aksumite currency of the Aksumite king Endubis, 227–35, at the British Museum.
Fasil Ghebbi, one of the key castles of the Gondarine period.
Emperor Tewodros II (r. 1855–1868) brought an end to Zemene Mesafint