Efforts to date the oldest modern human fossils in eastern Africa, from Omo-Kibish^1–3 and Herto^4,5 in Ethiopia, have drawn on a variety of chronometric evidence, including ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar ages of stratigraphically associated tuffs. The ages that are generally reported for these fossils are around 197 thousand years (kyr) for the Kibish Omo I^3,6,7, and around 160–155 kyr for the Herto hominins^5,8. However, the stratigraphic relationships and tephra correlations that underpin these estimates have been challenged^6,8. Here we report geochemical analyses that link the Kamoya’s Hominid Site (KHS) Tuff⁹, which conclusively overlies the member of the Omo-Kibish Formation that contains Omo I, with a major explosive eruption of Shala volcano in the Main Ethiopian Rift. By dating the proximal deposits of this eruption, we obtain a new minimum age for the Omo fossils of 233 ± 22 kyr. Contrary to previous arguments^6,8, we also show that the KHS Tuff does not correlate with another widespread tephra layer, the Waidedo Vitric Tuff, and therefore cannot anchor a minimum age for the Herto fossils. Shifting the age of the oldest known Homo sapiens fossils in eastern Africa to before around 200 thousand years ago is consistent with independent evidence for greater antiquity of the modern human lineage¹⁰.

Significance: Our results identify the prime driver of climate variation in Africa’s low latitudes over the past 620 ky—the key time frame for the evolution of our species. Warming and cooling of the tropical Pacific Ocean paced by insolation changes modulated the tropical Walker circulation, driving opposing wet–dry states in eastern and western Africa. We show that the effects of glacial/interglacial cycles were not the predominant source of environmental change in most of the continent. Africa’s environmental patchwork driven by low-latitude climate processes should therefore be a critical component in conceptual models of human evolution and early demography over the past 620 ky.