The site is significant in paleoanthropology for the discovery of what were from 2018 to 2019 considered to be the earliest known remains attributed to Homo sapiens outside Africa, dated to 185,000 years ago.
Of special interest is the Misliya-1 fossil, an upper jawbonediscovered in 2002, and at first dated to “possibly 150,000 years ago” and classified as “early modern Homo sapiens“. In January 2018, the date of the fossil has been revised to between 177,000 and 194,000 years ago (95% CI). This qualifies Misliya-1 as one of the oldest known fossil of H. sapiens, of comparable age to the Omo remains (as well as those of Herto, identified as “archaic Homo sapiens“, or Homo sapiens idaltu), and the second oldest modern humans ever found outside of Africa, the oldest being the skull Apidima 1 from the south western Peloponnese dated to roughly 210,000 years ago
