These ancient Chinese teeth could rewrite human history

A set of 47 human teeth found in China is giving scientists a lot to chew on. The teeth have been dated as at least 80,000 years old -- perhaps even older. The problem with that is that most researchers believe humans only left Africa for the first time around 60,000 years ago. And even then, they were thought to trek to Europe first, not Asia.

The teeth, described in a paper published Wednesday in Nature, were found in a cave in China's Hunan province, and bear a close resemblance to those seen in modern humans. The researchers believe they're undoubtedly those of Homo sapiens. 

“This is stunning, it’s major league,” Michael Petraglia, an archaeologist at the University of Oxford who was not involved in the research, told Nature. “It’s one of the most important finds coming out of Asia in the last decade.”