Ethiopia is also considered one of the earliest sites of the emergence of anatomically modern humans, ''Homo sapiens''. The oldest of these local fossil finds, the Omo remains, were excavated in the southwestern Omo Kibish area and have been dated to the Middle Paleolithic, around 200,000 years ago. Additionally, skeletons of ''Homo sapiens idaltu'' were found at a site in the Middle Awash valley. Dated to approximately 160,000 years ago, they may represent an extinct subspecies of ''Homo sapiens'', or the immediate ancestors of anatomically modern humans. Archaic ''Homo sapiens'' fossils excavated at the Jebel Irhoud site in Morocco have since been dated to an earlier period, about 300,000 years ago, while Omo-Kibish I (Omo I) from southern Ethiopia is the oldest anatomically modern Homo sapiens skeleton currently known (196 ± 5 ka).