Washington: A 210,000-year-old skull has been identified asthe earliest modern human remains found outside Africa, putting the clock backon mankind's arrival in Europe by more than 150,000 years, researchers saidWednesday.In a startling discovery that changes our understanding of how modernman populated Eurasia, the findings support the idea that Homo sapiens madeseveral, sometimes unsuccessful migrations from Africa over tens of thousandsof years.Southeast Europe has long been considered a major transport corridorfor modern humans from Africa.

 But until now theearliest evidence of Homo sapiens on the continent dated back only around50,000 years.

There has however been a number of discoveries indicatingthe ancient presence of Neanderthals -- an early human cousin -- across thecontinent. Two fossilised but badly damaged skulls unearthed in a Greek cave inthe 1970s were identified as Neanderthal at the time. In findings presented inthe journal Nature, an international team of researchers used state-of-the artcomputer modelling and uranium dating to re-examine the two skulls. One ofthem, named Apidima 2 after the cave in which the pair were found, proved to be170,000 years old and did indeed belong to a Neanderthal. But, to the shock ofscientists, the skull named Apidima 1 pre-dated Apidima 2 by as much.