African Artifacts Suggest an Earlier Modern Human
Until now, modern human behavior was widely assumed to have been a very late and abrupt development that seemed to have originated in a kind of "creative explosion" in Europe. The most spectacular evidence for it showed up after modern Homo sapiens arrived there from Africa about 40,000 years ago. Although there had been suggestions of an African genesis of modern behavior, no proof had turned up, certainly nothing comparable to the fine tools and cave art of Upper Paleolithic Europe.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/02/science/02BONE.html?todaysheadlines&pagewanted=all