Iho Eleeru or Iwò Eléérú, meaning cave of Ashes in Isharun, close to Akure, Ondo state is the site of an archaeological discovery dating to at least 14,000 years ago; The oldest human fossil record in all Western Africa.
The Isarun cave was discovered by a native simply identified as Obele, who was on a hunting expedition in 1922. It was then officially documented in the early 1960s by officers of the Nigerian Department of Antiquities. Iho Eleru was excavated by T. Shaw and S.G.H. Daniels1 between 1963 and 1964. The skull was found in 1965 by Thurstan Shaw and his team among over half a million Later Stone Age artifacts at the site. It was found as part of a skeleton that was buried with a thin covering of soil. The skeleton was excavated and encased in plaster, and the skull was separated from the rest of the body. The site itself has been dated to between 11,700–16,300 years ago.
The site is significant in the scientific world, because it is a direct evidence that humans lived in Africa’s rainforests much earlier than previously thought, upending the long held view that people were unable to live in rainforests before the advent of farming. All things being equal, it also proves that Yorubaland is the most ancient in this part of the world, and that the Yoruba civilization and people did not originate from the middle east or anywhere else.
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