“NORTH AFRICA
HAS LONG BEEN
NEGLECTED IN
THE DEBATES
SURROUNDING
THE ORIGIN OF
OUR SPECIES”
Until recently, most experts thought that
modern humans had evolved between
150,000 and 200,000 years ago, with the
earliest known fossils found at sites in
Ethiopia. It was not until new research was
published in Nature in June that we have
compelling fossil evidence to suggest that
the evolution of our lineage is deeper rooted
than previously thought, and not confined
to East Africa.
Now dated to about 300,000 years ago,
the assemblage of human fossils from
Jebel Irhoud represents the earliest known
examples of Homo sapiens. However, it is
not yet known how peripheral the Irhoud
population would have been. Populations of H.
heidelbergensis, H. rhodesiensis and
H. naledi were living contemporaneously in
central and southern Africa and it is likely that
there were other populations of early
H. sapiens elsewhere in Africa at this time. In
light of this new chronology, and combined
with the mixture of traits in the Irhoud fossils,it’s possible that still earlier fossils from sites
in Morocco and Tanzania might represent an
even more primitive form of our species.
While molecular evidence suggests the
ancestors of modern humans may have
diverged from Neanderthals at least 500,
years ago, and early Neanderthals from
430,000 years ago have been identified
from Sima de los Huesos in Spain, equivalent
specimens from the modern human lineage
had yet to be identified. The Irhoud fossils
are contenders for this position. The clear
anatomical differences between the Irhoud
and Sima specimens suggest the two lineages
were diverging rapidly, even though they lie
relatively close to the date of their projected
common ancestor. Intriguingly, both the Sima
and Irhoud fossils do not display the full suite
of features present in later representatives of
their respective species. This has interesting
implications for understanding how and in
what order these anatomical features evolved
over the last half a million years.CHRIS STRINGER AND JULIA GALWAY-WITHAM
RESEARCHERS AT THE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUMEXPERT COMMENTA fossilised jawbone from
the oldest Homo sapiensA cache of newly discovered fossils unearthed from a
disused mine in Morocco has cast doubt upon the
commonly held belief that Homo sapiens arose in East
Africa 200,000 years ago.
The remains of several individuals, along with a
collection of stone tools and animal bones, were found at
the Jebel Irhoud archaeological site in Morocco. Using
state-of-the-art dating techniques, a team at the Max
Planck Institute in Leipzig estimates that the bones date
back about 300,000 years, making them the oldest
securely dated fossil evidence of our own species.
Previously, the oldest Homo sapiens fossils were
found in Omo Kibish in Ethiopia and were estimated to
be 195,000 years old. Until now, it was widely believed
that all humans descended from a population that lived
in East Africa around 200,000 years ago.
“We used to think that there was a cradle of mankind
200,000 years ago in East Africa, but our new data reveal
that Homo sapiens spread across the entire African
continent around 300,000 years ago. Long before the
out-of-Africa dispersal of Homo sapiens, there was
dispersal within Africa,” said researcher Prof Jean-
Jacques Hublin.
The team used highly accurate 3D scans and
statistical shape analysis based on hundreds of
measurements to show that the facial shape of the Jebel
Irhoud fossils is almost indistinguishable from that of
modern humans. However, they found that the craniums
of the Jebel Irhoud fossils have an elongated braincase- a feature more common in early Homo species.
“The inner shape of the braincase reflects the shape of
the brain,” said researcher Dr Philipp Gunz. “Our findings
suggest that modern human facial morphology was
established early on in the history of our species, and
that brain shape, and possibly brain function, evolved
within the Homo sapiens lineage.”
“North Africa has long been neglected in the debates
surrounding the origin of our species,” said researcher
Abdelouahed Ben-Ncer. “The spectacular discoveries
from Jebel Irhoud demonstrate the tight connections of
the Maghreb [a region of northwestern Africa] with the
rest of the African continent at the time of Homo sapiens’
emergence.”
Homo sapiens bones have been unearthed
in Morocco dating back 300,000 years,
challenging the idea that we first evolved in
East Africa 200,000 years agoANTHROPOLOGYReconstructions of the
first Homo sapiensPHOTOS: TERESA STEELE/UC DAVIS, SARAH FREIDLINE/MPI EVA LEIPZIG