Oldest Fossils of Homo Sapiens Found in Morocco, Altering History of Our Species (nytimes.com)

Carl Zimmer, writing for The New York Times: Fossils discovered in Morocco are the oldest known remains of Homo sapiens, scientists reported on Wednesday. Dating back roughly 300,000 years, the bones indicate that mankind evolved earlier than had been known, experts say, and open a new window on our origins. The fossils also show that early Homo sapiens had faces much like our own, although their brains differed in fundamental ways (alternative source). Until now, the oldest fossils of our species, found in Ethiopia, dated back just 195,000 years. The new fossils suggest our species evolved across Africa. "We did not evolve from a single cradle of mankind somewhere in East Africa," said Phillipp Gunz, a paleoanthropologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Liepzig, Germany. Today, the closest living relatives to Homo sapiens are chimpanzees and bonobos, with whom we share a common ancestor that lived over six million years ago. After the lineages split, our ancient relatives evolved into many different species, known as hominins. For millions of years, hominins remained very ape-like. They were short, had small brains, and could fashion only crude stone tools. Original research paper here.

Comments

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Oswald McWeany]

Yeah, but what about Women?

Women didn't arrive on earth until much later, they stopped off to buy shoes first, and then had to use the restroom, apply sunscreen, return the shoes because of buyer's remorse, and then get an overpriced drink from StarBucks before coming to earth.

Re:Simple question

[MightyYar]

This is pretty far down on my outrage scale. State schools have entire departments dedicated to studying classic literature. People are actually getting subsidized degrees in it. Sometimes learning can be for learning's sake - and I'm pretty sure "where did we come from" has very broad appeal.

Re: Look outside of Africa, too.

[DarkEdgeX]

Sure it's useful. It refutes all the religions that claim mankind was made be some deity. That's money well spent in my mind.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[GLMDesigns]

Unfortunately there are some people out there who derive self-worth from the fact that humans evolved from Africa. I have already passed by some Judah ben Judah folks who were calling humans arising from elsewhere than Africa as racist lies.

It's a shame - but there it is. So calling it politically incorrect - well, for some, it is. Just look at the Native American tribes who don't want to hear anything that challenges the established narrative,

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[gtall]

So, the Bulgarians think humans were evolved before hominins split from apes. And we are to believe this why? This sounds like something the Greek guy with the electric hair would push, telling us they were really ancient astronauts.