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

Posted by msmash on from the tracing-the-past-for-a-better-future dept.

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.

5 of 156 comments (clear)

  1. Look outside of Africa, too. by ScentCone · · Score: 4, Interesting

    300,000-year-old homo sapiens in Morocco is pretty interesting. But near precursors weren't only in Africa. The familiar narrative is being disturbed by other politically incorrect discoveries, such as 7.2 million year old ancestors in Bulgaria:

    http://archaeologyinbulgaria.c...

    --
    Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.
    1. Re:Look outside of Africa, too. by Spy+Handler · · Score: 5, Interesting

      Pak breeders. They are the missing link.

      300,000 years ago is the correct time frame for their arrival, new science from Morocco has proven it

  2. Homo sapien? by butchersong · · Score: 1, Interesting

    So we count this as the same species even though the skulls (and presumably brain) are dramatically different?

  3. It's just time travelers who didn't make it back by jfdavis668 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    A group of time travelers missed the return trip, and had to live out their lives lost in the past in Morocco.

  4. Re:Simple question by GreatDrok · · Score: 3, Interesting

    "paleontology research is utterly useless"

    Without palaeontology, oil would be much harder to find. Is that useful enough for you?

    --
    "I have the attention span of a strobe lit goldfish, please get to the point quickly!"