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

Look outside of Africa, too.

[ScentCone]

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...

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[110010001000]

I think it is more likely that the method used for dating these discoveries is horribly inaccurate. For decades we were using inaccurate methods, and we might still be.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Spy Handler]

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

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: 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.

[jfdavis668]

Did the find Tree of Life seeds, too?

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[ScentCone]

You're deliberately pretending to miss the point. Just like there are "Native American" types who get all upset when you point out they're just Asian immigrants who walked over (and didn't spring magically forth from any particularly sacred land, etc), there are plenty of people who are really invested in the Mankind Is From Africa narrative, and who then tack onto it all sorts of nonsense. Because of political correctness, that nonsense is never simply pointed out for being what it is. Some nice new finds that take all the fun out of rabid Afrocentrism might help to get people to stop obsessing about that.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[butchersong]

I am sorry, but with language like that, I have to assume you have a political agenda. i.e. I don't take you seriously.

I don't think that is fair. Most any scientist will tell you that the entire process of publication and review is political. Have you ever heard the quote from Max Planck "science advances one funeral at a time"?

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.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

It was not "a racist lie", it was a fake.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[Gavagai80]

It's politically incorrect if you're worried about offending 0.1%. The other 99.9% just want to see clear evidence before giving up on the best working explanation we've had so far, because it makes a lot of things harder to explain.

Re: Look outside of Africa, too.

[Trogre]

Or India. Or the Middle East.

Re:Look outside of Africa, too.

[skam240]

Oh sure, political incorrectness has to get involved here. You can't just mention alternate theory, you have to play the race card?

Meanwhile it seems awfully convenient that your one source not only defies consensus on the subject but also is from a source that actively labels itself along a regional agenda.

It's just time travelers who didn't make it back

[jfdavis668]

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

Not a single cradle?

[Nutria]

How does a single species evolve in multiple places?

Re:Not a single cradle?

[alvinrod]

The more likely explanation is that it evolved somewhere else at an earlier time, spread to multiple places, and there aren't enough remaining traces of it to get the full picture. The other alternative is that two distinct species (with obvious common ancestor) became similar because evolutionary pressures strongly favored a particular outcome. The first seems more likely to me at this time, but as we learn more about genetics and their role in various lifeforms the second might become more plausible.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[Lumpy]

Timeshare Condos. They have been the bane of humanity forever.

Re:Not a single cradle?

[ceoyoyo]

A population is either spread across a wide area or there are semi-isolated pockets of it. The species evolves, and there's enough contact among the geographically distant bits of the population that the useful traits get passed around. The species doesn't evolve in multiple places at once completely independently, but it also doesn't evolve in a single place.

Morocco and Ethiopia are close enough to each other that it's conceivable populations in both places were in semi-frequent contact, so that kind of thing could happen. As opposed to an isolated population evolving in the rift valley and then deciding one day they were going to leave and go settle the planet.

Re:It's not mentioned in $holybook

[MightyYar]

Your $goodGod and $evilGod variables need to be able to handle arrays.

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.

Still around

[ArhcAngel]

For millions of years, hominins remained very ape-like. They were short, had small brains, and could fashion only crude stone tools.

They're still here. We just call them politicians now.

Re:Simple question

[Gilgaron]

You don't know what you'll find out if you don't look. You may as well discount all of astronomy because we're not likely to end up visiting any but perhaps the closest of stars.

Re: Simple question

[Anonymous Coward]

You're too kind. I print their post out and then I wipe my ass with it.

Re:we are

[slipped_bit]

Posting on a fossil of a site about the sight of a fossil at a site.

Cautionary tale about peer review?

[macraig]

Peer review is rendered rather pointless and ineffective if every peer considers the inaccurate methodology to be authoritative and fails to question it.

Re:Simple question

[GreatDrok]

"paleontology research is utterly useless"

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