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315,000-YEAR-OLD MODERN HUMAN FOSSILS FOUND IN MOROCCO

Jebel Irhoud skull
Our concept of human origins was thrown for a major loop in 2017 with the announcement of the discovery of modern human fossils, dated to 315,000 years ago, about 100,000 years older than any other known remains of our species, Homo sapien, in an old mine on a desolate mountain in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco. Both the date of the fossils — skulls, limb bones and teeth from at least five individuals — and their location were surprises. “A blockbuster discovery,” one scientist said. [Source: Will Dunham, Reuters, June 8, 2017 ^]
Will Dunham of Reuters wrote: “The antiquity of the fossils was startling — a “big wow,” as one of the researchers called it. But their discovery in North Africa, not East or even sub-Saharan Africa, also defied expectations. And the skulls, with faces and teeth matching people today but with archaic and elongated braincases, showed our brain needed more time to evolve its current form. “This material represents the very root of our species,” said paleoanthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, who helped lead the research published in the journal Nature.
“Before the discovery at the site called Jebel Irhoud, located between Marrakech and Morocco’s Atlantic coast, the oldest Homo sapiens fossils were known from an Ethiopian site called Omo Kibish, dated to 195,000 years ago. “The message we would like to convey is that our species is much older than we thought and that it did not emerge in an Adamic way in a small ‘Garden of Eden’ somewhere in East Africa. It is a pan-African process and more complex scenario than what has been envisioned so far,” Hublin said. ^
“The Moroccan fossils, found in what was a cave setting, represented three adults, one adolescent and one child roughly age 8, thought to have lived a hunter-gatherer lifestyle. These were found alongside bones of animals including gazelles and zebras that they hunted, stone tools perhaps used as spearheads and knives, and evidence of extensive fire use. An analysis of stone flints heated up in the ancient fires let the scientists calculate the age of the adjacent human fossils, Max Planck Institute archaeologist Shannon McPherron said. ^
Websites and Resources on Hominins and Human Origins: Smithsonian Human Origins Program humanorigins.si.edu ; Institute of Human Origins iho.asu.edu ; Becoming Human University of Arizona site becominghuman.org ; Hall of Human Origins American Museum of Natural History amnh.org/exhibitions ; The Bradshaw Foundation bradshawfoundation.com ; Britannica Human Evolution britannica.com ; Human Evolution handprint.com ; University of California Museum of Anthropology ucmp.berkeley.edu; John Hawks' Anthropology Weblog johnhawks.net/ ; New Scientist: Human Evolution newscientist.com/article-topic/human-evolution
Jebel Irhoud and Its 315,000-Year-Old Modern Human Fossils

Jebel Irhoud location
The fossils were found at Jebel Irhoud, a former barite mine 100 kilometers west of Marrakesh, where excavations had been going on for years. Ian Sample wrote in The Guardian: “Jebel Irhoud has thrown up puzzles for scientists since fossilised bones were first found at the site in the 1960s. Remains found in 1961 and 1962, and stone tools recovered with them, were attributed to Neanderthals and at first considered to be only 40,000 years old. [Source: Ian Sample, The Guardian, June 7, 2017 |=|]
Gemma Tarlach wrote in Discover: “In 2004, when researchers revisited the previously excavated early hominin site of Jebel Irhoud at first. The mid-20th century mining operations that had turned up the first hominin bones had also destroyed much of the site, and the method in which some of those first finds had been collected made dating them with any confidence a difficult undertaking. But Jebel Irhoud was not finished sharing its secrets. The researchers found an area of the site that had been preserved, and discovered more fossils — from at least five individuals — plus numerous stone tools and other artifacts, some of which appeared to have been heated in a controlled fire. While the bones may get all the headlines, these bits of flint, apparently flaked off into the fire as tools were sharpened, are just as important: The material was perfect for dating using the thermoluminescence method. [Source: Gemma Tarlach, Discover, June 7, 2017]
Sample wrote:“In fresh excavations at the Jebel Irhoud site, Hublin and others found more remains, including a partial skull, a jawbone, teeth and limb bones belonging to three adults, a juvenile, and a child aged about eight years old. The remains, which resemble modern humans more than any other species, were recovered from the base of an old limestone cave that had its roof smashed in during mining operations at the site. Alongside the bones, researchers found sharpened flint tools, a good number of gazelle bones, and lumps of charcoal, perhaps left over from fires that warmed those who once lived there. It’s rather a desolate landscape, but on the horizon you have the Atlas mountains with snow on top and it’s very beautiful,” said Hublin. “When we found the skull and mandible I was emotional. They are only fossils, but they have been human beings and very quickly you make a connection with these people who lived and died here 300,000 years ago.”
Gemma Tarlach wrote in Discover: “While Jebel Irhoud today is surrounded by desert, about 300,000 years ago it would have been more hospitable to hominins and their prey, said Shannon McPherron, lead author of today’s paper dating the fossils and artifacts. When the hominins lived, the layer of the quarried hill in which their fossils were found would have been a cave providing shelter from the elements. Within that same area of the site were the bones of gazelles, zebra, wildebeest and the antelope-like hartebeest. Paleoclimate data points to the area being more humid than today, while the animal bones found suggest, said McPherron, “a landscape that is mainly open, with clumps of trees.” [Source: Gemma Tarlach, Discover, June 7, 2017]
“The overall picture one gets is of a hunting encampment, as they were moving across the area in search of subsistence,” McPherron added. And there is strong evidence the hominins were indeed on the move. The flint they were using for their tools is not local. Analysis showed it came from a site more than 20 kilometers away, suggesting the hominins intentionally sought out quality tool-making material and carried it with them.
Jebel Irhoud People

Jebel Irhoud fossils
Will Dunham of Reuters wrote: ““The Jebel Irhoud people had large braincases that lacked the globular shape of those today. Max Planck Institute paleoanthropologist Philipp Gunz said the findings indicate the shape of the face was established early in the history of Homo sapiens, but brain shape, and perhaps brain function, evolved later. But given their modern-looking face and teeth, Hublin said, these people may have blended in today if they simply wore a hat. Hublin did not hazard a guess as to how long ago the very first members of our species appeared, but said it could not have been more than 650,000 years ago, when the evolutionary lineage that led to Homo sapiens split from the one that led to the Neanderthals.” [Source: Will Dunham, Reuters, June 8, 2017]
Ian Sample wrote in The Guardian: “In the first of two papers published in Nature on the researchers describe how they compared the freshly-excavated fossils with those of modern humans, Neanderthals and ancient human relatives that lived up to 1.8 million years ago. Facially, the closest match was with modern humans. The lower jaw was similar to modern Homo sapiens too, but much larger. The most striking difference was the shape of the braincase which was more elongated than that of humans today. It suggests, said Hublin, that the modern brain evolved in Homo sapiens and was not inherited from a predecessor. [Source: Ian Sample, The Guardian, June 7, 2017 |=|]
“Apart from being more stout and muscular, the adults at Jebel Irhoud looked similar to people alive today. “The face of the specimen we found is the face of someone you could meet on the tube in London,” Hublin said. In a second paper, the scientists lay out how they dated the stone tools to between 280,000 and 350,000 years, and a lone tooth to 290,000 years old.
“The remains of more individuals may yet be found at the site. But precisely what they were doing there is unclear. Analysis of the flint tools shows that the stones came not from the local area, but from a region 50 kilometers south of Jebel Irhoud. “Why did they come here? They brought their toolkit with them and they exhausted it,” Hublin said. “The tools they brought with them have been resharpened, resharpened, and resharpened again. They did not produce new tools on the spot. It might be that they did not stay that long, or maybe it was an area they would come to do something specific. We think they were hunting gazelles, there are a lot of gazelle bones, and they were making a lot of fires.”
Faces, Skulls and Brains of Jebel Irhoud People
Despite its modern facial structure, the Jebel Irhoud hominin’s braincase is more primitive, When comparing Jebel Irhoud fossils with those of modern humans, the main difference is the elongated shape of the fossil braincase. According to the researchers this suggests that the shape of the brain, and possibly cognitive ability, continued to evolve in Homo sapiens after the species was established and that brain shape, and possibly brain functions, of Homo sapiens as we know them today evolved relatively recently.
Evolutionary changes in brain shape are likely to be associated with genetic changes of brain organization, interconnection, and development, and may reflect adaptive changes in the way the brain functions. Such changes may have caused the human brain to become rounder and two regions in the posterior of the brain to become enlarged during thousands of years of evolution. The Jebel Irhoud individuals also had very thick brow ridges and lacked prognathism. [Source: Wikipedia]
Gemma Tarlach wrote in Discover: “The newly described Jebel Irhoud hominins — at least three adults, one adolescent and a child the researchers believe was about 8 years old at time of death — have an intriguing mix of traits. Their faces were essentially ours: “It’s the face of people you could cross in the street today,” says Hublin of the best preserved Jebel Irhoud partial skull. While some of the fossils had larger brow ridges, their facial feature measurements fall within the range of modern humans. [Source: Gemma Tarlach, Discover, June 7, 2017 ^]
“Seen in profile, however, a key difference is apparent: although it had a volume “in the range of modern humans,” according to Hublin, the Jebel Irhoud hominin braincase was lower and more elongated. Based on preserved features of the braincase (the part of the skull that encases, yep, the brain), the researchers believe the Moroccan hominins had a smaller cerebellum than modern humans, though not as small as that of Neanderthals. The cerebellum has been linked to fine motor skills as well as creativity. ^
“Finding early Homo sapiens with modern faces and teeth but more primitive braincases refines our understanding of the actual process of human evolution. “The story of our species in the last 300,000 years is the story of our brain’s evolution,” said Hublin, who added that mutations likely built up over that period, changing the brain’s functional abilities along with its shape and giving the species cognitive advantages in everything from creating better technology to managing social complexities.” ^
The degree of tooth development found is similar to modern European children of the same age, but teeth roots develop faster than for modern humans (and slower than for apes and for some other fossil hominids). Tooth crowns took a longer time to form than in modern humans.
Insights Drawn from Jebel Irhoud Man
Gemma Tarlach wrote in Discover: “In addition to the hominin fossils, Jebel Irhoud is home to a number of stone tools, many made from non-local material which suggests a higher degree of intention than more primitive hominin tool-makers. “The thing that characterizes the Middle Stone Age from the time that came before is a shift from large, heavy-duty tools to an emphasis on producing lighter stone flakes that allowed increased efficiency in hunting. Along with an emphasis on pointed forms, there was an emphasis on quality materials,” McPherron explained, adding that the hominins’ apparent ease of using controlled fire also speaks to their fairly advanced cognitive abilities for the time.” [Source: Gemma Tarlach, Discover, June 7, 2017]
Ian Sample wrote in The Guardian: “John McNabb, an archaeologist at the University of Southampton, said: “One of the big questions about the emergence of anatomically modern humans has been did our body plan evolve quickly or slowly. This find seems to suggest the latter. It seems our faces became modern long before our skulls took on the shape they have today. There are some intriguing possibilities here too.The tools the people at Jebel Irhoud were making were based on a knapping technique called Levallois, a sophisticated way of shaping stone tools. The date of 300,000 years ago adds to a growing realisation that Levallois originates a lot earlier than we thought. Is Jebel Irhoud telling us that this new technology is linked to the emergence of the hominin line that will lead to modern humans? Does the new find imply there was more than one hominin lineage in Africa at this time? It really stirs the pot.” [Source: Ian Sample, The Guardian, June 7, 2017 |=|]
“Jessica Thompson, an anthropologist at Emory University in Atlanta, said the results show just how incredible the Jebel Irhoud site is. “These fossils are the rarest of the rare because the human fossil record from this time period in Africa is so poorly represented. They give us a direct look at what early members of our species looked like, as well as their behaviour. “You might also look twice at the brow ridges if you saw them on a living person. It might not be a face you’d see every day, but you would definitely recognise it as human,” she said. “It really does look like in Africa especially, but also globally, our evolution was characterized by numerous different species all living at the same time and possibly even in the same places.” |=|
Zach Zorich wrote in Archaeology magazine: “The Jebel Irhoud hominins apparently lived 350,000 years after Neanderthals and Homo sapiens last shared a common ancestor, long enough for the two lineages to develop some obvious differences. The people of Jebel Irhoud had flat and short faces like modern humans, but their brains were more elongated and their teeth much larger. Their brow ridges were also more prominent than those of humans living today, but not as heavy as those of Neanderthals. [Source: Zach Zorich, Archaeology magazine, January-February 2018]
Jebel Irhoud and the Timeline of Modern Human Development in Africa
“We are not claiming that Morocco became the cradle of modern humankind,” Hublin said, adding that the broader conclusion from today’s papers is that, by 300,000 years ago, a very early form of Homo sapiens had dispersed across Africa. That’s across all of Africa. The partial skull and other fragments of a similar hominin, dated to about 259,000 years old, was previously found at the South African site of Florisbad. [Source: By Gemma Tarlach, Discover magazine, June 8, 2017]
According to The Florisbad and Jebel Irhoud hominins may represent isolated populations of early Homo sapiens that dispersed from an as-yet-unknown “cradle” but eventually died out; Hublin’s team believe that they are not likely to be directly ancestral to modern humans. Pushing back the start date of our species by at least 100,000 years with today’s findings does, however, beg the question just how far back can we go?
Hublin put the cap on finding Homo sapiens at 600,000 years — the estimated time, based on genetic models, of a split in the Homo lineage. One branch led to Homo sapiens, and the other to Neanderthals and Denisovans. “But what is happening between 400,000 and 600,000 years ago, we don’t know,” Hublin said.
You know what would be great? You know what would really help us sort it all out? Some ancient DNA from the Jebel Irhoud gang.“We did try to extract DNA but to date there is none,” Hublin said of the Jebel Irhoud hominins. “It’s too old and too hot. This is very frustrating because I think there is little hope…we could have ancient DNA (in Africa).”
Is Jebel Irhoud Man Really the World's Oldest Human
While the Jebel Irhoud specimens originally were noted to have been similar to later Aterian fossils (northern Africa from 90,000 to 35,000 years ago) and Iberomaurusian fossils (northern Africa from 23,000 to 11,000 years ago), further examinations revealed that the Jebel Irhoud specimens differ from them in that they have a continuous supraorbital torus while the Aterian and Iberomaurasian specimens have a discontinuous supraorbital torus or, in some cases, none at all, and from this, it was concluded that the Jebel Irhoud specimens represent archaic Homo sapiens while the Aterian and Iberomaurasian specimens represent anatomically modern Homo sapiens. Despite this, it was noted that the Jebel Irhoud specimen whose cranium was complete enough to assess, showed "hints of 'modern' basicranial flexion in the relationship of the face and vault", and the teeth of another Jebel Irhoud specimen were subjected to synchrotron analysis that suggested "a modern developmental pattern." [Source: Wikipedia]
John Shea, an archaeologist at Stony Brook University in New York who was not involved in the study, told The Guardian he was cautious whenever researchers claimed they had found the oldest of anything. “It’s best not to judge by the big splash they make when they are first announced, but rather to wait and see some years down the line whether the waves from that splash have altered the shoreline,” he said, adding that stone tools can move around in cave sediments and settle in layers of a different age. [Source: Ian Sample, The Guardian, June 7, 2017 |=|] “Shea was also uneasy with the scientists combining fossils from different individuals, and comparing reconstructions of complete skulls from fragmentary remains. “Such ‘chimeras’ can look very different from the individuals on which they are based,” he said.“For me, claiming these remains are Homo sapiens stretches the meaning of that term a bit,” Shea added. “These humans who lived between 50,000-300,000 years ago are a morphologically diverse bunch. Whenever we find more than a couple of them from the same deposits, such as at Omo Kibish and Herto in Ethiopia or Skhul and Qafzeh in Israel, their morphology is all over the place both within and between samples.” |=|
Is Omo I the Oldest Homo Sapien?
The Omo remains are a collection of hominin bones discovered between 1967 and 1974 at the Omo Kibish sites near the Omo River, in Omo National Park in south-western Ethiopia. The bones were recovered by a scientific team from the Kenya National Museums directed by Richard Leakey and others. The remains from Kamoya's Hominid Site (KHS) were called Omo I and those from Paul I. Abell's Hominid Site (PHS) were called Omo II. In 2022, a study by Vidal et al. found an earlier age for the Omo fossils than previously reported, revising the date assigned to them as, a minimum date of approximately 233,000 years old. [Source: Wikipedia]
Omo I was initially dated to around 200,000 years old, but research published in in Nature in January 2022, showed it was at least 230,000 years old. According to USA Today: “Over a four-year period, a team of international scientists attempted to date all of the major volcanic eruptions in the Ethiopian Rift in eastern Africa. Céline Vidal, a volcanologist from the University of Cambridge and lead author of the research, said the fossils were below a thick layer of volcanic ash, but the ash was "too fine-grained" to date with radiometric techniques. If the volcanic eruptions could be accurately dated, so would the remains. [Source: Jordan Mendoza, USA Today, January 17, 2022]
The team took "fingerprints" from the site: rock samples from volcanic deposits broken down to sub-millimeter size. "Each eruption has its own fingerprint — its own evolutionary story below the surface, which is determined by the pathway the magma followed," Vidal said in a statement. "Once you’ve crushed the rock, you free the minerals within, and then you can date them, and identify the chemical signature of the volcanic glass that holds the minerals together."

Jebel area
Aurélien Mounier from the Musée de l’Homme in Paris and co-author of the paper, said Omo I has "unequivocal modern human characteristics," such as a tall, spherical cranium and chin. There is uncertainty as to when modern humans appeared on Earth. Fossils found in the Sahara Desert in 2017 were more than 300,000 years old, but Mounier told Reuters the fossils "do not possess some of the key morphological features that define our species," so there are questions whether they are linked to modern humans or another species related to humans. "The new date estimate, de facto, makes it the oldest unchallenged Homo sapiens in Africa," Mounier said.
See Separate Article: EARLY MODERN HUMANS IN AFRICA africame.factsanddetails.com
Image Sources: Wikimedia Commons, Nature, phys.org and Natural History magazine
Text Sources: National Geographic, New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Smithsonian magazine, Nature, Scientific American. Live Science, Discover magazine, Discovery NewsNatural History magazine, Archaeology magazine, The New Yorker, Time, BBC, The Guardian, Reuters, AP, AFP and various books and other publications.
Last updated June 2024