Mankind originated 300,000 years ago

Fossils discovered in Morocco are the oldest known remains of Homo sapiens, scientists reported Wednesday.

Dating back roughly 300,000 years, the bones indicate that mankind evolved earlier than had been known, experts say.

Until now, the oldest fossils of our species, found in Ethiopia, dated back 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, and a coauthor of two new studies on the fossils, published in the journal Nature.

Until now, the oldest fossils that clearly belonged to Homo sapiens were discovered in Ethiopia. Yet paleoanthropologists were aware of mysterious hominin fossils discovered in other parts of Africa that didn’t seem to fit the narrative.

Since 2004, Hublin and his colleagues have been working through layers of rocks on a desert hillside at Jebel Irhoud, Morocco. They’ve found a wealth of fossils.

Just as important, the scientists discovered flint blades in the same layer as the skulls. The people of Jebel Irhoud most likely made them for many purposes, putting some on wooden handles to fashion spears.

Hublin and his colleagues used a method called thermoluminescence to calculate how much time had passed since the blades were burned. They estimated that the blades were roughly 300,000 years old. The skulls, which were discovered in the same rock layer, must have been the same age.