From the front, they could have passed for us from the side, they would have stood out.įossils from all over Africa have modern and ancient traits in varied combinations, including the 260,000-year-old Florisbad skull from South Africa the 195,000-year-old remains from Omo Kibish in Ethiopia and the 160,000-year-old Herto skull, also from Ethiopia. They also had an odd combination of features, combining the flat faces of modern humans with the elongated skulls of ancient species like Homo erectus. They not only pushed back the proposed dawn of our species, but they added northwest Africa to the list of possible origin sites. These 315,000-year-old bones are the oldest known fossils of Homo sapiens. Yes, we evolved from ancestral hominids in Africa, but we did it in a complicated fashion-one that involves the entire continent.Ĭonsider the ancient human fossils from a Moroccan cave called Jebel Irhoud, which were described just last year. From that early cradle, we then spread throughout Africa, and eventually the world.īut some scientists are now arguing that this textbook narrative is wrong in its simplicity, linearity, and geography. Those ancestral hominids, probably Homo heidelbergensis, slowly accumulated the characteristic features of our species-the rounded skull, small face, prominent chin, advanced tools, and sophisticated culture. In either case, the narrative always begins in one spot. Some scientists have placed that origin in East Africa others championed a southern birthplace. There is a decades-old origin story for our species, in which we descended from a group of hominids who lived somewhere in Africa around 200,000 years ago.