The children of Jebel Irhoud (June 7, 2017)
3 adults, 1 teenager and a child: fossil remains dated back 300,000 years
A step closer to the origins of our humanity: The Jebel Irhoud discoveries push back the origins of our species by 100,000 years and reveal a complex evolutionary scenario for mankind that involves the entire African continent. They demonstrate that 300,000 years ago, major biological and behavioral changes had already taken place among our direct ancestors throughout Africa.
An international team led by Prof. Jean-Jacques Hublin of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Leipzig, Germany) and the Collège de France, Chair of Paleoanthropology, and Prof. Abdelouahed Ben-Ncer of the Institut National d'Archéologie et du Patrimoine (INSAP, Rabat, Morocco) has unearthed the remains of primitiveHomo sapiens associated with stone tools and faunal remains at Jebel Irhoud , Morocco. The age of these discoveries has been determined to be around 300,000 years. The human fossils from Jebel Irhoud represent the oldest traces of our own species known to date. They are 100,000 years older than the oldest Homo sapiens known to date. These discoveries are the subject of two articles (by Hublin et al. and Richter et al.) in the June 8, 2017 issue of the journal Nature.
