Human Origins Shake Up: Information on the Latest Physical Anthropology Discovery

Figure 1: Morphological features of the skull from the Jevel Irhoud site (Nature.com)

One of the biggest debates in the study of human evolution is when and where exactly did Homo sapiens (humans) develop.  There are several competing hypotheses regarding the origins of humans, and over the years there have been several new key pieces of evidence that have unfortunately not really resolved the debate.  Recently, even more new evidence has been published, and this blog post will discuss that new evidence.

Since the 1960s scholars have been aware of a site, the Jebel Irhoud site, in Morocco that yielded a skull.  Scholars examined the skull and based on its morphology believed it was an early and African variation of Neanderthal.  No dating of the skull was conducted at that time, so the conclusion went uncontested until recently when a team led by Jean-Jacques Hublin revisited the site.  They conducted an extensive excavation beginning in 2004 where they discovered the remains of at least five individuals, including cranial and facial features, along with stone tools.  They dated both the skeletal and stone tool remains separately and discovered that they both came up with similar dates: at 315,000 years ago.

What exactly does this mean?  This means that we have to rewrite human history.  Previous evidence set the emergence of Homo sapiens at about 200,000 years ago, but this evidence sets that date back 100,000 years.  The evidence from Jebel Irhoud, however, is not the only evidence to support this new date.  Previous evidence from Florisbad in South Africa also supports this earlier date as the human remains from there date to 260,000 years ago, but they had been largely dismissed as Homo heidelbergensis remains.  Taken together, along with additional genetic evidence from other studies, it seems that humans originated across Africa, not exclusively East Africa, and 100,000 years than previously thought.

But that is not the only revolutionary change to our understanding of human evolution.  The cranial remains at Jebel Irhoud demonstrate several morphological features that are different from the later (200,000 year old) remains (Figure 1).  The facial features more closely resemble modern humans, while the cranium appears more archaic.  This has led scholars to conclude that the facial skeleton evolved first and the cranial and brain morphological features evolved later. 

This discovery is, however, not without criticism.  Several scholars have called into question several of the conclusions reached by Hublin and his team.  It will take some time for the dust to settle and see how this find affects our current and future understanding of human evolution.

References

Callaway, E.  (2017).  “Oldest Homo sapiens fossil claim rewrites our species’ history.”  Nature Retrieved from http://www.nature.com/news/oldest-homo-sapiens-fossil-claim-rewrites-our-species-history-1.22114

No Author.  (2017).  “The first of our kind.”  Max-Plank-Gesellschaft.  Retrieved from https://www.mpg.de/11322481/oldest-homo-sapiens-fossils-at-jebel-irhoud-morocco

Wong, K.  (2017).  “Ancient fossils from Morocco mess up modern human origins.”  Scientific American.  Retrieved from https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/ancient-fossils-from-morocco-mess-up-modern-human-origins/