Human evolution: astounding new story of the origin of our species

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r/HighStrangeness5h Posted by smilingfaceofdeath

Human evolution: The astounding new story of the origin of our species

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Has our species been hiding its real age? Fossils found in Morocco suggest the Homo sapiens lineage became distinct as early as 350,000 years ago – adding as much as 150,000 years to our species’ history. “It was indeed a big wow [moment],” says Jean-Jacques Hublin at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who led the analysis with Abdelouahed Ben-Ncer at the National Institute of Archaeology and Heritage in Rabat, Morocco.

On a literal reading of the fossil record, H. sapiens was thought to have emerged in East Africa roughly 200,000 years ago. But some researchers have long suspected that the roots of our species are deeper, given that H. sapiens-like fossils in South Africa have been tentatively dated at 260,000 years old.

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Stringer thinks we shouldn’t be surprised to discover that our species is far more ancient than once thought. We know that our lineage split from the Neanderthal lineage at some point in prehistory, with Neanderthals then evolving in Europe while H. sapiens evolved in Africa. Recently, fossil and genetic evidence has suggested that this split occurred at least 500,000 years ago. “In my view, the date of this divergence should mark the origin of these two groups,” says Stringer.

This would imply that, roughly 500,000 years ago, Neanderthal-like hominins began appearing in Europe and H. sapiens-like hominins began appearing in Africa. In keeping with this idea, 430,000-year-old hominins found at a site called Sima de los Huesos in Spain do seem to be Neanderthal-like. Jebel Irhoud could be seen as the African, H. sapiens equivalent of Sima de los Huesos, says Stringer.

Well-dated fossils Aida Gómez-Robles at University College London agrees with this way of thinking. “I would predict that we will find in the future even older transitional forms for both Neanderthals and modern humans,” she says.

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