The oldest Homo sapiens
Fossils from Morocco push our species back to 300,000 years — and out of East Africa.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 15 thousand years
- Known to
- ± 15 thousand years
- Era
- Middle Pleistocene, Quaternary
Skulls and jaws from Jebel Irhoud, re-dated in 2017 to around 300,000 years ago, are the oldest fossils attributed to Homo sapiens — roughly 100,000 years older than any previously accepted, and from the opposite corner of the continent to the East African sites where the search had concentrated. The faces are essentially modern; the braincases are not, being long and low rather than globular. Our face evolved before our skull shape did.