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Post by nebsen on Jun 9, 2017 17:53:36 GMT -5
The now oldest Homo sapiens found in Morocco, In Africa
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Post by anansi on Jun 11, 2017 22:29:42 GMT -5
The finds are dated to about 300 thousand years ago and represent the oldest securely dated fossil evidence of our own species. This date is 100 thousand years earlier than the previous oldest Homo sapiens fossils. The discoveries reported in two papers in the journal Nature by Hublin et al. and by Richter et al. reveal a complex evolutionary history of mankind that likely involved the entire African continent. Both genetic data of present day humans and fossil remains point to an African origin of our own species, Homo sapiens. Previously, the oldest securely dated Homo sapiens fossils were known from the site of Omo Kibish in Ethiopia, dated to 195 thousand years ago. At Herto, also in Ethiopia, a Homo sapiens fossil is dated to 160 thousand years ago. Until now, most researchers believed that all humans living today descended from a population that lived in East Africa around 200 thousand years ago. "We used to think that there was a cradle of mankind 200 thousand years ago in east Africa, but our new data reveal that Homo sapiens spread across the entire African continent around 300 thousand years ago. Long before the out-of-Africa dispersal of Homo sapiens, there was dispersal within Africa," says palaeoanthropologist Jean-Jacques Hublin. Read more at archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2017/06/scientists-discover-oldest-homo-sapiens.html#xQccCpSZeG8pAT4l.99New finds keep upsetting the status quo. |
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