In scientific classification, human beings are tagged with the name Homo sapiens (Latin: “wise man”). In his 10th edition of Systema Naturae, Swedish botanist and taxonomist Carl Linnaeus coined the term (describing himself as the type specimen). The genus name Homo refers to the group in which other species similar to ours belong. It includes the extinct species H. habilis, H. erectus, and H. heidelbergensis as well as the Neanderthals (H. neanderthalensis), and the enigmatic H. naledi. How does H. sapiens fit into this group? The species is, arguably, the last member of Homo standing, but when did H. sapiens evolve?
Until recently, H. sapiens was thought to have evolved approximately 200,000 years ago in East Africa. This estimate was shaped by the discovery in 1967 of the oldest remains attributed to H. sapiens, at a site in Ethiopia’s Omo Valley. The remains, made up of two skulls (Omo 1 and Omo 2), had initially been dated to 130,000 years ago, but through the application of more-sophisticated dating techniques in 2005, the remains were more accurately dated to 195,000 years ago.
In June 2017, however, all of this changed. A multiyear excavation led by Jean-Jacques Hublin of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, revealed that H. sapiens was present at Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, more than 5,000 km (3,100 miles) away from East Africa (the region many paleontologists call “the cradle of humankind”). The team unearthed a collection of specimens that was made up of skull fragments and a complete jawbone (both of which were strikingly similar to those of modern human beings) as well as stone tools—all of which dated to about 315,000 years ago, more than 100,000 years earlier than the remains found at Omo. Although this discovery has not yet convinced all paleontologists, it suggests that the species could have been widely dispersed throughout North Africa much earlier than they expected and that East Africa might not have been the only cradle. Of course, H. sapiens could have first evolved in East Africa before dispersing to Morocco and other locations, but paleontologists will need to find older human remains in East Africa to support this long-standing notion. Until then, science should remain open to the prospect that we may have first evolved elsewhere in Africa.