Jebel Irhoud: the oldest known Homo sapiens
Jebel Irhoud: el Homo sapiens más antiguo conocido
- Date
- 1961 (hallazgo); 2017 (redatación) · confidence high
- Place
- Jebel Irhoud, Youssoufia Province, Morocco
- Credited to
- Jean-Jacques Hublin, Abdelouahed Ben-Ncer and team
- Field
- Cosmos & Earth
⚠️ Disputed: the sources disagree.
What was discovered
Remains found in 1961 in a barite mine, then attributed to 40,000-year-old Neanderthals, were redated in 2017 by thermoluminescence of burnt flint tools to about 315,000 years ago: the oldest known Homo sapiens.
The fossils were known since 1961 but had been wrongly dated to 40,000-160,000 years and attributed to Neanderthals; some researchers still debate whether the fragmentary remains merit the Homo sapiens label. It predates the Omo Kibish and Herto Homo sapiens fossils (Ethiopia), already in the catalogue, by roughly 120,000 years.
What it led to
- Revision of the species' origin: pan-African, not confined to East Africa
- Reinterpretation of other early African fossils
- Debate over the boundaries of the "Homo sapiens" definition