Longest-inhabited continent

Africa is regarded as the cradle of civilization, and is the continent on which human ancestors as well as the great apes first evolved millions of years ago. For many years it was thought that modern humans, Homo sapiens, first appeared in East Africa around 200,000 years ago. In 2017, however, new evidence came to light when remains of human faces and jaw bones were found in a desolate region of Morocco at Jebel Irhoud – a former barite mine located 100 km west of Marrakesh. The bones of at least five people were dated to approximately 315,000 years ago, suggesting that Homo sapiens were living in Africa some 100,000 years earlier than previously thought. The research – conducted by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and published in Nature on 7 June 2017 – does not prove that humans originated in North Africa. Rather, it suggests that Homo sapiens evolved across the continent.

Jean-Jacques Hublin was one of the authors of the study and leaders of the decade-long excavation. He commented: “Until now, the common wisdom was that our species emerged probably rather quickly somewhere in a ‘Garden of Eden’ that was located most likely in sub-Saharan Africa. I would say the Garden of Eden in Africa is probably Africa — and it’s a big, big garden.”

Hublin believes that these remains are the oldest known specimens of modern humans: “This gives us a completely different picture of the evolution of our species. It goes much further back in time, but also the very process of evolution is different to what we thought. It looks like our species was already present probably all over Africa by 300,000 years ago. If there was a Garden of Eden, it might have been the size of the continent.”