Читать книгу (101 things to know when you go) ON SAFARI IN AFRICA - Patrick Brakspear - Страница 15

In a 2017 article published in the journal Nature, Professor Jean-Jacques Hublin of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany has revealed that fossils of five early humans have been found in North Africa that show Homo sapiens emerged at least 100,000 years earlier than previously recognised. The latest material comes from an archaeological site at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco and has been dated by hi-tech methods to be between 300,000 and 350,000 years old, and the skull form is almost identical to modern humans (the few significant differences are seen in a slightly more prominent brow line and smaller brain cavity). The excavation site has also revealed that these ancient people had employed stone tools and had learned how to make and control fire. So, not only did they look like Homo sapiens, they acted like them as well.

"We now have to modify the vision of how the first modern humans emerged" states Prof Hublin, who believes that before our species evolved there were many different types of primitive human species, each of which looked different and had its own strengths and weaknesses. And it was these various species of human, just like other animals, that evolved and changed their appearance gradually, with just the occasional spurt. They did this over hundreds of thousands of years. By contrast, the mainstream view has been that Homo sapiens evolved suddenly from more primitive humans in East Africa around 200,000 years ago; and it is at that point that we assumed, broadly speaking, the features we display now. What is more, only then do we spread throughout Africa and eventually to rest of planet. Prof. Hublin's discoveries would appear to shatter this view.

Food for thought indeed..