RABAT — A newly announced fossil discovery is further cementing Morocco’s central place in the prehistory of humanity. On Jan. 7, Moroccan and international researchers revealed the unearthing of ancient remains of hominins — human ancestors and close evolutionary relatives — in a cavity at the Thomas I quarry in Casablanca, shedding rare light on a pivotal and poorly understood phase of human evolution some 800,000 years ago.
Published in the journal Nature, the findings place North Africa at the center of debates over the divergence between early African human lineages and those that later gave rise in Europe and Asia to Neanderthals and Denisovans, respectively.
Researchers said the fossils, including lower jaw bones of adults and children, display a striking mix of archaic and more modern traits, reinforcing Africa’s long-established role in shaping human evolution. Attributed to 773,000 years ago, the dating of the remains is one of the most precise origins yet for a site yielding hominin fossils.
The discovery builds on a growing body of archaeological and paleoanthropological research that has transformed Morocco from a once-marginal player into a focal point of human evolutionary studies. In August, "A Reappraisal of the Middle to Later Stone Age Prehistory of Morocco" — a report by Nick Barton, Abdeljalil Bouzouggar, Stacy Carolin, and Louise Humphrey published in the Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute — redirected attention to Morocco’s prehistoric record, calling for a "reappraisal" of its role in human evolution.