Fossilised human bones and teeth discovered in a Moroccan cave are rewriting the early chapters of humanity’s long and winding evolutionary story.
Researchers said the remains are about 773,000 years old, making them among the oldest known human fossils ever found in Africa.
The discovery offers rare insight into the shadowy period before Homo sapiens emerged, illuminating a crucial step in the human evolutionary journey.
The fossils were unearthed in Grotte à Hominidés, a cave in Casablanca that once served as a lair for predators.
They include jawbones from two adults and a toddler, along with teeth, vertebrae and a thigh bone marked by carnivore bites.
Scientists believe the remains belong to an evolved form of Homo erectus, an archaic human species that first appeared nearly two million years ago.
The bones display a mosaic of primitive and modern features, bridging a long-standing gap in the African fossil record.
Researchers said this population likely lived shortly before the evolutionary split leading to Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans.
“These fossils plausibly come close to populations from which later human lineages ultimately emerged,” said lead author Jean-Jacques Hublin.
He added that the remains reinforce deep African roots for Homo sapiens, while showing evolution already unfolding within ancient human populations.
The cave’s fine sediments and a sealing sand dune preserved the fossils remarkably well, alongside stone tools and thousands of animal bones.
Dating of the sediments was essential, researchers said, helping position the fossils accurately within the human family tree.
The Moroccan remains are similar in age to fossils found in northern Spain, hinting at possible ancient connections across the Strait of Gibraltar.
Scientists said the hominins had body proportions like ours, but smaller brains, and lived in landscapes shared with dangerous predators.
In that perilous world, early humans were hunters, but sometimes became prey, leaving behind bones that now whisper of humanity’s distant origins.