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Oldest Homo Sapiens Fossils

315,000 years ago · Prehistoric

Human Evolution

The earliest known Homo sapiens fossils date to approximately 315,000 years ago, discovered at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco. These fossils show modern human facial features combined with more archaic brain cases, suggesting human evolution was a gradual, pan-African process rather than suddenly appearing in a single region of East Africa as previously thought.

Key Figures

Jean-Jacques HublinAbdelouahed Ben-NcerRichard Leakey

Locations

Jebel IrhoudOmo Kibish

Topics

sciencearchaeologyhumansfossilsAfricapaleoanthropology

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