The map below caught my attention while reading a new article by Zhang et al., 2026 it shows the oldest sites where Homo sapiens remains have been found.
Two things surprised me: (1) Despite Africa being touted the "Cradle of Mankind", 40% of the sites over 100 ky are found in Eurasia. (2) Of the 50 to 30 ky sites, 3 are found in Africa, and the other 14 are in Eurasia and Australia. Of course, the map shows partial information, so there are more sites in Africa, but it is suprising to notice such a prevalence of sites outside of Africa.
The oldest H. sapiens fossil outside of Africa is from the Greek Cave of Apidima where Apidima 1 skull was found (210,000 years old); see Harvati et al. 2019.
The second oldest is the 190,000-year-old jawbone from the Misliya Cave in Israel, reported by Hershkovitz et al, 2018.
The oldest African site is the Irhoud, Morocco, reported by Hublin et al, 2017, and dated to 315±34 kya. However these hominins have a mix of archaic and modern features that make some scholars wonder if it is a human or another hominin: "[They] have a facial morphology very similar to extant H. sapiens, as well as endocranial volumes that fall within the contemporary range of variation. However, their braincase shapes are elongated rather than globular, suggesting that distinctive features of brain shape, and possibly brain function, evolved within H. sapiens." (Scerri et al., 2018).
The next two African specimens are equal to, or younger than the Eurasian specimens!: Both from Ethiopia, the 195,000-year-old remains from Omo Kibish, and 160,000-year-old bones from Herto. A 2022 paper pushes the dates further back in time to ~230 kya. However, note that they may not be modern humans at all: "The Herto hominids are morphologically and chronologically intermediate between archaic African fossils and later anatomically modern Late Pleistocene humans. They therefore represent the probable immediate ancestors of anatomically modern humans. Their anatomy and antiquity constitute strong evidence of modern-human emergence in Africa." (White et al., 2003).
What is Anatomically Modern Human?
The key issue in my (layman's) opinion is that there seems to be no clear definition of what an Anatomically Modern Human is. Someone who looks like us even though they may not yet have developed behaviors similar to ours.
With a handful of deformed and partial remains (a pice of jaw here, a skullcap there, a few teeth over there) it is impossible to decide if those people who differ from us, and also between themselves, are the norm, or probably outliers of populations that had large intra-population variability.
Does a globe-shaped skull imply more homo-sapiens-similarity than a human-like jaw? Where is the line? Does an oblong skull like the ones found in Morocco count as humans or not? A mossaic of features is human? or primitive? What do archaeologists think about this?
We know that brain size evolved in homo species, and this growth influenced the shape of the skull as different areas of the brain developed, pushed by genetic changes and natural selection. More complex cognitive abilities appeared, the stone tools used by homo individuals gradually changed, improving, becoming more efficient in the use of knapped stone. Acheulean tools of erectus were used for over 1.5 million years, unchanged. Then came Mousterian, Levallois and microblades in a faster sequence of improvement mirroring the changing behavior of our ancestors. The discovery of fire, clothing, use of bone, wood, complex tools, needles, fishooks, symbols engraved on small objects, rock art, burials, all reflect behavioural growth as brains developed.
This evolution led from small skulls, with slanted faces, massive jaws, no chins, heavy browridges, to current gracil, rounded skulls, chins, and high forehads over flat faces.
Is there a sharp line between Modern Humans and "the rest"?
Pearson, 2008 looked into this matter in a detailed paper that ponders the archaic and modern morphology, the reasons for variability (evolutionary adaptation, genetic drift, and the shortcomings of the statistical and biological approaches to the subject.
A very interesting research article by Simon Neubauer, Jean-Jacques Hublin, and Philipp Gunz, 2018, analyzed the shape of the skulls and brains, as well as their size. Contemporary human beings have globular (balloon-shaped) brains with an upright forehead and a prominent parietal, the area occupied by the cerebellum is larger and rounded. Or faces are flat. On the other hand, the homo people before us had slanting faces, and elongated brains. (see image comparing a Human and a Neanderthal skull and brain, from Fig. 1 in the 2018 paper above. The authors compared different parameters of brains and skulls of Homo erectus, Neanderthals, and "Humans" from three periods: (1) very early specimens (200-300 kya) from Morocco and Ethiopia, (2) later people from the Middle East and East Africa (100-130 kya), and (3) more recent humans 35-10 kya. The images below show how they align using Principal Component Analysis:
Clearly, there is an evolution from primitive to modern features, with group (2), which included these samples: three from the Levant, Skhul V, Qafzeh 6 and Qafzeh 9 ages 115 ky, and one from Africa, the Ngaloba LH 18 skull from Laetoli, Tanzania (120 kya), closest to moderns and group (3), the latter aged 10 to 30 kya, have brains and skulls that are definitely modern.
Even Anatomically Modern Humans, as they dispersed across the globe following the OOA events carried different skull shapes that can still be identified in contemporary people, and have been used to suggest two migrations and two routes into Eurasia (the "two layer" hypothesis). One comprising Papuans and Oceanians following a South Asian route shares elongated skulls with Africans, the other across Central Asia into Siberia, Europe and East Asia has globular skulls, Europeans have compact jaws, Native Americans and NE Asians share large skulls, higher faces and cranial vaults with tighter foreheads (see Matsumura et al., 2022 and Matsumura et al., 2019).
Even modern humans carry introgressions that modified their skull shape (Neanderthals), as reported by Goovaerts et al., 2025, which has added diversity to non-Africans. Human chins are linked by genes to the flatter face of Homo sapiens. Reearch by Schuch et al., 2025 found that slower and shorter growth after birth, and bone reorption during childhood is a distinctivly human feature, found in all modern humans and absent in Neanderthals, that leads to gracile faces lacking Neanderthal prognathism (jaw protrusion).
Scerri et al., 2018, discusses and questions the orthodox notion that modern humans evolved and emerged within one single, specific population located in a particular region of Africa. The paper aruges that fossils from the early days of humans are very different, and the genetic evidence pointing at a very deep and ancient population structure within Africa (I have mentioned this in other posts, involving isolation, small groups, archaic interbreeding and mutation rates that are different to non-Africans) also supports a multiregional origin involving separate populations, an "African Multi-regionalism."
These isolated popualtions in different environments evolved separately at different paces, and this would explain why they show a combination of archaic and modern traits (they were boxed off in different regions of Africa by very dry deserts and dense tropical jungles —n mountains or glaciers in Africa— and faced different environmental challenges). This article also puts forward some unanswered questions and suggests directions for future research:
"Resolving the speciation of H. sapiens and the character of ancestral populations represents a crucial first step in understanding the emergence of the morphological features that diagnose our species during the later Middle Pleistocene
...
Finally, were some of our anatomical traits inherited from transitional African forms before they became extinct? The range of dates for H. naledi and H. heidelbergensis confirms the late survival of at least two archaic species in Africa. The size and environmental diversity of Africa, particularly the poorly investigated forested regions, may have permitted the late survival of more archaic species as well as of early forms of H. sapiens. These discoveries have fuelled speculations that H. sapiens may have interbred with archaic species in Africa itself. Distinguishing admixture between species from the reintegration of diverse H. sapiens lineages represents a major challenge, with significant taxonomic implications.
...
while a globular braincase does seem to represent a synapomorphy of extant H. sapiens, can it be effectively characterized for application to the fossil record? We emphasize that H. sapiens is a lineage with deep and likely diverse African roots that challenge our use of terms such as ‘archaic H. sapiens’ and ‘anatomically modern humans’. Unless they can be operationalized with more clearly defined traits, such categories will have declining value. Diagnostics of H. sapiens must reflect trajectories of evolution rather than static views of our species – which has changed, and continues to change, at various scales."
Into Africa
I believe that it is possible that the homo group leading to Modern humans probably evolved in the Middle East, and moved into Africa from there. However, this notion is contrary to what science believes is the correct approach to our ancestry, and outlined above by Scerri et al. I have the feeling that Chinese scholars will continue their push to have humans appear and evolve in Eastern Asia. Future publications and research will show us how these ideas develop.
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