773,000-Year-Old Moroccan Hominin Fossils Rewrite the Deep Roots of Homo sapiens

A January 2026 Nature paper has delivered the strongest evidence yet that the last common ancestor (LCA) of Homo sapiens, Neanderthals, and Denisovans lived in northwest Africa far earlier than most models predicted. The fossils—three partial mandibles, teeth, vertebrae, and a femur fragment—from Thomas Quarry I, Casablanca, Morocco, are securely dated to 773,000 ± 4,000 years ago through high-resolution magnetostratigraphy tied to the Matuyama-Brunhes geomagnetic reversal.

Led by Jean-Jacques Hublin, the international team shows these remains combine archaic Homo erectus-like traits with emerging features seen in later Middle Pleistocene hominins. Critically, they sit squarely within the genetic window (765–550 ka) previously estimated for the sapiens-Neanderthal-Denisovan split. “These fossils offer essential clues about the last common ancestor and reinforce a deep African origin for our species,” Hublin stated.

The discovery overturns Eurasian-centric narratives that placed the LCA farther north or later in time. Instead, it positions an African population at the very base of the clade that gave rise to modern humans. While not yet proven as “the” LCA without ancient DNA, the specimens are currently the best morphological and chronological match.

This single site pushes the African “cradle” narrative back by nearly half a million years and highlights how little we still know about early Homo diversity on the continent. The Thomas Quarry hominins have fundamentally shifted the roots of the Homo sapiens family tree—placing its deepest branches firmly in northwest Africa during the Middle Pleistocene.