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07 January 2026 Of all the quarries: Casablanca fossils reveal African ancestors of Homo sapiens Surprising fossil finds in a Moroccan quarry reveal 773,000-year-old hominin specimens that are close to the ancestor of modern humans.
The early origins of the human species are a long-standing enigma. For decades, researchers have turned to the fossil record of the Middle Pleistocene age (about 774,000 to 129,000 years ago) in search of the lineage from which both modern humans and our close relatives on the evolutionary tree, the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) and Denisovans, emerged. The first Neanderthals were discovered in the mid-nineteenth century1 and it was not until 2010 that ancient DNA2 recovered from Denisova Cave in Siberia, Russia, revealed that Neanderthals had a sister group, the Denisovans. This finding increased the known diversity of large-brained Homo species and raised questions about this shared ancestry. Writing in Nature, Hublin et al.3 now present fossil evidence that is relevant to understanding human ancestors.
doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-025-03986-6
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Competing Interests The author declares no competing interests.
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