Hublin et al., 2017 (Jebel Irhoud sapiens)

Question 1

Fossil evidence points to an … origin of Homo sapiens from a group called … …

Answer 1

African, Homo heidelbergensis

Question 2

Why is the exact place and time of emergence of H. sapiens obscure?

Answer 2

The fossil record is scarce and the age of many key specimens remains uncertain

Question 3

This paper reports newly discovered human fossils from … …, … and interprets the relationships of these hominins with archaic and recent human groups

Answer 3

Jebel Irhoud, Morocco

Question 4

… features, mandibular and … morphology align the specimens with early or anatomically … humans, whereas the … and end-cranial morphology is more primitive.

Answer 4

facial, dental, neurocranial (braincase less globular, however skull shape less primitive than older hominin specimens)

• specimens include almost complete skull

Question 5

The specimens are dated back to ~… years ago, determined by … dating

Answer 5

315,000, thermoluminescence

this makes Jebel Irhoud the oldest and richest African Middle Stone Age hominin site that documents the early stages of the H. Sapiens clade in which key features of modern morphology were established

• earliest fossils we think are unequivocally H. sapiens

Question 6

This also shows that the evolutionary emergence of H. sapiens involved the whole…

Answer 6

African continent

Question 7

Discovered in the 60s and 70s but redated in …, along with new excavations

Answer 7

2017

Question 8

Prior to this, fossils from … were regarded as the first … modern humans.

Answer 8

Ethiopia, anatomically

~200,000 years old

• yet these fossils were more derived than the Irhoud fossils which were at the time thought to be younger- initially thought due to interbreeding with neanderthals

Question 9

Even approximately 315,000 years ago homo sapiens … morphology was almost indistinguishable from that of recent … ….

Answer 9

facial, modern humans

Question 10

Suggests diverging trajectories between H. sapiens and African … … …. forms

Answer 10

archaic Middle Pleistocene

Question 11

The evolution of the last 300ka primarily affected the …

Answer 11

braincase

• this occurred together with a series of genetic changes affecting brain connectivity, organisation and development.