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Palaeoanthropology

On the origin of our species

Nature volume 546, pages 212–214 (2017)Cite this article

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A Correction to this article was published on 15 June 2017

This article has been updated

Gaps in the fossil record have limited our understanding of how Homo sapiens evolved. The discovery in Morocco of the earliest known H. sapiens fossils might revise our ideas about human evolution in Africa. See Letters p.289 & p.293

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Figure 1: Skull-shape differences.

NHM London (CC-BY)

Figure 2: Jebel Irhoud, Morocco.

Shannon McPherron, MPI EVA Leipzig, License: CC-BY-SA 2.0

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  • 14 June 2017

    The fossil samples from which the authors deduced their results have been clarified.

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  1. the Department of Earth Sciences, Natural History Museum, London, SW7 5BD, UK

    Chris Stringer & Julia Galway-Witham

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  1. Chris Stringer
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  2. Julia Galway-Witham
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Correspondence to Chris Stringer.

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Stringer, C., Galway-Witham, J. On the origin of our species. Nature 546, 212–214 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/546212a

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  1. allan lindh

    Of course if George Church could get the go-ahead to edit into a human genome, starting maybe with a San genome, as much as possible of the Neanderthal genome, and implant an egg and bring it to term, and if survives birth, raise it up, we would learn more about the cognitive differences in a day, that we will in 100 years of speculation. I understand the moral and ethical dilemmas involved, but if people think those are the greatest moral dilemmas we face today, they should open their eyes and look around the planet today &#8212 the developed world's behavior vis a vis the world's poorest, is vastly more egregious than trying to create a Human/Neanderthal hybrid, something from which we would learn a great deal. All we learn by ignoring the plight of the poorest is what unconscionable hypocrites we are.

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