Homo sapiens was long thought to have appeared in East Africa around 200,000 years ago. In 2017, fresh analysis of remains from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco — known since the 1960s — overturned that picture: thermoluminescence and electron-spin-resonance dating placed them around 315,000 years ago. Our lineage, in other words, was already taking shape both earlier than expected and across a far wider geographic range — from the eastern to the western edge of Africa.

The Jebel Irhoud face is markedly modern: the face is flat-set rather than projecting, and the chin is clearly defined. The braincase, however, is still long and narrow rather than the rounded shape seen today. Evolution is a reminder that traits do not arrive as a package; different features settle in at different times.

Most researchers now favour a "pan-African" model of our origins rather than a single birthplace. Populations across many parts of Africa, in contact with one another, jointly — not independently — produced Homo sapiens. The dispersal out of Africa, the current evidence suggests, begins only around 70,000 to 60,000 years ago; until that point, everything happens within Africa.