Rosa Rubicondior: Creationism Refuted - Early Hominins From Morocco Confirm The African Origin of Homo Sapiens

773,000-year-old mandible ThI-GH-1 from Thomas Quarry in Morocco.

Early hominins from Thomas Quarry I (Morocco) reveal an African lineage near the root of Homo sapiens

The discovery and dating (of which more later) of hominin remains in a Moroccan quarry, reported recently in Nature, has provided further confirmation that the origin of Homo sapiens lies in Africa, not Eurasia, contrary to an alternative hypothesis that has occasionally been proposed. The material consists of mandibles and other fragmentary remains, and also sheds light on the evolutionary origins of Neanderthals and Denisovans.

That is not to say that any serious palaeoanthropologists believed humans evolved wholly in Eurasia. Rather, some suggested that the final stages of Homo sapiens evolution may have occurred there, derived from descendants of earlier African migrants such as H. erectus, H. rhodesiensis, or H. antecessor. Others have argued that the so-called ‘muddle in the middle’ of the hominin family tree may represent a single, widely distributed species exhibiting regional variation across both Africa and Eurasia.

However, the Moroccan specimens display a clear mosaic of primitive and derived features — precisely the pattern that creationists call ‘transitional species’ and insist don't exist. These fossils combine traits seen in African sister lineages with features associated with H. antecessor, a pre-Neanderthal/Denisovan European species whose remains are being excavated at the Sima de los Huesos (Cave of Bones) site at Atapuerca, Spain.

The fossils are also exceptionally valuable for palaeoanthropology for another reason. The sediments in which they were found preserve the unmistakable signature of the Matuyama–Brunhes geomagnetic reversal, which occurred around 773,000 years ago when Earth’s magnetic poles flipped. This provides an unusually robust chronological anchor, as the timing of this reversal has been independently verified from multiple, entirely separate lines of evidence.

There is therefore a great deal here for creationists to attempt to dismiss. First, there is the mosaic of primitive and derived features that identify these fossils as genuinely transitional — something creationism insists does not exist. Second, there is the age of the material, securely dated to approximately 763,000 years (±4,000 years) before creationists insist Earth was magicked out of nothing, placing ancestral hominins hundreds of thousands of years before the Bronze Age biblical story of a single, ancestor-free human couple. Finally, and perhaps most inconveniently of all, the dating does not rely on radiometric methods at all, but on geomagnetic reversal stratigraphy, verified beyond any reasonable doubt. The biblical timeline is therefore wrong by many orders of magnitude.

Background^ Geomagnetic Reversals and Why They Matter.
Earth’s magnetic field is generated by convection currents in its liquid outer core. Over geological time, this field has repeatedly reversed polarity, with magnetic north and south swapping places. These events are known as geomagnetic reversals and occur irregularly, typically every few hundred thousand years.

When volcanic rocks cool or sediments settle, iron-bearing minerals within them align with the direction of Earth’s magnetic field at that moment. Once locked in place, this magnetic orientation is preserved indefinitely. As a result, rock sequences record a barcode-like pattern of normal and reversed polarity that can be read long after deposition.

One of the most important of these events is the Matuyama–Brunhes magnetic reversal, which occurred about 773,000 years ago. It marks the boundary between a long period of reversed polarity (the Matuyama Chron) and the current normal-polarity interval (the Brunhes Chron). This reversal has been independently identified in marine sediments, ice cores, volcanic flows, and continental deposits across the globe.

Because geomagnetic reversals are:

Global (they occur everywhere at once),
Non-biological (unaffected by climate or ecology),
Independently dated using multiple methods,

they provide one of the most reliable chronological anchors in Earth science. When fossils are found in sediments showing a known magnetic polarity, their age can be constrained with exceptional precision — without relying on radiometric dating at all.

In the case of the Moroccan hominin fossils, their position relative to the Matuyama–Brunhes reversal fixes them at approximately 760,000 years old, with a very small margin of error. This places them deep in the Middle Pleistocene and utterly incompatible with any young-Earth or biblical chronology.

For creationism, geomagnetic reversals present an unsolvable problem: they are real, physical events recorded worldwide, repeated many times, and stacked in a consistent order far older than any proposed creation date. There is no coherent alternative explanation within a biblical framework, other than that the physical evidence is a lie created to deceive.

The discovery, made by an international research team led by Jean-Jacques Hublin (Collège de France & Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology), David Lefèvre (Université de Montpellier Paul-Valéry), Giovanni Muttoni (Università degli Studi di Milano), and Abderrahim Mohib (Institut National des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine, Morocco), is described in a press release from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig.

Early hominins from Morocco reveal an African lineage near the root of Homo sapiens
773,000-year-old fossils from Thomas Quarry I in Morocco illuminate the shared ancestry of Homo sapiens, Neandertals, and Denisovans

To the point

Precisely dated fossils: A high-resolution magnetostratigraphic record at Thomas Quarry I captures the Matuyama–Brunhes reversal at around 773,000 years ago, providing one of the most accurate ages for an African Pleistocene hominin assemblage.
Near the root of our lineage: Mandibles and other remains show a mosaic of archaic and derived traits consistent with an African sister population to Homo antecessor, near the divergence of Middle Pleistocene Eurasian and African hominin lineages.
Northwestern Africa’s key role: Decades of Moroccan-French research in the Casablanca coastal formations reveal a uniquely preserved cave sequence and carnivore-den context, highlighting the region’s importance in early Homo evolution.

An international research team led by Jean-Jacques Hublin (Collège de France & Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology), David Lefèvre (Université de Montpellier Paul Valéry), Giovanni Muttoni (Università degli Studi di Milano) and Abderrahim Mohib (Moroccan Institut National des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine, INSAP) reports the analysis of new hominin fossils from the site of Thomas Quarry I (Casablanca, Morocco). The fossils are very securely dated to 773,000 plus/minus 4,000 years ago, thanks to a high-resolution magnetostratigraphic record capturing in detail the Brunhes/Matuyama boundary, the last main geomagnetic polarity reversal and precise temporal markers of the Quaternary. Published in Nature, this work highlights African populations near the base of the lineage that eventually gave rise to Homo sapiens, providing new insights into the shared ancestry of H. sapiens, Neandertals, and Denisovans.

Decades of Moroccan-French fieldwork lead to major new discoveries

The results presented here stem from over three decades of continuous archaeological and geological research conducted in the framework of the Moroccan-French Program “Préhistoire de Casablanca”. This program conducts extensive excavations, systematic stratigraphic studies, and large-scale geoarchaeological analyses in the southwest part of the city of Casablanca.

This patient and rigorous fieldwork progressively revealed the exceptional stratigraphic, palaeoenvironmental and archaeological setting of Thomas Quarry I, ultimately leading to the discovery of the hominin remains and geological sequences that underpin the present study.

The success of this long-term research reflects a strong institutional collaboration involving the Ministère de la Jeunesse, de la Culture et de la Communication Département de la Culture of the Kingdom of Morocco (through INSAP) and the Ministère de l’Europe et des Affaires Étrangères of France (through the French Archaeological Mission Casablanca).

Abderrahim Mohib, senior author
Institut National des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine
Rabat, Morocco

The present study was also supported by the Università degli Studi di Milano (Italy), the Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology (Germany), the LabEx Archimède – University of Montpellier Paul Valéry, the University of Bordeaux and the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (France).

A unique geological setting: the Moroccan Atlantic coast as a Pleistocene treasure house

Thomas Quarry I lies within the raised coastal formations of the Rabat–Casablanca littoral, a region internationally renowned for its exceptional succession of Plio-Pleistocene palaeoshorelines, coastal dunes and cave systems. These geological formations, resulting from repeated sea-level oscillations, aeolian phases, and rapid early cementation of coastal sands, offer ideal conditions for fossil and archaeological preservation.

Jean-Paul Raynal, co-author
Institut National des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine
Rabat, Morocco

As result, the Casablanca region has become one of Africa’s richest repositories of Pleistocene palaeontology and archaeology, documenting the early Acheulean and its developments, diverse faunas reflecting environmental change, and several phases of hominin occupation.

Thomas Quarry I, excavated into the Oulad Hamida Formation, is particularly well known for containing the oldest Acheulean industries of north-western Africa dated to around 1.3 million years ago and lies close to other celebrated sites such as Sidi Abderrahmane, a classic reference for Middle Pleistocene prehistory in the Northwest Africa.

[Within this wider complex, the “Grotte à Hominidés” constitutes] a unique cave system carved by a marine highstand into earlier coastal formations and later filled with sediments that preserved hominin fossils in a secure, undisturbed and undisputable stratigraphic context.

David Lefèvre, co-author
LabEx Archimède and ASM-UMR 5140
Université de Montpellier Paul Valéry, CNRS,
Montpellier, France.

A uniquely well-dated hominin assemblage in Africa

Dating Early and Middle Pleistocene fossils is notoriously difficult, due to discontinuous stratigraphies or methods affected by considerable uncertainty. The Grotte à Hominidés is exceptional because rapid sedimentation and continuous deposition allowed to capture a high-resolution magnetic signal recorded within sediments with remarkable detail.

Earth’s magnetic field reverses polarity episodically over geological time. These paleomagnetic reversals occur worldwide and almost instantaneously on geological timescales, leaving in sediments a sharp, globally synchronous signal. The Matuyama–Brunhes transition (MBT), which occurred around 773,000 years ago, is the most recent of these major reversals and constitutes one of the most precise markers available to geologists and archaeologists.

Seeing the Matuyama–Brunhes transition recorded with such resolution in the ThI-GH deposits allows us to anchor the presence of these hominins within an exceptionally precise chronological framework for the African Pleistocene.

Serena Perini, co-corresponding author
Dipartimento di Scienze della Terra “A. Desio”
Università degli Studi di Milano
Milan, Italy.

The Grotte à Hominidés sequence spans the end of the Matuyama Chron (reverse polarity), the MBT itself, and the onset of the Brunhes Chron (normal polarity). Using 180 magnetostratigraphic samples - an unprecedented resolution for a Pleistocene hominin site - the team established the exact position of the reverse-to-normal switch, currently dated at 773,000 years, and even captured the short duration of the transition (8,000 to 11,000 years). It is chronologically valuable that the sediments containing the hominin fossils were deposited precisely during this transition. Additional faunal evidence independently supports this age, affirming the primacy of magnetostratigraphy over other methods for establishing the chronology of this site.

Hominins close to the root of the Homo sapiens lineage

Lower jaws (mandibles) from North Africa, illustrating variation among fossil hominins and modern humans. The fossils shown are Tighennif 3 from Algeria (upper left), ThI-GH-10717 from Thomas Quarry in Morocco (upper right), and Jebel Irhoud 11 from Morocco (lower left), compared with a mandible from a recent modern human (lower right). All specimens are shown at the same scale, allowing direct comparison of their size and shape.

© Philipp Gunz, MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology

The hominin remains come from what appears to have been a carnivore den, as suggested by a hominin femur showing clear traces of gnawing and consumption. The assemblage includes a nearly complete adult mandible, a second adult half mandible, a child mandible, several vertebrae, and isolated teeth.

High-resolution micro-CT imaging, geometric morphometrics, and comparative anatomical analysis reveal a mosaic of archaic and derived traits. Several characteristics recall hominins from Gran Dolina, Atapuerca, of comparable age – the so-called Homo antecessor - suggesting that very ancient population contacts between north-west Africa and southern Europe may once have existed. However, by the time of the Matuyama–Brunhes transition, these populations appear to have been already clearly separated, implying that any such exchanges must have occurred earlier.

Using microCT imaging we were able to study a hidden internal structure of the teeth, referred to as the enamel-dentine junction, which is known to be taxonomically informative and which is preserved in teeth where the enamel surface is worn away. Analysis of this structure consistently shows the Grotte à Hominidés hominins to be distinct from both Homo erectus and Homo antecessor, identifying them as representative of populations that could be basal to Homo sapiens and archaic Eurasian lineages.

Matthew M. Skinner, co-author
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology
Leipzig, Germany.

In their shapes and non-metric traits, the teeth from Grotte à Hominidés retain many primitive features and lack the traits that are characteristic of Neandertals. In this sense, they differ from Homo antecessor, which - in some features - are beginning to resemble Neandertals. The dental morphological analyses indicate that regional differences in human populations may have been already present by the end of the Early Pleistocene.

Shara Bailey, co-author
Centre for the Study of Human Origins
Dept. Anthropology
New York University
New York, NY, USA.

A new window on the last common ancestor of humans and Neandertals

This discovery highlights that Northwest Africa played a major role in the early evolutionary history of the genus Homo, at a time when climatic oscillations periodically opened ecological corridors across what is now the Sahara.

The idea that the Sahara was a permanent biogeographic barrier does not hold for this period. The palaeontological evidence shows repeated connections between Northwest Africa and the savannas of the East and South.

Denis Geraads, co-author
CR2P-UMR 7207, CNRS, MNHN,
Sorbonne Université,
Paris, France.

The hominins from the Grotte à Hominidés are almost contemporaneous with the hominins from Gran Dolina, older than Middle Pleistocene fossils ancestral to Neanderthals and Denisovans, and roughly 500,000 years earlier than the earliest Homo sapiens remains from Jebel Irhoud. In their combination of archaic African traits with traits that approach later Eurasian and African Middle Pleistocene morphologies, the hominins from the Grotte à Hominidés provide essential clues about the last common ancestor of Homo sapiens, Neandertals, and Denisovans—estimated from genetic evidence to have lived between 765,000 and 550,000 years ago. Paleontological evidence from the Grotte à Hominidés aligns most closely with the older part of this interval.

[T]he fossils from the Grotte à Hominidés may be the best candidates we currently have for African populations lying near the root of this shared ancestry, thus reinforcing the view of a deep African origin for our species.

Jean-Jacques Hublin, lead author
Chaire de Paléoanthropologie, CIRB
Collège de France
Université PSL, CNRS,
Paris, France.

Publication:
Hublin, JJ., Lefèvre, D., Perini, S. et al. Early hominins from Morocco basal to the Homo sapiens lineage. Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09914-y

Abstract
Palaeogenetic evidence suggests that the last common ancestor of present-day humans, Neanderthals and Denisovans lived around 765–550 thousand years ago (ka)¹. However, both the geographical distribution and the morphology of these ancestral humans remain uncertain. The Homo antecessor fossils from the TD6 layer of Gran Dolina at Atapuerca, Spain, dated between 950 ka and 770 ka (ref. ²), have been proposed as potential candidates for this ancestral population³. However, all securely dated Homo sapiens fossils before 90 ka were found either in Africa or at the gateway to Asia, strongly suggesting an African rather than a Eurasian origin of our species. Here we describe new hominin fossils from the Grotte à Hominidés at Thomas Quarry I (ThI-GH) in Casablanca, Morocco, dated to around 773 ka. These fossils are similar in age to H. antecessor, yet are morphologically distinct, displaying a combination of primitive traits and of derived features reminiscent of later H. sapiens and Eurasian archaic hominins. The ThI-GH hominins provide insights into African populations predating the earliest H. sapiens individuals discovered at Jebel Irhoud in Morocco⁴ and provide strong evidence for an African lineage ancestral to our species. These fossils offer clues about the last common ancestor shared with Neanderthals and Denisovans.

a, Location map of ThI, modified according to ref. ¹³. b, Magnetostratigraphy of members OH3A, OH3B, OH4, GH-CCC and OH5 of ref. ¹³ and this study. The black bars represent normal polarity, and the white bars represent reverse polarity. Further details are provided in Supplementary Fig. 2. Magnetochron ages are from ref. ²². c, Photograph of the outcrop stratigraphy with indication of magnetic polarity from this study and a previous study¹³ and lithologic members. Here we focused on sections A–E, of which only section A is reported here. d, Magnetostratigraphy of sections A–E comprised stratigraphic units OH4 SU6–5 and GH-CCC SU4–3. Context and details for lithostratigraphic units are provided in Extended Data Fig. 2. The red stars with labels represent hominin remains (the larger stars indicate mandibles) (Extended Data Table 1): ThI-GH-UA28-7 (femur, a); ThI-GH-OA23-24 (tooth, b); ThI-GH-SA26-88 (tooth, c); ThI-GH-SA26-90 (tooth, d); ThI-GH-PA24-107 (tooth, e); ThI-GH-10717 (mandible) and ThI-GH-10717/1-5 (vertebrae, f); ThI-GH-10725 and ThI-GH-10725/1 (vertebrae, g); ThI-GH-10726 (vertebra, h); and ThI-GH-10978 (mandible, i). Note that ThI-GH-UA28-7 (a) is located outside the section on the right. Close to the bottom wall of the cavity, its insertion into the stratigraphy is imprecise (SU4/5).

Mandible ThI-GH-1: (1) lateral view; (2) occlusal view; (3) lingual view. Mandible ThI-GH-10717: (4) right lateral view; (5) occlusal view. Mandible ThI-GH-10978: (6) lateral view; (7) lingual view. UP4 ThI-GH-OA23-24: (8) distal view; (9) mesial view. UP3 ThI-GH-PA24-107: (10) distal view; (11) mesial view. UP3 ThI-GH-SA26-90: (12) mesial view; (13) distal view. UI1 ThI-GH-SA26-88: (14) buccal view; (15) lingual view. (16) Fused C2 and C3 vertebrae ThI-GH-10725 and ThI-GH-10725/1, caudal view. (17) C4 vertebra ThI-GH-10717/5, cranial view. (18) C6 vertebra ThI-GH-10717/1, cranial view. (19) C7 vertebra ThI-GH-10717/3, cranial view. (20) T1 vertebra ThI-GH10717/2, cranial view. (21) T2 vertebra ThI-GH-10717/4, cranial view. Scale, 5 cm.

A) General view of the quarry from the southwest (M. Rué). ThI-GH: Grotte à Hominidés. ThI-L: Unit L,early Acheulean site. See details in Extended Data Fig. 2a. B) Excavations plan in the local coordinate system (R. Gallotti, J.-P. Raynal, A. Mohib, M. Rué). Top left: Google Earth view (WGS84 coordinate system).

A) Thomas Quarry I (ThI). The Oulad Hamida Formation: OH1 to OH5 Members and GH - Continental Cave Complex (CCC) (D. Lefèvre, M. Rué). ThI-GH: Grotte à Hominidés. ThI-L: Unit L, early Acheulan site. OH1: coarse calcirudite and calcarenites (Bed 1) overlain by bioclastic sands and limestones (Bed 2); OH2: coarse cross-bedded and finer planar-bedded intertidal biocalcarenites, then massive coarse bioclastic aeolianites; OH3A: massive coarse or coquinoid biocalcarenites, OH3B: clino-stratified aeolianites; OH4: planar-bedded intertidal calcarenites; OH5: cross-bedded coarse aeolian sands; GH-CCC: continental cave deposits. B) Sedimentary infilling of ThI-GH (D. Lefèvre, M. Rué, photogrammetric survey by S. Sanz). C. Synthetic lithostratigraphic log of ThI-GH (M. Rué, D. Lefèvre). Mb: Member, SU: Stratigraphic unit. ThI-GH infilling starts with OH4 marine deposits: calcirudites (SU7) preserved in a notch and plurimetric collapsed blocks of calcarenites and calcirudite with blunt-surfaced onlapped by fine, grey, planar-bedded intertidal biocalcarenites (SU6), and then well-sorted bioclastic and quartzose sands derived from reworked loose littoral deposits (SU5). Without any apparent disconformity, the sequence transitions into continental well-sorted bioclastic and quartzose reddish sands (GH-CCC-SU4 and 3). The upper continental deposits lie in discontinuity on SU3. SU2 consists of multilayer dripstone interbedded with loose red sands, and SU1 comprises massively bedded, rubified sands. At the entrance of the cavity (see A), cross-bedded grey aeolianite sandstones (OH5) are interposed between SU3 and the upper continental deposits SU2-SU1.

A) Horizontal and B) vertical distribution of all coordinated remains including hominin fossils and OSL/ESR-U series dating (M. Rué, R. Gallotti, A. Mohib, J.-P. Raynal). Same location as Fig. 1d. The red stars with labels represent hominin remains: a: ThI-GH-UA28-7 (femur); b: ThI-GH-OA23-24 (tooth); c: ThI-GH-SA26-88 (tooth); d: ThI-GH-SA26-90 (tooth); e: ThI-GH-PA24-107 (tooth); f: ThI-GH-10717 (mandible), ThI-GH-10717/1-5 (vertebrae); g: ThI-GH-10725 and ThI-GH-10725/1 (vertebrae); h: ThI-GH-10726 (vertebra); i: ThI-GH-10978 (mandible). The stratigraphic insertion of femur ThI-GH-UA28-7 (a) located near the bottom wall of the cavity is uncertain (SU4/5). C) Photograph of the excavation (D. Lefèvre, M. Rué). SU: stratigraphic unit (see Extended Data Fig. 2). Section C, D and E: magnetostratigraphic sections (see Fig. 1d). Red stars: hominin remains: f (ThI-GH-10717) and i (ThI-GH-10978). D) and E) Photographs of hominin fossils ThI-GH-10978 and ThI-GH-10717 (Photographs J.-P. Raynal).

A) Articular pillar morphology and lower facet orientation. Comparison in dorsal and caudal views of the seventh cervical vertebra from ThI-GH-10717/3 compared to KNM-WT 15000 and to a recent Homo sapiens (figures not to scale). The arrow indicates the presence of a marked notch in the articular pillars between the upper and the lower articular facets. The black lines indicate the approximate orientation of the lower articular facets, which are slightly convex and display a ventral-lateral orientation in ThI-GH and KNM-WT 15000, while they are flatter with a ventral to ventral-medial orientation in recent Homo sapiens. B) Box plots of vertebral canal area relative to vertebral body geometric mean (following and modified from¹³⁴). All the Casablanca specimens fall close to the H. sapiens mean, except for the T2, where both KNM-WT 15000 and ThI-GH specimens show very low value. In the boxplots, the whiskers represent the 1.5 times the interquartile range, the box represents the interquartile range, and the centre represents the median. The Pan troglodytes sample was compared to the Homo sapiens sample using a two-tailed Student’s T-tests. The different fossil specimens (Dmanisi, Sima de los Huesos, ThI-GH, KNM WT-15000 and Gran Dolina-TD6 and MH1) were compared to the Homo sapiens sample using a z-score analysis. * = significantly different from Homo sapiens (p < 0.05); ** = significantly different from Homo sapiens (p < 0.01). Comparative sample sizes: Pan troglodytes (C3: n = 18; C7: n = 13; T1: n = 10; T2: n = 19); Homo sapiens (C3: n = 62; C7: n = 37; T1: n = 25; T2: n = 52)¹³⁴.

Hublin, JJ., Lefèvre, D., Perini, S. et al. Early hominins from Morocco basal to the Homo sapiens lineage. Nature (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-025-09914-y

Copyright: © 2025 The authors.
Published by Springer Nature Ltd. Open access.
Reprinted under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International license (CC BY 4.0)

Taken together, the Moroccan fossils remove yet another refuge for creationist evasions. They reinforce the African origin of Homo sapiens, illuminate the shared ancestry of modern humans, Neanderthals, and Denisovans, and do so using evidence that is independent, mutually reinforcing, and devastatingly consistent. This is not a single awkward fossil that can be waved away, but a coherent convergence of anatomy, stratigraphy, and global geophysics.

What makes this discovery particularly uncomfortable for creationism is that it bypasses many of the usual escape routes. The fossils display the very mosaic of traits that creationists insist does not exist, while their age is anchored by a planetary-scale magnetic event that cannot be dismissed as faulty laboratory technique or circular reasoning. No appeal to “flawed radiometric dating” can rescue a worldview that collapses under the weight of Earth’s own magnetic history.

Once again, reality aligns precisely with what evolutionary theory predicts and utterly contradicts Bronze Age mythology. Human origins are deep, complex, and African, involving long-diverged populations, repeated dispersals, and gradual anatomical change over hundreds of thousands of years. The idea of a recently created, ancestor-free human couple is not merely unsupported — it is rendered absurd by the accumulating evidence.

As so often, the problem for creationism is not a lack of data, but far too much of it. Each new discovery narrows the gap between prediction and observation for evolution, while widening the chasm between scripture and the real history of our species.

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