The 2017 discovery in Morocco of fossilised, anatomically modern humans (AMH) dated at 286 ka (see: Origin of anatomically modern humans, June 2017) pushed back the origin of our species by at least 100 ka. Indeed, the same site yielded flint tools around 315 ka old. Aside from indicating our antiquity, the Jebel Irhoud discovery expanded the time span during which AMH might have wandered into Eurasia, as a whole variety of earlier hominins had managed since about 1.8 Ma ago. Sure enough, the widely accepted earliest modern human migrants from Skhul and Qafzeh caves in Israel (90 to 120 ka) were superseded in 2018 by AMH fossils at Misliya Cave, also in Israel, in association with 177 ka stone artefacts (see Earliest departure of modern humans from Africa, January 2018). Such early dates helped make more sense of very old ages for unaccompanied stone tools in the Arabian Peninsula as tracers for early migration routes. Unlike today, Arabia was a fertile place during a series of monsoon-related cycles extending back to about 160 ka (see: Arabia : staging post for human migrations? September 2014; Wet spells in Arabia and human migration, March 2015). The ‘record’ has now shifted to Greece.

Fossil human remains unearthed decades ago often undergo revised assessment as more precise dating methods and anatomical ideas become available. Such is the case for two partial human skulls found in the Apidima Cave complex of southern Greece during the late 1970s. Now, using the uranium-series method, one has been dated at 170 ka, the other being at least 210 ka old (Harvati, K. and 11 others 2019. Apidima Cave fossils provide earliest evidence of Homo sapiens in Eurasia. Nature, v. 571 online; DOI: 10.1038/s41586-019-1376-z). These are well within the age range of European Neanderthals. Indeed, the younger one does have the characteristic Neanderthal brow ridges and elongated shape. Albeit damaged, the older skull is more rounded and lacks the Neanderthals’ ‘bun’-like bulge at the back; it is an early member of Homo sapiens. In fact 170 ka older than any other early European AMH, and a clear contemporary of the long-lived Neanderthal population of Eurasia; in fact the age relations could indicate that Neanderthals replaced these early AMH migrants.

Given suitable climatic conditions in the Levant and Arabia, those areas are the closest to Africa to which they are linked by an ‘easy’, overland route. To reach Greece is not only a longer haul from the Red Sea isthmus but involves the significant barrier of the Dardanelles strait, or it requires navigation across the Mediterranean Sea. Such is the ‘specky’ occurrence of hominin fossils in both space and time that a new geographic outlier such as Apidima doesn’t help much in understanding how migration happened. Until – and if – DNA can be extracted it is impossible to tell if AMH-Neanderthal hybridisation occurred at such an early date and if the 210 ka population in Greece vanished without a trace or left a sign in the genomics of living humans. Yet, both time and place being so unexpected, the discovery raises optimism of further discoveries to come

See also: Delson, E. 2019. An early modern human outside Africa. Nature, v. 571 online; DOI: 10.1038/d41586-019-02075-9