"New research published today in Nature dates the boneschipped out from a cave called Grotte a Hominides and nearby it over decadesto about 773,000 years ago, during the era of the last common ancestor of Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis and Denisovans (a group of humans that ranged across Asia and that does not have an agreed-upon species name). We can say that the shared ancestry between these three species is perhaps in Grotte a Hominides in Casablanca, says study co-author Abderrahim Mohib, a prehistorian at the National Institute of Archaeology and Heritage Sciences in Rabat, Morocco."
"The cave is part of a quarry, where the first mandible was discovered in 1969. Another adult mandible and a string of vertebrae turned up in 2008, and part of a child's mandible was unearthed in 2009. The hominin bones and animal remains make up an assemblage of fossils that appear to come from the den of a carnivore, perhaps a hyena. Among them, a hominin femur that was excavated from the cave bears teeth marks."
A trio of jawbones, a leg bone, and multiple vertebrae and teeth were recovered from Grotte a Hominides near Casablanca. Luminescence dating places the fossils at about 773,000 years old, within the timeframe of the last common ancestor of Homo sapiens, Neandertals and Denisovans. The assemblage was excavated from a quarry and includes specimens recovered in 1969, 2008 and 2009. The remains appear to derive from a carnivore den, possibly hyena, and include a hominin femur bearing tooth marks. Comparative mandible images show variation among North African fossil hominins and modern humans, enabling direct size and shape comparisons.
Read at www.scientificamerican.com
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