Palaeoanthropology: On the origin of our species
Palaeoanthropology: On the origin of our species
复制标题
古人类学：论我们物种的起源
作者：
C. Stringer;J. Galway
化石记录中的空白限制了我们对智人如何进化的理解。在摩洛哥发现了已知最早的H.智人化石可能会改变我们对非洲人类进化的看法。我们物种出现的确切地点和时间仍然不清楚，因为化石记录有限，许多关键标本的年代仍然不确定。先前的化石证据表明，现代人类生物学在大约20万年前出现在东非。在本期《自然》杂志上，Jean-Jaques Hublin及其同事报告了来自摩洛哥Jebel Irhoud的新人类化石;他们的工作伴随着Shannon McPherron及其同事对化石年代的单独报告。他们共同报告了可以追溯到30万至35万年前的遗骸。他们确定了许多特征，包括面部，下颌骨和牙齿形态，这些特征使材料与早期或近代现代人保持一致。他们还发现了更原始的神经颅和颅内形态。总的来说，研究人员认为，Jebel Irhoud人所显示的这种马赛克特征将他们分配给智人的最早进化阶段。这两篇论文都表明，现代人类出现背后的进化过程并不局限于撒哈拉以南非洲。
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 The exact place and time that our species emerged remains obscure because the fossil record is limited and the chronological age of many key specimens remains uncertain. Previous fossil evidence has placed the emergence of modern human biology in eastern Africa around 200,000 years ago. In this issue of Nature, Jean-Jaques Hublin and colleagues report new human fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco; their work is accompanied by a separate report on the dating of the fossils by Shannon McPherron and colleagues. Together they report remains dating back 300,000–350,000 years. They identify numerous features, including a facial, mandibular and dental morphology, that align the material with early or recent modern humans. They also identified more primitive neurocranial and endocranial morphology. Collectively, the researchers believe that this mosaic of features displayed by the Jebel Irhoud hominins assigns them to the earliest evolutionary phase of Homo sapiens. Both papers suggest that the evolutionary processes behind the emergence of modern humans were not confined to sub-Saharan Africa.