Graham Hancock on archaeology: what the evidence says · JRE #2215
SUBJECT: ARCHAEOLOGY
Not a true/false call. Every claim is logged with its sources; read the exhibits below.
anatomically modern humans, we think that they first appeared about 300,000 years ago. Jebel Irhoud in Morocco, 310,000 years ago. Now, I can remember a time not so long ago, back in the 1990s, when it was thought that the first anatomically modern humans were as recent as 50,000 years ago. And then they shifted it, new finds were made, to 110,000 years ago.
What the evidence says 01 / RECORD
The core claim matches the published record. Hublin and colleagues (Nature, 2017) reported Homo sapiens fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, dated by thermoluminescence to 315,000 years (plus or minus 34,000), making it the oldest securely dated evidence of our species and pushing the emergence of anatomically modern humans back to roughly 300,000 years. Hancock's figures of about 300,000 years for modern humans and 310,000 for Jebel Irhoud fall squarely within that dating range. His account of earlier views is looser: through the 1990s and 2000s the accepted oldest H. sapiens fossils were the Ethiopian Omo Kibish (about 195,000 years) and Herto (about 160,000) remains, with Skhul and Qafzeh in the Levant around 90,000 to 120,000 years, so the specific 50,000 and 110,000 year milestones he cites are approximate rather than exact. Overall the central scientific point, that the date was revised sharply older by the Jebel Irhoud finds, is correct.