An international team of researchers has unearthed new hominin fossils in the Thomas I quarry in Casablanca. Dated with great precision to approximately 773,000 years ago using magnetostratigraphic analysis, these human remains provide new insights into a pivotal period in human evolution in North Africa, according to a study published on January 7, 2026, in the journal Nature.
The Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication of the Kingdom of Morocco announces that as part of the Moroccan-French program “Prehistory of Casablanca,” which is part of an institutional collaboration between the National Institute of Archaeological Sciences and Heritage (INSAP) of the Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication / Department of Culture of the Kingdom of Morocco and the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs through the French archaeological mission “Casablanca” and co-directed by Abderrahim Mohib (INSAP), Rosalia Gallotti (University of Montpellier Paul Valéry & LabEx Archimède) and Camille Daujeard (MNHN / CNRS – HNHP), a study was published in the journal Nature on January 7, 2026 by an international research team, presenting the analysis of new hominin fossils unearthed in a cavity in the Thomas I quarry in Casablanca (Morocco).
The material studied includes several human mandibles, including those of two adults and one child, as well as dental and postcranial remains.
It combines archaic features observed in Homo erectus with more modern derived traits.
Magnetostratigraphic analysis, with unparalleled resolution for a site that has yielded hominin remains, has made it possible to date these fossils with extraordinary precision.
The sediments that fill the cavity and contain the fossil remains have provided a high-resolution record of the Matuyama-Brunhes magnetic reversal, dated to 773,000 years ago, providing one of the most accurate and robust ages for a site that has yielded human remains.
The collection documents human populations that are still poorly understood for this pivotal period, situated between the ancient forms of the genus Homo and more recent lineages.
These discoveries fill a significant gap in the African fossil record, at a time when paleogenetic data places the divergence between the African lineage leading to Homo sapiens and the Eurasian lineages that gave rise to Neanderthals and Denisovans.
The fossils display a unique combination of primitive ced characteristics, indicating human populations close to this phase of divergence.
They thus confirm the antiquity and depth of our species’ African roots, while highlighting the key role of North Africa in the major stages of human evolution.
These human fossils unearthed in the Hominid Cave, within the Thomas I quarry near Casablanca (Morocco), shed new light on a key period in human evolution, approximately 773,000 years ago.
Thanks to precise dating based on the Earth’s magnetic field record, these remains can be placed with great chronological reliability in the ancient history of human populations in Africa.
They shed light on the emergence of the Homo sapiens lineage and reinforce the idea that its deep roots are African.
