Researchers Reconstruct Face of Oldest Known Homo sapiens
The portrait uses a composite skull and soft-tissue data from modern African populations to produce a scientifically constrained approximation of early Homo sapiens.
- On September 13, 2026, researchers published a digital facial approximation of the Jebel Irhoud hominin in the journal Heritage, depicting a member of the species living in modern-day Morocco about 315,000 years ago.
- Originally discovered in 1961 and misidentified as African Neanderthal, the fossils were reclassified as Homo sapiens in 2017, making them the oldest known representatives of the species.
- Dr. Johari Yap Abdullah, a researcher at Universiti Sains Malaysia and Saveetha University, led the team using photogrammetry and constrained anatomical deformation to produce both neutral grayscale and colored artistic versions.
- The reconstruction reveals a "morphologically plausible approximation," highlighting an evolutionary mismatch of a modern face and jaw sitting on an archaic, elongated braincase that preserves an earlier chapter of human evolution.
- Open-Source tools and transparent workflows provide a robust alternative for investigating complex Middle Pleistocene fossil specimens, successfully bridging scientific precision with public outreach requirements, the authors demonstrated.
24 Articles
24 Articles
Scientists have created a digital reconstruction of the face of one of the oldest known representatives of Homo sapiens, who lived in what is now Morocco about 315,000 years ago. The reconstruction was made based on fossils from the archaeological site of Jebel Irhoud, which contains some of the oldest remains attributed to the modern human species. The results are published in the scientific journal Heritage. The team, led by Brazilian 3D recon…
His partial remains were discovered in the 1960s at the Jeber Irhoud mining site
A team of scientists used three-dimensional technology and forensic analysis of fossils found in Morocco to recreate the factions of a prehistoric ancestor
From fossils found in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, a team of researchers recreated in 3D the factions of one of the oldest Homo sapiens found
We can see the face of an ancestor at the age of 315,000 years, and scientists have created a 3D reconstruction of a man who lived in Africa about 315,000 years ago, using digital scans of bone residue from the Jabal Irhoud site in Morocco. This is what RBC-Ukraine writes with reference to a study published in the professional science journal Heritage. From an error with a Neanderthal to the ancient Homo sapiens, the fossil skull, first known as…
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