How the fossils were discovered
East Africa has been considered the "cradle of life" for the origins and evolution of humans, but north Africa has been largely ignored in this aspect. A skull was found in Florisbad, South Africa, in the 1930s and originally dated to 260,000 years ago, but it's fragmentary and the exact date is subject to debate, the researchers said.
During the 1960s, mining began on top of a large hill of limestone in Morocco and when the miners hit a pocket of sediment, it partially collapsed to reveal a human skull, bones and stone artifacts. Initial research revealed the artifacts to be 40,000 years old, although that didn't align with the features of the bones.