The Sahara did not begin as a desert. It has a long history of lakes, river basins, and grassy landscapes that could welcome human wanderers. A joint Spanish-Moroccan archaeological project in northern Morocco supports this idea of a once green Sahara and indicates that early human groups expanded more rapidly than previously believed.
A study team from the Catalan Institute of Human Paleoecology and Social Evolution (IPHES) and the University of Mohammed I, Oujda, has conducted diggings across many sites since 2006 in Jerada, the northeastern edge of the Maghreb. The area now is arid, yet the researchers uncovered animal remains and occasional human traces dating from roughly 2.5 million to 10,000 years ago.
The discoveries lie near the boundary of the Sahara, close to the Algerian frontier. In this landscape, where weathered mines lie nearby, researchers found a circular green savanna called a hipparion, an ancestor of the three-toed horse; evidence of saber-toothed cats or dinofelis; and remains linked to an early Berber macaque dating back about 2.5 million years.
Tools from 1.5 million years ago
Across a range of deposits, no human skeletons have been located yet, but material indicates their presence through stone implements and the traces they left on animal bones.
Some of the finds date to around 500,000 years ago, aligning with the earliest human indicators found in Algeria or near Casablanca, Morocco.
Other artifacts remain to be analyzed. Based on tool shapes, some could be dated to more than 1.5 million years ago. That timeframe places human ancestors in a broad arc that extends to Kenya and Tanzania around 3 million years ago, and to Chad, once considered a cradle for humanity, about 7 million years back.
“The cradle of humanity could be the whole of Africa”
Robert Sala, an archaeologist who specializes in human evolution and directs IPHES, notes that the discoveries in Morocco support the idea that the Sahara has repeatedly vanished and reappeared as a desert. This pattern would have enabled rapid connections across the continent, allowing people to spread quickly and more widely than once thought.
The Sahara has shown cycles of vegetation and water availability, a key factor in migration routes. The overall picture suggests ongoing movement and exchange across vast regions, rather than a single, linear origin.
As Sala explained to a news agency, the question of where humanity began remains open. He points to the east and Chad as early centers but emphasizes that the evidence from Morocco indicates a broad and interconnected origin story across Africa. With continued fieldwork, the site hopes to illuminate how ancient populations evolved and moved.
The traditional view places human origins in East Africa, with groups moving north across the Sahara and north along the Nile toward Asia and Europe. At present, there is no clear proof that early populations crossed the Strait of Gibraltar. The research team remains focused on gathering more data to better map ancient movements.
Sala and his colleagues resumed fieldwork in 2022 after the pandemic interrupted activities, and plans for the autumn campaign call for 15 to 20 days with a team of 15 to 30 participants. The researchers anticipate new dates and results that will deepen understanding of human origins while supporting the Jerada region, a farming and livestock community seeking progress through heritage and archaeology.
…