Humans evolved at least 100,000 years earlier than previously thought in Morocco, palaeoanthropologists have discovered, debunking the theory that the Rift Valley of Ethiopia was the ‘cradle of mankind.’

The world’s oldest Homo sapiens fossils - which could represent the first human family - were excavated in a barite mine at Jebel Irhoud, 60 miles west of Marrakesh, and date to between 300,000 and 350,000 years old.