The Penny Didn’t Drop. It Catapulted Into the Well.

Every night, I settle down either in my lounge or on my bed, accompanied by a steaming mug of coffee and a book. It has become something of a ritual: supper is over, and then it is time to read.

On this particular night, I pulled a textbook, “Traditions & Encounters – A Brief Global History” (Volume 1, Fourth Edition), from my stack of books. I had also started reading “The History of the Ancient World” by Susan Wise Bauer and was intrigued by the facts she presented. I was curious to see how different authors approached the same period of history.

So there I was, ready to read a few passages from a history book—innocently, I might add. I expected to learn more about ancient places, unfamiliar names and occasionally bump into a few kings behaving badly. Let’s be honest: history has never suffered a shortage of those! However, what I did not expect was to sit staring at the wall, trying to rearrange my understanding of humanity.

The first passage I read in “Traditions & Encounters” was under the heading “The Paleolithic Era”. In its opening sentence, I encountered the account of human origins in Africa. Wait … what? In Africa? This continent, Africa? The one I live on? Now, I know that some of the things I am about to say will have some people running for their pitchforks, but let me explain what floored me.

I knew Egypt was in Africa (I did pay attention that day in Geography). I knew its civilisation had played an enormous part in ancient history. I had simply never properly understood the much bigger claim: according to scientific evidence, our own species, Homo sapiens, originated in Africa. And no, I am not referring only to the ancestors of people we identify as African today, but to the ancestral origins of all of us. Everybody … the entire world. The penny didn’t merely drop. It catapulted into the well. I have some stronger words I could use instead of “catapulted”, but this is a family show.

Knowing a fact and understanding it are different things

Perhaps you learned this at school and now you are wondering where I have been—and whether I even attended school. You might even ask, “So what did they teach you over there in South Africa?”

Those are fair questions. Apparently, I was on the continent in question the entire time, just completely missing the significance of the whole business.

There is a peculiar difference between encountering information and allowing its meaning to settle. You can read a sentence, understand every word, and still miss the magnitude of what it says.

Egypt had fitted comfortably into my understanding of history. Pyramids, pharaohs, the mighty Nile. Africa had a place in the story. I knew the biblical account of the Israelites leaving Egypt after the trials they had endured. But somewhere in my brain, the connection had failed to register. Egypt. Africa. The continent I call home.

However, learning about human origins in Africa changed the scale entirely. (No, “changed” is too subtle a word. The scales tipped in my head—that is a more accurate depiction.) I started off thinking about Africa’s contribution to the human story, the spread of civilisations. Suddenly, I was thinking about the African origins of the people IN the human story.

What does the evidence actually say?

Here I must choose my words carefully, because they matter: The scientific evidence supports an African origin for our species, Homo sapiens. I am repeating “scientific evidence” deliberately. This conclusion was not drawn from one dusty document or one website. It rests on extensive research. ³

Fossils and genetic research both contribute to that conclusion. Early fossils assigned to our species date to roughly 300,000 years ago—considerably earlier than the approximately 200,000 years given in the passage I was reading. One important discovery comes from Jebel Irhoud in Morocco. Researchers described remains with a mixture of features: faces and teeth resembling those of modern humans, alongside a more ancient braincase shape. Dating of heated stone tools found alongside the remains placed them at approximately 315,000 years old, with a margin of uncertainty of about 34,000 years. These fossils provide important evidence of an early stage in the emergence of our species. That evidence deserves serious consideration—not that evidence has ever stopped us arguing before. ^{1, 2}

That was already enough to make my brain demand a coffee break, but being the curious person I am, I had to keep digging. On further reading, it became clear that the research complicates the idea of one neat birthplace. Scientists have not established a single spot where a clearly identifiable first modern human appeared. Research instead points towards a complex African history involving ancestral populations that separated, interacted and exchanged genes over long periods. The precise geography and sequence remain subjects of investigation. ^{3, 4}

While I was staring at the wall, trying to make sense of what I had just read, a memory surfaced. In 1978, I went on a school trip to the Sterkfontein Caves, where we were introduced to the famous fossil skull nicknamed Mrs Ples. The skull belonged to an ancient human relative of the species Australopithecus africanus, who lived millions of years ago—although the precise age remains disputed. I cannot now remember whether we saw the original skull, a replica or even a picture, but her name eventually came back to me, 48 years on. Well, that took me a while, did it not? Apparently, Mrs Ples had been waiting patiently in my memory for decades while I caught up with the significance of that school outing. ⁵

Africa as the ancestral home of our species is well supported. The textbook pointed to East Africa, but the research paints a more complicated picture. “One particular place in East Africa, at one exact moment” is much harder to defend. There was no birth announcement on social media saying, “Congratulations. It’s the first Homo sapiens!” Seems nature was under no obligation to keep records conveniently up to date for our textbooks. Rather a pity!

And then people moved …

An African origin does not mean our ancestors stayed in one place. The history of our species includes movement beyond Africa, settlement in different regions and interbreeding with other ancient human groups, including Neanderthals and Denisovans. Our ancestry contains a complicated history of journeys and encounters. ³

Nor does an African origin mean that every civilisation, invention or cultural tradition began here. It is important to treat those as separate historical questions, each requiring its own evidence. “So what does it mean, then?” I hear you ask. It means something more specific, and extraordinary enough without embellishment: the ancestral origins of our species lie in Africa. That’s it – we do not need to stretch that claim to make it significant. No need to add bells and whistles to it.

A shared beginning does NOT erase anyone’s history

In my astonishment—or, more aptly put, in my state of being floored by the paragraph—I joked that perhaps people should stop calling themselves African American, since the rest of us apparently had African roots too. But that was a joke delivered before my brain had finished unpacking its suitcase. You see, ancient shared ancestry and cultural identity describe different things.

A common origin does not erase the histories of particular peoples: their languages, migrations, enslavement, traditions or sense of belonging. And this brought into focus something that has been weighing on me for a while now—the distance we sometimes imagine between ourselves. Across all our differences, the scientific evidence places our beginnings within a shared African history. That does not settle our arguments. It does make the human habit of treating other people as fundamentally alien seem rather curious. Unnecessary, even. Which, in turn, raised questions I do not have ready answers to. How did some groups come to believe they were entitled to dominate others? Who decided that particular groups deserved less dignity and respect? How did this happen? When did this happen?

And yes, I thought about Genesis

I grew up attending church and hearing Bible stories at school, and I do call myself a Christian. So naturally, during this journey of discovery, Adam and Eve entered the picture. They were hardly going to sit quietly while I reconsidered my family tree.

I found myself asking how the account I knew from Genesis related to the scientific account I was discovering. I do not have a polished answer, and I will not manufacture one to make this article more comfortable. Truth be told … I had some very uncomfortable moments when the implications of what I was reading finally hit home.

For now, I have questions. A truckload of them. I remember once asking my late husband, Graham, “When Adam and Eve’s children married … where did they find these women?” A pretty valid question, I thought. Graham explained that, as he understood it, other people were already living on Earth, and the biblical account focused on Adam and Eve. That was an explanation I remembered but had never thought to investigate. Now, faced with what I was learning about human origins, I found myself thinking about that conversation again.

I do take my faith seriously. I can also admit that something I have learned has challenged my understanding. I can investigate the evidence without pretending that every theological difficulty has disappeared. This article is not my attempt to dissect Genesis. It is an account of a discovery I had not expected to make while reading history textbooks. The questions that followed deserve more than a hurried answer, and I admit that I do not yet know enough to answer them. Not by a long shot. So, for now, you may put your pitchforks away.

I am still staring at the wall

There is something humbling about finding a gap in your knowledge large enough to change your view. I could feel embarrassed that I did not know. Or I could be glad that I know more today than I did yesterday. I am choosing the second option. I opened a book expecting to learn about the ancient world and came away looking differently at the continent beneath my feet.

Egypt’s place in history had interested me, but Africa’s place in our ancestry stopped me dead in my tracks. I keep coming back to that word: floored. Maybe I will find a more eloquent one, but for now, it fits. Somewhere between those two thoughts, the penny hit the bottom of the well. It took a long time to get there, and I am still listening to the splash. And I might need some light reading, like a Mills & Boon, before I tackle the next paragraph in a textbook.

Sources and further reading

The books that sparked this essay are listed first. The research below supports the scientific discussion; it does not resolve the theological questions or verify my memories of a school outing.

Books that started the conversation

• Jerry H. Bentley, Herbert F. Ziegler and Heather E. Streets-Salter. Traditions & Encounters: A Brief Global History, Volume 1, fourth edition. McGraw-Hill Education. See “The Paleolithic Era”. Publisher’s title page.
• Susan Wise Bauer. The History of the Ancient World: From the Earliest Accounts to the Fall of Rome. W. W. Norton, 2007. Author’s book page.

Research behind the science

1. Jean-Jacques Hublin and colleagues (2017). “New fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco and the pan-African origin of Homo sapiens.” Nature. Describes the fossils and their combination of ancient and more modern features.
2. Daniel Richter and colleagues (2017). “The age of the hominin fossils from Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, and the origins of the Middle Stone Age.” Nature. Explains the dating underlying the estimate of 315,000 ± 34,000 years. Read the research institute’s accessible explanation.
3. Anders Bergström and colleagues (2021). “Origins of modern human ancestry.” Nature. Reviews African origins, migration, interbreeding and why a single precise birthplace cannot currently be identified.
4. Aaron P. Ragsdale and colleagues (2023). “A weakly structured stem for human origins in Africa.” Nature. Genetic modelling of interacting ancestral African populations.
5. Francis Thackeray and Lazarus Kgasi (2023). “Mrs Ples (Sts 5) from the Sterkfontein Caves, South Africa.” DITSONG Museums of South Africa. Discusses the skull’s discovery, identification and disputed age.