But after this it seems the anatomical features shared by everyone today evolved over a long time, in different African regions. Brains grew rapidly after 500 ka, but skulls and bodies developed more slowly in a mosaic fashion. The people of Jebel Irhoud, Morocco, living around 300 ka already had big brains and flat, modern-looking faces, but more archaic upper and rear skulls. The oldest H. sapiens skulls, pretty much like extant humans, date to around 200 to 150 ka in East Africa, around the same time that ‘classic’ Neanderthal anatomy was also coalescing.
