The fossil record shows Homo sapiens (also known as "modern humans" or "anatomically modern

humans") living in Africa by about 350,000-260,000 years ago. The earliest known Homo sapiens fossils
include the Jebel Irhoud remains from Morocco (ca. 315,000 years ago),[12] the Florisbad Skull from
South Africa (ca. 259,000 years ago), and the Omo remains from Ethiopia (ca. 195,000 years ago).[13]
[14][15][16] Scientists have suggested that Homo sapiens may have arisen between 350,000 and 260,000
years ago through a merging of populations in East Africa and South Africa.[17][18]

Evidence of a variety behaviors indicative of Behavioral modernity date to the African Middle Stone Age,
associated with early Homo sapiens and their emergence. Abstract imagery, widened subsistence
strategies, and other "modern" behaviors have been discovered from that period in Africa, especially
South, North, and East Africa. The Blombos Cave site in South Africa, for example, is famous for
rectangular slabs of ochre engraved with geometric designs. Using multiple dating techniques, the site
was confirmed to be around 77,000 and 100–75,000 years old.[19][20] Ostrich egg shell containers
engraved with geometric designs dating to 60,000 years ago were found at Diepkloof, South Africa.[21]
Beads and other personal ornamentation have been found from Morocco which might be as much as
130,000 years old; as well, the Cave of Hearths in South Africa has yielded a number of beads dating
from significantly prior to 50,000 years ago,.,[22] and shell beads dating to about 75,000 years ago have
been found at Blombos Cave, South Africa.[23][24][25]

Specialized projectile weapons as well have been found at various sites in Middle Stone Age Africa,
including bone and stone arrowheads at South African sites such as Sibudu Cave (along with an early
bone needle also found at Sibudu) dating approximately 60,000-70,000 years ago,[26][27][28][29][30]
and bone harpoons at the Central African site of Katanda dating to about 90,000 years ago.[31] Evidence
also exists for the systematic heat treating of silcrete stone to increased its flake-ability for the purpose of
toolmaking, beginning approximately 164,000 years ago at the South African site of Pinnacle Point and
becoming common there for the creation of microlithic tools at about 72,000 years ago.[32][33] Early
stone-tipped projectile weapons (a characteristic tool of Homo sapiens), the stone tips of javelins or
throwing spears, were discovered in 2013 at the Ethiopian site of Gademotta, and date to around 279,000
years ago.[34]