Earliest Human Revealed — Capetonians Immediately Ask What School He Went To

CAPE TOWN — Scientists have unveiled a facial reconstruction of one of the earliest known members of our species, a man who lived in what is now Morocco about 315,000 years ago. Evolutionary biologists are thrilled. Capetonians want to know which school he went to.

The reconstruction, based on fossils from Jebel Irhoud, has set off a row among Old Boys of the city’s leading schools, few of whom seem troubled that he lived some 8,000 kilometres away, roughly 315,000 years before anyone thought to build Cape Town.

“Fascinating, obviously,” said one Constantia resident. “But was he Bishops or Rondebosch? He looks exactly like a chap from the Old Boys’ Association.”

A Bishops Old Boy pointed to the heavy brow ridge and powerful jaw. “First-team rugby. Lock, definitely. Possibly Craven Week.”

Rondebosch disagreed, saying he had the look of a man who’d gone into finance. SACS said he’d been head boy before reading law at UCT.

Wynberg claimed the rugged face as their own, noting that no Bishops boy had ever made it through the Middle Stone Age without a family trust.

Scientists have pointed out, more than once, that the man lived in North Africa, and that his skull says nothing about schooling, rugby or connections in the southern suburbs.

A WhatsApp group called Homo Sapiens Old Boys has nonetheless signed up several hundred members, none of them much bothered about where the fossil was found.

By Thursday evening, Bishops had established that his grandfather was an Old Boy, Rondebosch said they’d played against him, and SACS said he’d turned down scholarships from both.

Wynberg observed that 315,000 years of human evolution later, the other three schools were still turning out exactly the same kind of arsehole.

Told yet again that the man came from Morocco, a Bishops Old Boy nodded. “Yes, but where did he go to school?”