Posted on 06/01/2009 4:15:34 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
Millions of years before early humans evolved in Africa, their ancestors may have lived in Europe, a 12-million-year-old fossil hominid from Spain suggests.
The fossil, named Anoiapithecus brevirostris by Salvador Moyà-Solà of the Catalan Institute of Palaeontology in Barcelona, Spain, and his colleagues, dates from a period of human evolution for which the record is very thin. While only the animal's face, jaw and teeth survive, their shape places it within the African hominid lineage that gave rise to gorillas, chimps and humans. However, it also has features of a related group called kenyapithecins.
Moyà-Solà says that A. brevirostris and some similar-looking kenyapithecins lived in Europe shortly after the afrohominid and kenyapithecin lineages split, and so that the divergence itself may have happened there. If he is right, our hominid ancestors lived in Europe and only later migrated to Africa, where modern humans evolved.
This "into Africa" scenario is likely to be controversial. Critics argue that discoveries like Moyà-Solà's are more likely to reflect the quality of the fossil records in Africa and Europe than offer clues to the actual origins of hominids.
Jay Kelley, a palaeobiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, points out that the fossil record from the time in question is much better in Europe than in Africa. "If you've got a record on one continent but not the other, naturally you're going to see origins of the group from the continent where you've got the record," he says.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
The face, jaw and teeth of a 12-million-year-old hominid named Anoiapithecus brevirostris. The fossil's presence in Spain suggests that hominids migrated from Europe into Africa before the evolution of modern humans (Image: National Academy of Sciences, PNAS)
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Good question! Did they smell bad or have crooked teeth?
Did the women not shave their legs or armpits? That’s a dead giveaway, to be sure.
Were our earliest hominid ancestors European?”
Mai oui. They were cheese eating surrender munkees.
(Did he say munkees?)
Possible Bravo Sierra Alert being posted.
IIRC, the loss of fangs was apparent in the African pre-men by 2.5 million years ago.
That jaw seems to have fangs.
http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2009/06/01/0811730106.abstract
The presence of both groups in Eurasia during the Middle Miocene and the retention in kenyapithecins of a primitive hominoid postcranial body plan support a Eurasian origin of the Hominidae. Alternatively, the two extant hominid clades (Homininae and Ponginae) might have independently evolved in Africa and Eurasia from an ancestral, Middle Miocene stock, so that the supposed crown-hominid synapomorphies might be homoplastic.
The Scars of Evolution:"The most remarkable aspect of Todaro's discovery emerged when he examined Homo Sapiens for the 'baboon marker'. It was not there... Todaro drew one firm conclusion. 'The ancestors of man did not develop in a geographical area where they would have been in contact with the baboon. I would argue that the data we are presenting imply a non-African origin of man millions of years ago.'"
What Our Bodies Tell Us
About Human Origins
by Elaine Morgan
as it turns out, Whoops! Thanks decimon.
Were our earliest hominid ancestors European?
New Scientist | Jun. 1, 2009 | Bob Holmes
Posted on 06/01/2009 4:07:32 PM PDT by decimon
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2262487/posts
Did someone call for me?
May we include cranium size in 'fundamental flaws' - no animal has the same difficulties giving birth...
“This “into Africa” scenario is likely to be controversial. Critics argue that discoveries like Moyà-Solà’s are more likely to reflect the quality of the fossil records in Africa and Europe than offer clues to the actual origins of hominids.”..........Huh?
What an amazing example of double-speak!
Did you miss the fact this fossil is supposedly 12 million years old? A tad older than 2.5 million.
Yeah, I wholeheartedly agree.
More than a tad, but you are being a tad kind about my over looking that part of the article.
On the basis of that small amount of evidence, it is declared to be a hominid ancestor. It really takes a lot of imagination to be a paleontologist!
no, but he said "minkee" :)
Interesting theory. But the amount of genetic diversity and the amount of lingusitic diversity among humans is greates in Africa. According to biologists and linguists, this would indicate the source of human speech and human evolution is Africa. But that doesn’t discount the possibility that ancestors of modern humans may have evolved somewhere else, and then moved into Africa before they evolved further along the hominid line.
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