Hm, earliest hominid not from Africa but Europe? :o

[Kyriakos]

Link first found by poster Domen123

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/05/22/europe-birthplace-mankind-not-africa-scientists-find/


Apparently this new finding of a "missing link" places the earliest known "hominid" in the south Aemos peninsula, and namely Greece and Bulgaria, with a hominid to have lived at 7,2 million years ago...

The history of human evolution has been rewritten after scientists discovered that Europe was the birthplace of mankind, not Africa.


Currently, most experts believe that our human lineage split from apes around seven million years ago in central Africa, where hominids remained for the next five million years before venturing further afield.


But two fossils of an ape-like creature which had human-like teeth have been found in Bulgaria and Greece, dating to 7.2 million years ago.

The discovery of the creature, named Graecopithecus freybergi, and nicknameded ‘El Graeco' by scientists, proves our ancestors were already starting to evolve in Europe 200,000 years before the earliest African hominid.

The species was also found to be several hundred thousand years older than the oldest African hominid, Sahelanthropus tchadensis which was found in Chad.


"We were surprised by our results, as pre-humans were previously known only from sub-Saharan Africa," said doctoral student Jochen Fuss, a Tübingen PhD student who conducted this part of the study.


Professor David Begun, a University of Toronto paleoanthropologist and co-author of this study, added: "This dating allows us to move the human-chimpanzee split into the Mediterranean area."

Not liking the name much, tbh ^^ At least it wasn't bulgaropithecus. How about fyromaniopithecus?


-What do you think of the theory that all humans evolved from migrating hominids from Africa having now been overruled by the new findings?

-Thread moved to the appropriate sub-forum.

[Roma_Victrix]

So where are the celebratory Youtube links to the Greek and Bulgarian national anthems?

Seriously, though, this is big news for archaeological anthropologists. I can only imagine the amount of buzz and circle-jerking going on right now among their tight-knit communities. Given all the excitement, this would be the time to ask that single archaeological anthropologist out on a date, or better yet, a little trip to the photo-copier room for some quality alone time.

[Kyriakos]

Well, it is a hominid.

That said: #cradle not just of human civ but also hominid

[Condottiere 40K]

Continental drift?

Maybe Greece was an equatorial utopia.

[Spear Dog]

African animals were found throughout Europe until the last period of ice ages, the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation which began around 2.5 million years ago and lasted until 100k-40k years ago.

The thing about fossil records is they are incredibly incomplete and only represent fact to the point the next fossil is found. Fossils in African show a fairly cohesive progression which initially supported the Out of Africa thesis which seemed to solidify when genetic studies showed African ancestry for all modern humans. But other discoveries such as the Denisovans (a branch of Homo Erectus evo line - Neanderthals) and Homo Floresiensis (probably a new species related to Erectus) have lent credence to the competing theory of Multi-regional continuity, particularly as modern humans share DNA with Neanderthals.

Further study will have to determine which evolutionary line the new hominid belongs to, or if it is a separate species.

The primate evolutionary line of Hominids is about 25 million years old.

[athanaric]

Makes sense. To this day, people from that region are unusually hairy...

African animals were found throughout Europe until the last period of ice ages, the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation which began around 2.5 million years ago and lasted until 100k-40k years ago.

You mean modern day African animals, or animals that are often associated with Africa but also tend to occur in Asia...

[Roma_Victrix]

Makes sense. To this day, people from that region are unusually hairy...

"The Gauls are mad and hairy beyond reason!" - Rome Total War general's speech

African animals were found throughout Europe until the last period of ice ages, the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation which began around 2.5 million years ago and lasted until 100k-40k years ago.

The thing about fossil records is they are incredibly incomplete and only represent fact to the point the next fossil is found. Fossils in African show a fairly cohesive progression which initially supported the Out of Africa thesis which seemed to solidify when genetic studies showed African ancestry for all modern humans. But other discoveries such as the Denisovans (a branch of Homo Erectus evo line - Neanderthals) and Homo Floresiensis (probably a new species related to Erectus) have lent credence to the competing theory of Multi-regional continuity, particularly as modern humans share DNA with Neanderthals.

Further study will have to determine which evolutionary line the new hominid belongs to, or if it is a separate species.

The primate evolutionary line of Hominids is about 25 million years old.

I think the "Out of Africa" theory is still technically correct, though, right? Since we're talking about a hominid species that is 7.2 million years old versus anatomically modern humans (i.e. Homo sapiens sapiens) that have only been around for about 200,000 years and evolved somewhere in East Africa. At the very least the earliest bone and fossil remains of anatomically modern humans were found along the Omo River in Ethiopia. In that case, cue the Ethiopian national anthem!

[sumskilz]

It's a cool find, but this team of researchers are making a pretty dramatic claim based off of the root of the fourth premolar of an unaffiliated mandibular fragment. They say the root has some similarities to Ardipithecus, Australopithecus, and Sahelanthropus which they argue makes this species more closely related to humans than chimps and bonobos, but just recently we've seen a species with a mosaic of features, so we know it's not that simple. The researchers themselves probably know that as well, but these sorts of headlines bring in money.

African animals were found throughout Europe until the last period of ice ages, the Pliocene-Quaternary glaciation which began around 2.5 million years ago and lasted until 100k-40k years ago.

Exactly, the range of these hominids may very well have been Northeast Africa and the Eastern Mediterranean.

The thing about fossil records is they are incredibly incomplete and only represent fact to the point the next fossil is found. Fossils in African show a fairly cohesive progression which initially supported the Out of Africa thesis which seemed to solidify when genetic studies showed African ancestry for all modern humans.

The cohesive progression in Africa may only be because of the conditions of the rift valley making finding fossils there much easier. Those genetic studies aren't anchored to ancient DNA yet, so the actual geographic location isn't absolutely certain. Still logically, Northeast Africa makes the most sense.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

Don't forget the Sahara was basically Savannah at the time, not desert like it is today. It's possible that early Hominids simply had a range from the mediterranean down to Tanzania (and stuff).

The fact of the matter is that there's not enough evidence to make a solid determination of whether we can shift the roots of hominid evolution north or not.

[Copperknickers II]

Just for reference, here's a general overview of geological history in the past 10 million years as aligned with human evolution. It's more a way of trying to understand the sequence of events myself rather than informing anyone else so please tell me where I go wrong:

15-8 mya

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

In the Miocene epoch the continental plates were in pretty much exactly the same positions as they are now. The primary difference was that the global climate, whilst rapidly cooling, was warmer than it is today, and so sea levels were quite a bit higher. Greenland, for example, was mostly covered in temperate forests, meanwhile Southern Europe and Anatolia would have resembled modern Africa in terms of animals and vegetation. Even the British Isles enjoyed a Mediterranean style climate and were home to various exotic fauna.

At this time there were no human-like apes at all, only various varieties of apes similar to chimpanzees, orangutans and gorillas that walked/climbed on four legs.

8 mya - 2.5 mya

Correct me if I am wrong on this, but I believe the Sahara desert was beginning at this point to go through phases of being relatively dry at some times, and at other times quite wet and green. What we start seeing eventually is animals inhabiting the Sahara during the 'Green Sahara' stage being gradually pushed towards fringe areas as it dried out, often ending up with the same species being split into populations in Southern Africa, North-Western Africa, and North-Eastern Africa. Those which ended up in North-Eastern Africa could cross into the Middle East, and spread into Asia and Europe from there. Meanwhile the Straits of Gibraltar closed and the Mediterranean ended up lowering its level by several meters, so that the passage from Egypt to the Middle East and Anatolia must have been much easier than it is now.

So what we have is climactic changes driving migrations of animals, including apes, between Africa and the rest of Eurasia, often resulting in them being split off from each other and evolving in new ways in different regions, then coming back together again, and so on.

It is during this period, the Late Miocene into the Pliocene, that hominins split off from chimpanzee-like apes. There were often several hominins alive at the same time. This early hominid found in Europe seems to date from 7.2 mya, suggesting perhaps that hominins split off from the Pan tribe (chimpanzee) due to geographical distance, although they were not completely cut off from their Southern neighbours for any length of time as they continued to interbreed for up to a million years.

To my knowledge the various later hominins, such as Sahelanthropus, Orrorin, Ardipithecus and Australopithecus all lived in East and Southern Africa. One of these, probably a type of Australopithecus, was the first bipedal ape (notwithstanding claims that the much earlier Sahelanthropus was bipedal, an outlandish claim since there's a question as to whether it can even be classified as a hominin and might be more closely related to gorillas than humans).

In which case the first hominins split off from chimps in Eurasia, then gradually spread Southwards again intermingling with Pan all the way and ended up confined to Africa again alongside their chimp cousins, and it was only then that they became actual bipedal 'apemen' rather than just slightly bizarre Greek quadripedal apes not hugely different to chimps. This part confuses me slightly about the new theory - just as hominins had geographically reunified with Pan they stopped interbreeding with them and suddenly started diversifying from them dramatically? Or perhaps I'm getting confused.

2.5 mya

The start of the Ice Age (Pleistocene) Epoch, when the world often looked like this:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

The very early stages of the cooling of the global climate from the Late Miocene may have had something to do with the confining of hominins to Africa again, perhaps? Anyway by now the Sahara desert separated Eurasia from Subsaharan Africa much more securely - indeed at points during the Pleistocene even the Nile dried up so there was no easy corridor for migration between the two areas. It was in this period we start seeing the homo genus, still coexisting with other more basal hominins, emerge, as homo habilis in Subsaharan Africa.

1.5 mya

Homo erectus evolves, and makes its way out of Africa to colonise Asia and Europe, although our own ancestors stayed in Africa.

250,000 ya

Homo sapiens arises. Some time before 50,000 ya the ancestors of modern non-Africa populations start migrating out of Africa. It should be mentioned that until 50,000 ya humans were what is known as 'robust', i.e. they still had little to no technology beyond basic stone/wooden tools and fire, however from then on they became more 'gracile', with anatomical adaptations showing that they were becoming less dependant on raw physical power and more on the brain.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

50,000 ya

Modern human behaviours such as music, culture, art, and other things showing the presence of abstract thought, are seen.

10,000 ya

End of Pleistocene, melting of ice caps over temperate latitudes south and north of the arctic circles. Followed by the invention of agriculture and metallurgy.

5000 ya

Beginning of recorded history with Sumerian and Egyptian civilisations inventing writing.

[Magister Militum Flavius Aetius]

I love that map. It's interesting to think how different Human civilization would be if that was the world civilization arose on.

[conon394]

It's a cool find, but this team of researchers are making a pretty dramatic claim based off of the root of the fourth premolar of an unaffiliated mandibular fragment.

Too be fair the actual paper seems a bit more restrained than the reporting. But given the state of the cult of Austerity in Europe and the Trump's simple mindless anti public science budgets, I would be tempted to push the significance of any publication I could right now.

[Hanny]

This is rework of old established evidence, it used to be a dead end hominid, not even known if it was bipedal, now its something else entirely, acording hose who want it to want be.

[Kyriakos]

^That is kind of a strange thing to say, looking at your avatar

Anyway, it doesn't matter which hominid came first ( ^_^ ) in regards to racial stuff; surely that is way too prehistoric to matter in that respect.

[KEA]

The problem is that the entire theory is based in random finds. This would be the same as if you would be starting off the Canadian border heading south and come up with the conclusion that Spanish is a language that split from English in southern Texas some 200 years ago.

[Kyriakos]

^I suppose it is, yet apparently up to now there wasn't any found hominid specimen nearly as old as this one, while the oldest found in Africa are 200.000 years later. So maybe in that respect it is important in reshaping current theory, regardless of what the result of a theory making use of more (not yet found) specimens would end up looking like

Do note: i am not familiar with palaeontology; just basing this off the articles...

[Hanny]

^That is kind of a strange thing to say, looking at your avatar

Anyway, it doesn't matter which hominid came first ( ^_^ ) in regards to racial stuff; surely that is way too prehistoric to matter in that respect.

my avatar choice is not relavent. your post otoh are full of oddd coments, try a search on early sapiens and or early homonids and goto any edu link it brings up.your op is concerned with homo sapiens comming from europe not africa, contradicting vast amounts of evidence, including whole skeletons and tools used by them in kenya chad, 2 of 6 african sapiens we have evidence as our ancestors, with a tooth and jaw fragement from different skeleton, in europe from a time when they were quadropids, in africa there are more examples of these earlier homonids of 7mya, 3 of which have enough examples, drasticly more than 2 finds 000s of years apart in time, to make them proto sapiens, but not enpugh evidence to be certain which led to what.

^I suppose it is, yet apparently up to now there wasn't any found hominid specimen nearly as old as this one, while the oldest found in Africa are 200.000 years later. So maybe in that respect it is important in reshaping current theory, regardless of what the result of a theory making use of more (not yet found) specimens would end up looking like

Do note: i am not familiar with palaeontology; just basing this off the articles...

africa has as old examples, what reasonable people dont do is jump to unreasonable conclusions on them. 3 possible transition of proto homonids to sapiens exist, they all are in africa and from 7 to 4 mya.

[Spear Dog]

It's not really a matter of is this our ancestor, rather it is an indication that adds support to the idea that the hominid line of the primates was more diverse and widespread than previously indicated. Much like many other species of animals now mostly identified only with the African continent. Elephants, hippos, lions, hyenas and rhinos (to name the biggies) all had divergent variants living at one stage in Europe and Asia (with Rhinos still found in Indonesia and lions frequent well into historical times).

[Hanny]

It's not really a matter of is this our ancestor, rather it is an indication that adds support to the idea that the hominid line of the primates was more diverse and widespread than previously indicated. Much like many other species of animals now mostly identified only with the African continent. Elephants, hippos, lions, hyenas and rhinos (to name the biggies) all had divergent variants living at one stage in Europe and Asia (with Rhinos still found in Indonesia and lions frequent well into historical times).

agreed, the tree of homonids with a small shruberry of sapiens. but the article does not stop there and overeaches.

[athanaric]

It's not really a matter of is this our ancestor, rather it is an indication that adds support to the idea that the hominid line of the primates was more diverse and widespread than previously indicated. Much like many other species of animals now mostly identified only with the African continent. Elephants, hippos, lions, hyenas and rhinos (to name the biggies) all had divergent variants living at one stage in Europe and Asia (with Rhinos still found in Indonesia and lions frequent well into historical times).

Exactly. This permeates into popular culture and has resulted in lions, cheetahs and even leopards being labelled "African", even though they all occur in Asia as well (although the current populations of Asian lions and Cheetahs are tiny).

And we'd need more data - more finds - to falsify the "out of Africa" hypothesis. Right now, one can only say "it's more complicated than previously assumed".