Below is AI information on the split.
“It became impossible for apes and hominids to travel from Africa to South America by land after the continents separated around 100-130 million years ago, but tiny primates did cross the widening Atlantic via vegetation rafts (rafting) about 35-40 million years ago, leading to unique South American monkeys, though true apes and hominids never established there, making their presence impossible after significant ocean separation and primate divergence, roughly 30-40 million years ago when New World monkeys evolved separately.
Key Timeline & Separation:
*~130 Million Years Ago (MYA): Africa and South America began drifting apart, starting the separation of the continents.
* ~60 MYA: The North Atlantic started opening, isolating the Americas from Eurasia.
* ~40-50 MYA: Early primates (ancestors of monkeys, apes, and humans) arrived in Africa, likely by rafting from Asia, while Africa was still an “island continent”.
* ~35-40 MYA: The first monkeys (parapithecids) successfully rafted from Africa to South America, establishing the New World monkey lineage (platyrrhines).
Why it became impossible for hominids:
* The Atlantic Widened: By the time apes (hominoids) and later hominids evolved in Africa, the ocean barrier between the continents was too vast for land migration.
* Separate Evolutions: The ancestors of apes (including humans) and New World monkeys split much earlier, with the latter evolving uniquely in South America after that initial rafting event.
* Hominid Niche: Hominids (like Australopithecus, Homo) evolved much later (millions of years after the major separation) and were adapted to African environments, never developing the ability to cross vast oceans to reach the Americas.
—In essence, the window for any large primate migration closed when the continents separated, but a small, hardy group of monkey ancestors managed one last “miraculous” trip, while apes and humans remained in the Old World.”
Here is what AI describes as living in the Precambrian a billion years ago:
“A billion years ago, Earth was dominated by microscopic life like bacteria, archaea, and single-celled eukaryotes (protists), with evidence suggesting the emergence of simple, soft-bodied multicellular organisms, possibly early sponges or choanoflagellates, but no complex animals, plants, or fungi existed; the world was largely microbial before the rise of complex life much later.
Dominant Life Forms (Microscopic):
* Bacteria & Archaea: These single-celled organisms were the planet’s primary inhabitants, forming complex mats (stromatolites) that trapped sediment.
* Eukaryotes (Protists): Single-celled eukaryotes, the precursors to plants, animals, and fungi, were also present, with some potentially forming simple multicellular clusters.
Emerging Multicellularity (Early Stages):
* Simple Multicellularity: Scientists have found evidence of simple, multicellular eukaryotes from around this time, potentially early forms of sponges or cnidarians (like jellyfish relatives).
* Ancestor to Animals: Our own ancestors were likely single-celled eukaryotes, with choanoflagellates being modern relatives that resemble the hypothetical ancestors of animals.
What Was Missing?:
* No Complex Animals: No animals like fish, insects, or mammals existed.
* No Land Plants or Fungi: The familiar complex land life we know today hadn’t evolved yet.
* In essence, a billion years ago was a time of microbial dominance, with the very first steps towards multicellularity just beginning in the oceans.”
About 1/2 billion years ago is when the first multicellular organisms began to show up in the fossil record. This was the age called the Cambrian. All the periods of different life forms have a name and a probable named span of years. The dinosaur ages ended when a giant asteroid hit the earth, killing and making it impossible for them to continue to reproduce. This was the end of the Cretaceous around 65 million years ago. Tiny little mammals like shrews and mice had been waiting their chance to evolve as larger creatures, and today there is us. Birds are the only remnants of dinosaur forms that survived that catastrophe.
I have no argument whatsoever with what you say. I'm just saying that there is probably, without much question, that there are things that humans are not aware of anymore because the knowledge is no longer actually known to those in these times.
We really have no idea for example, when man first walked this planet. Nor do we know if these humans had progressed until a catastiophic even occurred that so thinned out the numbers, that humans lost a lot of its progression, because survival became important, and the knowledge was not able to be preserved.
It's still interesting, that things we thought we knew, all of a sudden we come across something that throws a wrench in the thinking that had been accepted, and is now in question.
For a good example, how is it that pyramids were built using only human labor because no heavy equipment was present? How is it that serveral variations of pyramids were built in ladmasses that were sepaated by large bodies of water, and they all seemed to begin around 5,000 years ago?
Was travel across the oceans occuring far longer then we currently believe? Were th Americas known by certain societies long before Columbus "discovered" America?
My point is that there are a lot of things we do not know.
what exactly has come & gone in the past that we beieve are modern accimplishments, that might have existed in some form or fashion before. That for some reason ceased to be passed along, and eventually were lost to ensuing generations.
Thus, there is a lot about life that still remains a mystery, and we seem to discover that the mystery even exists by accident that upsets that which was accepted as the reality.
Anyway, it has been an interesting conversation. There are no answers, only suppositions of which some are correct & some are perhaps partially correct, while still others are not correct at all. But we know not which are which. So while interesting, it is also a fruitless exercise, because the likelihood of determining provable truth is unlikely or perhaps provable truth may not be lasting truth, because of unknows that had remained hidden. All we really know is that we disproved an accepted belief, and that has happened before as well. Have a blessed day. 😁🤙