First human ancestor not African, German research team claims

TheLocal.de ^ | 22 May 2017 20:00 CEST+02:00 | DPA/The Local

[Olog-hai]

The lineage of humans and apes possibly split at a point several hundred thousand years earlier than currently assumed — and in the eastern Mediterranean rather than sub-Saharan Africa, a German research team claim.

After studying the only two fossils found that belong to the hominid Graecopithecus freybergi, researchers at the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment (HEP) in Tübingen came to the remarkable conclusion announced on Monday, and set to be published in the PLOS One magazine.

Hominids include humans and our ancestors, plus apes and their predecessors.

Scientists have still to definitively prove when the lineage of humans and apes split. But current established theories suggest that the ancestors of chimpanzees — our closest cousins — and our own predecessors split from one another in Africa at some point between five million and seven million years ago.

But the team led by Madelaine Böhme have now placed a big question mark over this theory, after examining a jaw bone found in Greece and a tooth from Bulgaria, both belonging to the Graecopithecus freybergi.

After detailed study, the researchers believe that the Graecopithecus freybergi is a previously unknown ancestor of humans. Researchers found that the root of the tooth is largely melded, a characteristic of humans and their predecessors, but not of apes, who have split roots. …

[Bratch]

They need to look around the mouth of the Persian Gulf.

[minnesota_bound]

I do not know where humans got their start.
Africa is a dry place where they find remains. Other places the remains break down to nothing.