The subtle topography of tiny teeth and jawbones enabled identification of two new anthropoid ancestors that lived 37 million years ago.
Posted on 10/14/2005 3:27:55 AM PDT by PatrickHenry
New species firmly establish African roots for anthropoid line.
The fossil teeth and jawbones of two new species of tiny monkey-like creatures that lived 37 million years ago have been sifted from ancient sediments in the Egyptian desert, researchers have reported. Related
They said their findings firmly establish that the common ancestor of living anthropoids -- including monkeys, apes and humans -- arose in Africa and that the group had already begun branching into many species by that time. Also, they said, one of the creatures appears to have been nocturnal, the first example of a nocturnal early anthropoid.
The researchers published their discovery of the two new species -- named Biretia fayumensis and Biretia megalopsis -- in an article in the October 14, 2005, issue of the journal Science. First author on the paper was Erik Seiffert of the University of Oxford and Oxford University Museum of Natural History. Other co-authors were [lotta names here, see original article].
The researchers discovered the fossils over the course of the last few years at a site called Birket Qarun Locality 2 (BQ-2) about 60 miles southwest of Cairo in the Fayum desert. BQ-2 has only been systematically excavated for about four years, said Seiffert, in contrast to a much younger Fayum site, called L-41, which has been explored for the last 22 years by Simons and his colleagues.
“BQ-2 and surrounding localities have tremendous potential, which is exciting because they are so much older than other Fayum sites,” said Seiffert. “There will certainly be much more information about early anthropoid evolution coming out of BQ-2 over the next few years.” The sediments at BQ-2 lie nearly 750 feet below those of L-41 and were dated at around 37 million years old by measuring telltale variations in magnetic fields in the sediments due to ancient fluctuations in the earth’s magnetic fields. According to Simons, other anthropoids exist at BQ-2 and will soon be described, [that's how the paragraph ends, folks!]
The latest fossils of the new species consist of tiny teeth and jaws, whose shapes yield critical clues about the species whose mouths they once occupied. For example, a tooth root from the species Biretia megalopsis is truncated, indicating that it had to make room for the larger eyesocket of a nocturnal animal.
“These finds seem to indicate that Biretia megalopsis must have had very large eyes, and so was likely nocturnal,” said Seiffert. “This has never been documented in an early anthropoid. The simplest explanation is that Biretia's nocturnality represents an evolutionary reversal from a diurnal ancestor, but that conclusion is based solely on the probable pattern of relationships. If down the road we find out that our phylogeny was wrong, Biretia could end up being very significant for our understanding of the origin of anthropoid activity patterns.”
According to Simons, analyses of the teeth of the two species clearly place them as members of a group called parapithecoids, known as “stem” anthropoids because they constitute the species of early creatures from which the subsequent "crown" anthropoid line arose.
“The finding of these parapithecoids from such an ancient time confirms that crown anthropoids -- a group including all modern anthropoids -- have their earliest known beginnings in Africa,” said Simons. “They show that findings by other researchers of isolated examples of possible higher primate fossils in Asia do not constitute evidence of an ancestral crown anthropoid lineage there.”
According to Seiffert, the latest findings help fill in the gap between later anthropoids and the oldest undisputed anthropoid, called Algeripithecus, found in Algeria, which lived around 45 million years ago. That species had been characterized by only a few teeth, which precluded significant insight into the species, said Seiffert.
Seiffert also noted that previously, the only evidence for anthropoids at 37 million years ago in Africa was a single tooth, attributed to a species called Biretia piveteaui. What’s more, the latest discoveries of the two species suggest that a 57-million-year-old African primate called Altiatlasius from Morocco might even be the earliest anthropoid ancestor.
For more information, contact: Dennis Meredith, Office of News & Communications | (919) 681-8054 | dennis.meredith@duke.edu
"How is that any different than putting your faith in a bunch of fossils and what scientists are telling you."
It's interesting that you would use the word "faith" regarding fossils. No faith is required. Fossils are real, tangible evidence. I've seen them, both in nature and in collections. I've even dug quite a few of them myself. When assembled into a series, they make a pretty darned good evidentiary case for evolution.
On the other hand, "faith" is definitely required to believe that supernatural entities, such as deities, exist at all. Many people do believe that they exist, in all sorts of forms and varieties, of course. They have "faith."
The Theory of Evolution does not rely on "faith," but on phyysical evidence.
Also, the two examples you cite weren't committed by scientists but exposed by them. What's even more interesting is the fact that the methods they used to examine these "fossils" aren't even accepted by most creationists.
So as far as those creationists are concerned we should still not be able to tell whether those fossils are fake or genuine.
Thanks for the ping!
Oh come on, just because some scientists can be dishonest you propose we trash all of science?
Then why do people throw out all religion just because some preachers are dishonest? Hypocrisy on the part of some people doesn't mean the message is less true. It just means that some people are jerks. Yet people will totally turn their backs on God and religion based on the actions of people instead of finding out for themselves what they should or want to believe. The point I'm making is that the same accusations made at the creationists can be made at evolution and scientists, yet they won't acknowledge it. The attitude is," Well, we know we're telling you the truth." I'm to take that all just on their say so? That requires trust in the scientists that they are telling the truth. No, we don't trash science because some scientists are dishonest, but it takes more than "Because I said so" to convince me.
I don't think God is tricking anybody but of course I could be wrong. Either the Bible is true or it isn't, unless you want to pick and choose what may be or may not be true, rendering the entire Bible useless, IMHO.
First, I never implied you were stupid (i.e., slow to learn or lacking intelligence), but merely ignorant (i.e., lacking knowledge). There is no shame in being ignorant; it simply describes the state of having a lack of knowledge. That can be remedied. There is no shame, that is, so long as one does not shut out the knowledge when it is provided. It is only at that point that ignorance becomes stupidity.
So if, in fact, you feel you look stupid, it is perhaps because you are rejecting knowledge that is provided to you. That is on you.
Oh, and I am not in the game of winning "converts." That's for religious hucksters and politicians. If someone wants to wallow in ignorance, practicing voluntary stupidity... what can I say, it's a free country; he can do what he wants.
There are plenty of people who are not stupid who reject the TOE, your judgment aside.
No kidding. Some are insane, others ignorant, still more are brainwashed. They're just as wrong, even if they aren't stupid.
"..Piltdown Man and Archeoraptor..."
Peer review sussed out the truth. Thank you, Science!
read the message this is in reply to and the whole post
Perhaps you are wrong. Nah, impossible.
You're replying to anything in the posts you click reply to, to anything BUT the scientific content. That's trolling.
So ban me.
Of course there are people who reject religion for irrational reasons (i.e. dishonest priests) but that doesn't mean that all do. Further, something like dishonest priests or followers of a certain religion can lead a person to reexamine her beliefs which in turn may lead her to reject her current religion or even religion in general. There's nothing irrational about that.
I'm to take that all just on their say so?
No, of course not. And no one expects you to do so.
However, if you follow the crevo threads more closely you will notice that a lot of evidence gets posted (inline as well as links) by the evo side.
That requires trust in the scientists that they are telling the truth.
It's more trust in the scientific method than in individual scientists. Most scientists aren't satisfied with a "Because I said so" answer either so they check the results of their peers and publish their findings if they deviate in any significant way from the original results. And scientists aren't very coy when it comes to exposing the errors of their colleagues, whether they were deliberate or only honest mistakes.
LOL... Perhaps I am. Actually, evolution happened, I am sure, in a manner slightly different than the model which is currently accepted as the most accurate representation of the evolutionary process. The model will, in the future, become more and more refined as evolution and its processes are better understood. That's what science is about.
But we can say for sure that the theory will be fundamentally similar in most every respect (and in many, many areas absolutely identical) to the theory as we now know it, regardless of how many cranks, kooks, religious hustlers, charlatans, or ignorant, stupid, brainwashed or insane people are out there push their religious dogma or cockamamie crap like creationism and ID creationism on the world.
We sure as hell didn't all get here as set out in Genesis (with petulant spirits, global flooding, a talking snake, magic fruit and all that...)
"We sure as hell didn't all get here as set out in Genesis (with petulant spirits, global flooding, a talking snake, magic fruit and all that...)"
For your sake, I hope you're right.
Well, the bible is clearly not literally true in everything. For example, in 1 Kings 7:23, the ratio of the circumference of a circle to its diameter is given as three. We know that this value (pi) for the mathematical, is actually 3.1428..., so the bible is not literally correct here.
Once you understand that the bible is not absolutely literally correct everywhere, and that interpretation is necessary and subject to error, it pretty much throws the possibilities of modern science wide open to persons of faith.
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