This is going to run deep and get deeper but may be of high interest to those inclined toward this type of study.
You have been warned.
The lower jaw of the 7.175 million year old Graecopithecus freybergi (El Graeco) from Pyrgos Vassilissis, Greece (today in metropolitan Athens).
Credit: Wolfgang Gerber, University of Tübingen
The common lineage of great apes and humans split several hundred thousand earlier than hitherto assumed, according to an international research team headed by Professor Madelaine Böhme from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen and Professor Nikolai Spassov from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The researchers investigated two fossils of Graecopithecus freybergi with state-of-the-art methods and came to the conclusion that they belong to pre-humans. Their findings, published today in two papers in the journal PLOS ONE, further indicate that the split of the human lineage occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean and not - as customarily assumed - in Africa.
Phys.org: Scientists find 7.2-million-year-old pre-human remains in the Balkans
As many may agree, I'm not much of a human but that doesn't look like a human jaw to me. The only resemblance is in bilateral symmetry and that jaw looks like it belongs on a creature with a long snout.
Note: sure the dentition is likely similar but that's not the point; that ain't a human jaw.
The team analyzed the two known specimens of the fossil hominid Graecopithecus freybergi: a lower jaw from Greece and an upper premolar from Bulgaria. Using computer tomography, they visualized the internal structures of the fossils and demonstrated that the roots of premolars are widely fused.
"While great apes typically have two or three separate and diverging roots, the roots of Graecopithecus converge and are partially fused - a feature that is characteristic of modern humans, early humans and several pre-humans including Ardipithecus and Australopithecus", said Böhme.
- PO
Discussion of Australopithecus by Robert Ardrey attracted many to Anthropology and related fields. (WIKI: Robert Ardrey)
I was one of those attracted with "The Territorial Imperative" and others although Desmond Morris and Konrad Lorenz were more inspiring to me.
Let's stir up some controversy, they say.
Present-day chimpanzees are humans' nearest living relatives. Where the last chimp-human common ancestor lived is a central and highly debated issue in palaeoanthropology. Researchers have assumed up to now that the lineages diverged five to seven million years ago and that the first pre-humans developed in Africa. According to the 1994 theory of French palaeoanthropologist Yves Coppens, climate change in Eastern Africa could have played a crucial role. The two studies of the research team from Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, Canada, France and Australia now outline a new scenario for the beginning of human history.
- PO
There's the setup.
The lower jaw, nicknamed 'El Graeco' by the scientists, has additional dental root features, suggesting that the species Graecopithecus freybergi might belong to the pre-human lineage. "We were surprised by our results, as pre-humans were previously known only from sub-Saharan Africa," said Jochen Fuss, a Tübingen PhD student who conducted this part of the study.
Furthermore, Graecopithecus is several hundred thousand years older than the oldest potential pre-human from Africa, the six to seven million year old Sahelanthropus from Chad. The research team dated the sedimentary sequence of the Graecopithecus fossil sites in Greece and Bulgaria with physical methods and got a nearly synchronous age for both fossils - 7.24 and 7.175 million years before present. "It is at the beginning of the Messinian, an age that ends with the complete desiccation of the Mediterranean Sea," Böhme said.
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."
- PO
That makes a proper mess of Out of Africa, doesn't it.
The interested student will need the hip waders to continue since it will continue getting deeper ... but hopefully more fascinating for you as you dig.
"The incipient formation of a desert in North Africa more than seven million years ago and the spread of savannahs in Southern Europe may have played a central role in the splitting of the human and chimpanzee lineages," said Böhme. She calls this hypothesis the North Side Story, recalling the thesis of Yves Coppens, known as East Side Story.
The findings are described in two studies pubished in PLOS ONE titled "Potential hominin affinities of Graecopithecus from the late Miocene of Europe" and "Messinian age and savannah environment of the possible hominin Graecopithecus from Europe."
- PO
PLOS ONE: Potential hominin affinities of Graecopithecus from the Late Miocene of Europe
PLOS ONE: Messinian age and savannah environment of the possible hominin Graecopithecus from Europe, PLOS ONE (2017)
You have been warned.
The lower jaw of the 7.175 million year old Graecopithecus freybergi (El Graeco) from Pyrgos Vassilissis, Greece (today in metropolitan Athens).
Credit: Wolfgang Gerber, University of Tübingen
The common lineage of great apes and humans split several hundred thousand earlier than hitherto assumed, according to an international research team headed by Professor Madelaine Böhme from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment at the University of Tübingen and Professor Nikolai Spassov from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. The researchers investigated two fossils of Graecopithecus freybergi with state-of-the-art methods and came to the conclusion that they belong to pre-humans. Their findings, published today in two papers in the journal PLOS ONE, further indicate that the split of the human lineage occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean and not - as customarily assumed - in Africa.
Phys.org: Scientists find 7.2-million-year-old pre-human remains in the Balkans
As many may agree, I'm not much of a human but that doesn't look like a human jaw to me. The only resemblance is in bilateral symmetry and that jaw looks like it belongs on a creature with a long snout.
Note: sure the dentition is likely similar but that's not the point; that ain't a human jaw.
The team analyzed the two known specimens of the fossil hominid Graecopithecus freybergi: a lower jaw from Greece and an upper premolar from Bulgaria. Using computer tomography, they visualized the internal structures of the fossils and demonstrated that the roots of premolars are widely fused.
"While great apes typically have two or three separate and diverging roots, the roots of Graecopithecus converge and are partially fused - a feature that is characteristic of modern humans, early humans and several pre-humans including Ardipithecus and Australopithecus", said Böhme.
- PO
Discussion of Australopithecus by Robert Ardrey attracted many to Anthropology and related fields. (WIKI: Robert Ardrey)
I was one of those attracted with "The Territorial Imperative" and others although Desmond Morris and Konrad Lorenz were more inspiring to me.
Let's stir up some controversy, they say.
Present-day chimpanzees are humans' nearest living relatives. Where the last chimp-human common ancestor lived is a central and highly debated issue in palaeoanthropology. Researchers have assumed up to now that the lineages diverged five to seven million years ago and that the first pre-humans developed in Africa. According to the 1994 theory of French palaeoanthropologist Yves Coppens, climate change in Eastern Africa could have played a crucial role. The two studies of the research team from Germany, Bulgaria, Greece, Canada, France and Australia now outline a new scenario for the beginning of human history.
- PO
There's the setup.
The lower jaw, nicknamed 'El Graeco' by the scientists, has additional dental root features, suggesting that the species Graecopithecus freybergi might belong to the pre-human lineage. "We were surprised by our results, as pre-humans were previously known only from sub-Saharan Africa," said Jochen Fuss, a Tübingen PhD student who conducted this part of the study.
Furthermore, Graecopithecus is several hundred thousand years older than the oldest potential pre-human from Africa, the six to seven million year old Sahelanthropus from Chad. The research team dated the sedimentary sequence of the Graecopithecus fossil sites in Greece and Bulgaria with physical methods and got a nearly synchronous age for both fossils - 7.24 and 7.175 million years before present. "It is at the beginning of the Messinian, an age that ends with the complete desiccation of the Mediterranean Sea," Böhme said.
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."
- PO
That makes a proper mess of Out of Africa, doesn't it.
The interested student will need the hip waders to continue since it will continue getting deeper ... but hopefully more fascinating for you as you dig.
"The incipient formation of a desert in North Africa more than seven million years ago and the spread of savannahs in Southern Europe may have played a central role in the splitting of the human and chimpanzee lineages," said Böhme. She calls this hypothesis the North Side Story, recalling the thesis of Yves Coppens, known as East Side Story.
The findings are described in two studies pubished in PLOS ONE titled "Potential hominin affinities of Graecopithecus from the late Miocene of Europe" and "Messinian age and savannah environment of the possible hominin Graecopithecus from Europe."
- PO
PLOS ONE: Potential hominin affinities of Graecopithecus from the Late Miocene of Europe
PLOS ONE: Messinian age and savannah environment of the possible hominin Graecopithecus from Europe, PLOS ONE (2017)
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