Did hominins spread as far as previously thought? A previously undescribed 8.7-million-year-old ape fossil turns notions of the evolution of African apes and humans on their head. As reported by the Dutch electronic magazine nature todaywhich is based on the journal Science Communication biology.
Scientists have always assumed that great apes and human ancestors originated in Western and Central Europe and from there spread to Africa. But this newly described species from the Turkish website Korakierler, Turkish AnatoliaThe researchers provide evidence that hominins first evolved more than five million years later and spread east, and then spread to Africa. He stopped in what is now Turkey, mainly.
to Turkish Anatolia It belongs to the evolutionary tree from which chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and humans emerged. These first three species of monkeys are only found in Africa today, as are the oldest known humans. But the distant ancestors of this species, which researchers have now unearthed from the new fossils, came from Europe and the eastern Mediterranean.
Thus the researchers’ conclusions also provide a new perspective on human origins. They appeared in Africa 7 million years ago. But after nearly 2 million years Anatolia Walked in Türkiye.
The discovery was made by an international team led by Turkish and Canadian researchers, and scientists from the Leiden Naturalis Research Institute also contributed.
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