New Fossil Suggests Humans Didn't Originate in Africa

quote:

---

For decades, common scientific knowledge has held that homo sapiens—human beings as we know them today—evolved in Africa some 200,000 years ago. But a new fossil discovery in another part of the world seemingly flips that notion on its head.

Scientists recently identified a new fossil ape, which they named Anadoluvius turkae, at an 8.7 million-year-old site near Çankiri in northern Turkey. The findings were first published in the Nature Communications Biology journal as research into this possible ancestor is ongoing.

The research, study co-author David Begun said, "suggest[s] that hominins not only evolved in western and central Europe but spent over five million years evolving there and spreading to the eastern Mediterranean before eventually dispersing into Africa, probably as a consequence of changing environments and diminishing forests."

Anadoluvius is believed to have been the size of a large male chimpanzee and weighed between 110 and 130 pounds. For comparison, an average female gorilla is around the same size and usually weighs between 165 and 175 pounds. In studying the fossil, the team found that Anadoluvius might have lived in a dry forest environment and not been a tree-swinging primate like some of its genetic relatives.

---