A newly - identified ape , namedAnadoluvius turkae , may challenge our blood line story once more , according to a fresh field . The ossified copycat , found in an 8.7 - million - year - honest-to-goodness site in Türkiye , suggests that theancestorsof mankind and African ape evolved in Europe before migrating to Africa between 9 and 7 million years ago .
A well - keep fond braincase , which was uncovered in 2015 , permit the team to practice a program for see evolutionary relationships . psychoanalyze the fogy revealed thatA. turkaewould have been around the size of a big manlike chimpanzee , or the size of it of an average female Gorilla gorilla .
The squad place the ape as an former hominine , a group that include African ape , including chimpanzees , gorillas , and pygmy chimpanzee . The earliest know humans were found inAfrica . However , the team trust that this new fogey adds evidence that the ancestors of African apes and man were in Europe before they were in Africa .
" Our finding further suggest that hominines not only evolve in westerly and fundamental Europe but spend over 5 million age evolving there and spread to the eastern Mediterranean before finally scatter into Africa , probably as a import of changing environment and diminish forests , " Professor David Begun from the Department of Anthropology at the University of Toronto said in apress release .
" The members of this radiation to whichAnadoluviusbelongs are presently only identified in Europe and Anatolia . "
agree to the squad , Anadoluviuslikely lived alongside animals similar to the large animals found in Africa today , with the whole great deal migrating into Africa sometime after 8 million old age ago .
" We have no limb bones but estimate from its jaw and teeth , the animals find alongside it , and the geologic indicators of the surroundings , Anadoluviusprobably lived in relatively unfastened consideration , unlike the wood configurations of living great apes , " Professor Ayla Sevim Erol from Ankara University added .
" More like what we conceive the environments of early humans in Africa were like . The powerful jaws and large , thickly enameled teeth suggest a diet including hard or hard nutrient detail from terrestrial sources such as roots and rhizome . "
It is still potential that an ancestor ape came from Africa into Europe before this , although there is n’t so much in the way of evidence .
" These finding contrast with the long - held eyeshot that African apes and humans evolved exclusively in Africa . While the remains of early hominines are abundant in Europe and Anatolia , they are entirely scatty from Africa until the first hominin appear there about 7 million years ago , " Begun continued .
" This unexampled evidence confirm the hypothesis that hominines originated in Europe and dispersed into Africa along with many other mammals between 9 and 7 million class ago , though it does not definitively prove it . "
" For that , we postulate to find more fossils from Europe and Africa between 8 and 7 million yr quondam to set up a definitive connection between the two groups . "
The study is published inCommunications Biology .
