admin A new ape fossil from an 8.7-million-year-old site in Turkey challenges long-accepted ideas about human origin and lends strength to the hypothesis that the ancestors of apes Africa and humans evolved in Europe before migrating to Africa between the ages of 9. and seven. millions of years ago.
Analysis of a newly identified gibbon named Anadoluvius turkae, recovered from the Çorakyerler fossil locality near Çankırı with support from the Türkiye Ministry of Culture and Tourism, reveals the Mediterranean ape fossil are very diverse and are part of the earliest known radiation of early hominids—the group that includes African apes (chimpanzees, chimpanzees, and gorillas), humans, and ancestors their fossils.
These findings are described in a study published today in the journal Communications Biology, co-authored by an international team of researchers led by Professor David Begun of the University of Toronto (U of T) ) and Professor Ayla Sevim Erol of Ankara University.
“Our findings further suggest that hominines 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,” said Begun, professor in the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts & Science at U of T. “The members of this radiation to which Anadoluvius belongs are currently only identified in Europe and Anatolia.”
The conclusion is based on analysis of a significantly well-preserved partial cranium uncovered at the site in 2015, which includes most of the facial structure and the front part of the brain case.
Excavation of the Anadoluvius turkae fossil, a significantly well-preserved partial cranium uncovered at the Çorakyerler fossil site in Türkiye in 2015. The fossil includes most of the facial structure and the front part of the brain case. Credit: Ayla Sevim-Erol
“The completeness of the fossil allowed us to do a broader and more detailed analysis using many characters and attributes that are coded into a program designed to calculate evolutionary relationships,” said Begun. “The face is mostly complete, after applying mirror imaging. The new part is the forehead, with bone preserved to about the crown of the cranium. Previously described fossils do not have this much of the brain case.”
The researchers say Anadoluvius was about the size of a large male chimpanzee (50-60 kg)—very large for a chimp and close to the average size of a female gorilla (75-80 kg)—lived in a dry forest setting, and probably spent a great deal of time on the ground.
“We have no limb bones but judging from its jaws and teeth, the animals found alongside it, and the geological indicators of the environment, Anadoluvius probably lived in relatively open conditions, unlike the forest settings of living great apes,” said Sevim Erol. “More like what we think the environments of early humans in Africa were like. The powerful jaws and large, thickly enameled teeth suggest a diet including hard or tough food items from terrestrial sources such as roots and rhizomes.”
The animals that lived with Anadoluvius are those commonly associated with the grasslands and dry forests of Africa today, such as giraffes, boars, rhinoceroses, various antelopes, zebras, elephants, porcupines, antelopes, and antelopes. cranes and lion-like carnivores. The study shows that the ecological community seems to have dispersed into Africa from the eastern Mediterranean about 8 million years ago. Sevim Erol said: “The origin of modern African fauna from the wide open regions of the Eastern Mediterranean has been known for a long time and now we can add to the list of ancestral participants. of African apes and humans”. , excavations of Çorakyerler. The vertebrate fossil colony near Çankırı, Türkiye, is one of the most important anthropomorphic colonies in Eurasia.Thanks to nearly 20 years of excavation, Çorakyerlar has earned a place among important Upper Miocene references in Anatolia and Europe with 8 orders of mammals, more than 10 families and 43 species. Service Provider: Ayla Sevim-Erol
These findings identify Anadoluvius turkae as an offshoot of the part of the evolutionary tree that gave rise to chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and humans. Although African apes are known today only in Africa, as are the earliest known human species, the study authors, including colleagues from Ege University and Pamukkale University in Turkey Turkey and the Naturalis Center for Biodiversity in the Netherlands, concluded that the ancestors of both were of African origin. Europe and the Eastern Mediterranean.
Anadoluvius and other fossil apes from nearby Greece (Ouranopithecus) and Bulgaria (Graecopithecus) form a group that come closest in many details of anatomy and ecology to the earliest known hominins, or humans. The new fossils are the best-preserved specimens of this group of early hominines and provide the strongest evidence to date that the group originated in Europe and later dispersed into Africa.
The study’s detailed analysis also reveals that the Balkan and Anatolian apes evolved from ancestors in western and central Europe. With its more comprehensive data, the research provides evidence that these other apes were also hominines and means that it is more likely that the whole group evolved and diversified in Europe, rather than the alternative scenario in which separate branches of apes earlier moved independently into Europe from Africa over the course of several million years, and then went extinct without issue.
“There is no evidence of the latter, though it remains a favorite proposal among those who do not accept a European origin hypothesis,” said Begun. “These findings contrast with the long-held view that African apes and humans evolved exclusively in Africa. While the remains of early hominines are abundant in Europe and Anatolia, they are completely absent from Africa until the first hominin appeared there about seven million years ago.
“This new evidence supports the hypothesis that hominines originated in Europe and dispersed into Africa along with many other mammals between nine and seven million years ago, though it does not definitively prove it. For that, we need to find more fossils from Europe and Africa between eight and seven million years old to establish a definitive connection between the two groups.”
Source: phys.org
