MILLIONS of years before early humans evolved in Africa, their ancestors may have lived in Europe. A 12-million-year-old fossil hominid from Spain provides the strongest evidence yet for this idea.
The fossil, named Anoiapithecus brevirostris by Salvador Moy脿-Sol脿 of the Catalan Institute of Palaeontology in Barcelona, Spain, and his colleagues, dates from a period of our evolution for which the record is very thin. Only the animal鈥檚 face, jaw and teeth survive, and their shape places it within the African hominid lineage that gave rise to gorillas, chimps and humans. But it also has features of a related group called kenyapithecins.
Moy脿-Sol脿 thinks that Anoiapithecus lived in Europe shortly after the afrohominid and kenyapithecin lineages split, and so that the divergence itself may have happened there (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, ).
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If he is right, our ancestors lived in Europe and only later migrated to Africa, where modern humans are thought to have evolved.
This 鈥渋nto Africa鈥� scenario is likely to be controversial: critics argue that we are more likely to see signs of hominid origins in Europe simply because the fossil record from the time in question is much better there than in Africa.