8.7-Million-Year-Old Ape Skull Found in Turkey Suggests Human Ancestors Evolved in Europe, Not Africa
Previous reports claimed that our human ancestors originated in Africa. However, a newly discovered skull from an ape suggests we evolved from Europe.
Human Ancestors Evolved From Europe, Not Africa
The skull of Sahelanthropus tchadensis, which is thought to be the earliest known species in the human family tree and may have existed up to seven million years ago, is the primary source of the widely-held belief that our ancestors developed in Africa.
However, the skull of an 8.7 million-year-old ape discovered in Turkey indicates that they originally came from Europe. The skull belongs to an ape named Anadoluvius turkae that has just been discovered. It is considered the first specimen of early hominines, including humans and African apes.
According to scientists, the skull shows that hominins spent more than five million years in western and central Europe before migrating to Africa from the Mediterranean. The current study is based on examining a partial skull discovered at the site in 2015 that is remarkably well-preserved and has most of the facial structure and the front section of the brain case.
The results are detailed in a study co-authored by an international team of academics led by Professor David Begun at the University of Toronto (U of T) and Professor Ayla Sevim Erol at Ankara University, which was published in Communications Biology.
The skull was discovered at Cankiri, a Turkish city located about 87 miles north of Ankara, at the Orakyerler fossil locality. Anadoluvius, according to researchers, lived in a dry forest environment, weighed between 110 and 130 pounds, and probably spent a lot of time on the ground.
Mirror imaging completes the majority of the face. The bone has been preserved up to the skull crown in the new section, the forehead. The amount of the braincase in previously documented fossils is not this great.
The researchers also proposed that a group of early hominines included Anadoluvius and other fossil apes from the region, including Graecopithecus in Bulgaria and Ouranopithecus in Greece and Turkey.
It suggests that the earliest hominines first emerged in Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. Particularly, the prehistoric apes of the Balkans and Anatolia descended from relatives in western and central Europe.
With its more complete data, the study shows that these other apes were also hominines, which increases the likelihood that the entire group evolved and became extinct. These results challenge the conventional wisdom that only in Africa did humans and African apes evolve.
Early hominine fossils are common in Europe and Anatolia, but until the first hominins came to Africa around seven million years ago, they were altogether absent from that continent.
This new data does not establish clearly that hominines originated in Europe and spread into Africa between 9 and 7 million years ago, but it does support the idea that they did. To do that, we must locate further fossils from Europe and Africa that are eight to seven million years old in order to demonstrate a solid link between the two populations.
What Is Sahelanthropus tchadensis?
Sahelanthropus tchadensis is one of the first species in the human phylogeny. In West-Central Africa, this species existed between 7 and 6 million years ago (Chad).
The species may have been able to live in various settings, including meadows and woodlands, thanks to upright walking. Sahelanthropus only has skull material, but research suggests that this creature possessed a mix of human and ape-like characteristics.
A tiny brain (even somewhat smaller than a chimpanzee's), sloping face, very noticeable browridges, and elongated skull were among the ape-like characteristics. Small canine teeth, a short middle section of the face, and a spinal cord opening beneath the skull rather than toward the rear, as in non-bipedal apes, were among the human-like characteristics.
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