A fossil unearthed in Kenya belongs to a new species of ape that lived around the same time as the last common ancestor of gorillas and humans.
The 10-million-year-old jawbone and 11 teeth were discovered in volcanic mud flow deposits in Kenya's Nakali region.
Dubbed Nakalipithecus nakayamai, the new species supports the idea that the ancestors of great apes and humans evolved exclusively in Africa, the researchers say. A competing hypothesis states that the last common ancestor of both groups descended from a repatriated hominid that left Africa around 16.5 million years ago for Europe or Asia, but then returned about 9.5 million years ago.
Todd Disotell, an anthropologist at New York University who was not involved in the recent discovery, called the new fossil a "great find," but said it is too inconclusive to draw major conclusions from. "It could well be a Eurasian immigrant," Disotell told LiveScience.
The new fossil is detailed in the Nov. 12 issue of the journal for the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Second Ape in recent times after a positive dearth of them for a long, long time. The ape family tree is getting bushy too!
"'It could well be a Eurasian immigrant.'"
ReplyDeleteAh, the good 'ol multi-regionalist vs. Out of Africa debate again. If anything I think the new find is more convincing that hominids and their ancestors didn't evolve in Europe and then migrate in to Africa (dispersing again later), but I guess some arguments die hard.