Out
of Asia? Ancient ancestor of modern man walked Sahara 39million
years ago
By David
Derbyshire Daily Mail
Last updated at 8:35 AM on 28th October 2010
The human family tree may have to be rewritten after scientists
found evidence that the ancient ancestors of humans, apes and
monkeys evolved in Asia - rather than Africa - tens of millions
of years ago.
The astonishing claim follows the discovery of four species of
early primate in the Sahara desert, dating back 39 million years.
The creatures - or anthropoid primates - are unlike anything seen
before in Africa from the same time period or before, suggesting
that they evolved elsewhere.
Scientists say there is overwhelming fossil evidence that mankind
evolved from ape-like creatures in Africa, two to three million
years ago.
The last common ancestor of humans and chimpanzees lived five
to seven million years ago, while we split off from the gorilla
branch of the family tree around 10 million years ago.
Many researchers have believe that the common ancestors of all
apes, monkeys and humans also evolved in Africa.
But the new finding challenges that view.
'If our ideas are correct, this early colonization of Africa
by anthropoids was a truly pivotal eventone of the key points
in our evolutionary history,' says Dr Christopher Beard, of Carnegie
Museum of Natural History and an author on the paper in todays
Nature journal.
At the time, Africa was an island continent. When these anthropoids
appeared, there was nothing on that island that could compete
with them, he said.
'It led to a period of flourishing evolutionary divergence amongst
anthropoids, and one of those lineages resulted in humans. If
our early anthropoid ancestors had not succeeded in migrating
from Asia to Africa, we simply wouldnt exist.'
Although the researchers found only fossilised teeth at the Dur
At-Talah escarpment - part of the unspoilt, remote Sahara in central
Libya - they have a rough idea of their size and shape.
The four creatures were small, weighing between four and 16 ounces,
and resembled monkeys or lemurs.
Three of the creatures came from distinct families, or 'clades',
of primates - showing that they had been evolving from a common
ancestor for a long time.
The researchers say there is no evidence of similar primates
from Africa before 39 million years ago.
So either there is a striking gap in the fossil record
of North Africa - despite more than 100 years of fossil hunting
expeditions in the region - or the early primates came from elsewhere,
said Dr Beard.
This extraordinary new fossil site in Libya shows us that
39 million years ago there was a surprising diversity of anthropoids
living in Africa, whereas few if any anthropoids are known from
Africa before this time, he said.
This sudden appearance of such diversity suggests that these
anthropoids probably colonised Africa from somewhere else. Without
earlier fossil evidence in Africa, were currently looking
to Asia as the place where these animals first evolved.
The human family tree gets more complicated with every new fossil
discovery.
Scientists now believe the first human like ancestors or hominids
appeared around two to three million years ago.
The first homo sapiens appeared around 400,000 years ago, while
modern humans emerged in the last 100,000 years.
The latest thinking is that modern humans evolved in Africa and
left to colonise the world around 50,000 to 1000 years ago.
There they met the descendants of previous migrants who had left
Africa much earlier - including the Neanderthals of Europe.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1324243/Human-evolution-started-Asia-Ancient-ancestor-walked-Sahara-39m-years-ago.html#