Humans 'not out of Africa after all'

The history of human evolution might have to be rewritten - new discoveries suggested that Europe, not Africa, was the birthplace of mankind.

Researchers in Europe have discovered traces of a precursor of modern man, Graecopithecus freybergi, nicknamed "El Graeco" by scientists.

"We were surprised by our results because pre-humans were previously known only from sub-Saharan Africa," said Jochen Fuss, a University of Tübingen doctoral student.

But other experts believe it is a "long shot" to claim that El Graeco is our oldest ancestor.

The UK's The Daily Telegraph has reported that two fossils of an ape-like creature with teeth similar to those of humans have been found in Bulgaria and Greece. They have been dated to 7.2million years ago.

This has led scientists to believe that our ancient ancestors were evolving in Europe 200000 years before the earliest African hominin appeared.

But Bernhard Zipfel, Wits University's curator of fossil collections, said he did not believe Graecopithecus freybergi was what his discoverers claimed.

His criticism of the interpretation of the find in Europe is that it is based on only a fossil jaw and some teeth.

"I think it is really a long shot [to claim that El Graeco is our oldest ancestor]," he said.

"The extensive fossil record we have, and the complete skeletons we have found in East Africa and Southern Africa, show otherwise. I think it is really important to look at more complete skeletons."

John Hawks, a visiting professor at Wits University and an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, in the US, questioned the find on his blog: "Is it going too far to say that this fossil jaw is the earliest hominin?

"I think we should take seriously that Graecopithecus's premolar root morphology might be yet another demonstration that supposed 'hominin' characteristics actually evolved in other branches of apes during the Miocene [period]," Hawks wrote.

The Daily Telegraph said the Graecopithecus freybergi fossils were of a lower jaw, found in Greece, and an upper premolar tooth from Bulgaria.

Using computer tomography, they were able to visualise the internal structures of the fossils and show that the roots of the premolar teeth are widely fused.

"Whereas [the premolars] of great apes typically have two or three separate and diverging roots, the roots of Graecopithecus converge and are partially fused - a feature that is characteristic of modern humans, early humans and several pre-humans," said lead researcher Madelaine Böhme, of the University of Tübingen.

"Our findings might eventually change our ideas about the origin of humanity. I personally don't think that the descendants of Graecopithecus died out - they might have spread to Africa later. The split of chimps and humans was a single event. Our data support the view that this split was happening in the eastern Mediterranean - not in Africa.''

Anthropologist Peter Andrews said: "It is possible that the human lineage originated in Europe but very substantial fossil evidence places it in Africa. I would be hesitant about using a single characteristic from an isolated fossil against the evidence from Africa."

The research was published in the journal PLOS One.

- ©The Daily Telegraph