Fossils found recently is said to prove the real history of the human lineage. However, it also makes the belief that humans originated in Africa a doubtful one.
Recently, fossils from Bulgaria and Greece were found describing an ape-like creature that has lived 7.2 million years ago, Business Insider reported. Consequently, the fossils leave the understanding of the origins of the human lineage that humans arose from Africa doubtful.
According to Mail Online, the fossils of the creature called Graecopithecus freybergi may be the oldest member of the human lineage. The creature was familiar on its lower jawbone and an isolated tooth. It is hinted that the creature may have split from the humans and found its way to chimpanzees which might be its closest cousins.
The fossils with the jawbone which includes its teeth were found in Athens in 1944. Meanwhile, the fossils pre-molar was found in 2009 in South-Central Bulgaria.
With the use of high technology, the researchers were able to examine the fossils and found out that it come from a single creature. Even their age was established through dating the sedimentary rock where the fossils were found.
What makes it more interesting is that the scientists found some dental root development that exactly possesses the same characteristics to humans. When compared to the chimpanzees and their known ancestors, the fossils Graecopithecus revealed its human lineage known as the hominins.
The findings on the fossils of the creature Graecopithecus clearly states that hominins do not originate in Africa for the fossils were found in Eastern Mediterranean. Besides, the findings of the fossils call into question on the said authentic appearance of the Homo Sapiens in Africa 200,000 years ago.
Paleoanthropologist Madelaine Bohme from University of Tubingen, Germany said, "Our species evolved in Africa, but our lineage may not have." The discovery of the fossils of the creature Graecopithecus or Hominins is a success for Science and Anthropology for it may be the missing piece on the real origin of the human lineage.
