Humans split from primates much earlier than believed

Humans split from primates much earlier than believed

FPJ BureauUpdated: Friday, May 31, 2019, 06:02 PM IST
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Washington : Humans split away from gorillas about 10 million years ago – at least 2 million years earlier than previously thought, a new study has found, reports PTI.

A common ancestor of apes and humans, Chororapithecus abyssinicus, evolved in Africa, not Eurasia, researchers said. “Our new research supports early divergence – 10 million years ago for the human-gorilla split and 8 million years ago for our split from chimpanzees,” said Giday WoldeGabriel, geologist at Los Alamos National Laboratory in US.

“That’s at least 2 million years earlier than previous estimates, which were based on genetic science that lacked fossil evidence,” said WoldeGabriel. “Our analysis of C abyssinicus fossils reveals the ape to be only 8 million years old, younger than previously thought. This is the time period when human and African ape lines were thought to have split, but no fossils from this period had been found until now,” WoldeGabriel said.

Chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and humans compose the biological family Hominidae. Our knowledge of hominid evolution – that is, when and how humans evolved away from the great ape family tree – has significantly increased in recent years, aided by unearthed fossils from Ethiopia, including the C abyssinicus, a species of great ape.

Researchers characterised the volcanic ash and provided chemistry for local and regional correlation of the ashes sandwiching the fossils from Ethiopia’s Chorora area, a region where copious volcanic eruptions and earthquakes entombed fossils recently uplifted via ground motion and erosion. They recovered the fossil remains of at least eight hominid species, including some of the earliest hominids, spanning nearly 6 million years.

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