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Title: Europe was the birthplace of mankind, not Africa, scientists find
Source:
UK Telegraph
URL Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/ ... nd-not-africa-scientists-find/
Published: May 22, 2017
Author: Sarah Knapton
Post Date: 2017-05-22 20:01:59 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 3445
Comments: 17
An artist's reconstruction of Graecopithecus freybergi, left, with the jawbone and tooth found in Bulgaria and Greece The history of human evolution has been rewritten after scientists discovered that Europe was the birthplace of mankind, not Africa. Currently, most experts believe that our human lineage split from apes around seven million years ago in central Africa, where hominids remained for the next five million years before venturing further afield. But two fossils of an ape-like creature which had human-like teeth have been found in Bulgaria and Greece, dating to 7.2 million years ago. The discovery of the creature, named Graecopithecus freybergi, and nicknameded ‘El Graeco' by scientists, proves our ancestors were already starting to evolve in Europe 200,000 years before the earliest African hominid. An international team of researchers say the findings entirely change the beginning of human history and place the last common ancestor of both chimpanzees and humans - the so-called Missing Link - in the Mediterranean region. At that time climate change had turned Eastern Europe into an open savannah which forced apes to find new food sources, sparking a shift towards bipedalism, the researchers believe. “This study changes the ideas related to the knowledge about the time and the place of the first steps of the humankind,” said Professor Nikolai Spassov from the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. “Graecopithecus is not an ape. He is a member of the tribe of hominins and the direct ancestor of homo. “The food of the Graecopithecus was related to the rather dry and hard savannah vegetation, unlike that of the recent great apes which are leaving in forests. Therefore, like humans, he has wide molars and thick enamel. "To some extent this is a newly discovered missing link. But missing links will always exist , because evolution is infinite chain of subsequent forms. Probably El Graeco's face will resemble a great ape, with shorter canines." The team analysed the two known specimens of Graecopithecus freybergi: a lower jaw from 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 premolars are widely fused. "While 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 Professor Madelaine Böhme of the University of Tübingen. The lower jaw, has additional dental root features, suggesting that the species was a hominid. The species was also found to be several hundred thousand years older than the oldest African hominid, Sahelanthropus tchadensis which was found in Chad. "We were surprised by our results, as pre-humans were previously known only from sub-Saharan Africa," said doctoral student Jochen Fuss, a Tübingen PhD student who conducted this part of the study. Professor David Begun, a University of Toronto paleoanthropologist and co-author of this study, added: "This dating allows us to move the human-chimpanzee split into the Mediterranean area." During the period the Mediterranean Sea went through frequent periods of drying up completely, forming a land bridge between Europe and Africa and allowing apes and early hominids to pass between the continents. The team believe that evolution of hominids may have been driven by dramatic environmental changes which sparked the formation of the North African Sahara more than seven million years ago and pushed species further North. They found large amounts of Saharan sand in layers dating from the period, suggesting that it lay much further North than today. Professor Böhme added: "Our findings may eventually change our ideas about the origin of humanity. I personally don't think that the descendants of Graecopithecus die out, they may 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. "If accepted, this theory will indeed alter the very beginning of human history." However some experts were more skeptical about the findings. Retired anthropologist and author Dr Peter Andrews, formerly at the Natural History Museum in London, said: "It is possible that the human lineage originated in Europe, but very substantial fossil evidence places the origin in Africa, including several partial skeletons and skulls. "I would be hesitant about using a single character from an isolated fossil to set against the evidence from Africa." The new research was published in the journal PLOS One. 
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Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 9.
#5. To: cranky, Pinguinite, paraclete, sneakypete (#0)
So who is PLOS One anyway? How do you get published in this esteemed journal? Wiki: . . . As with all journals of the Public Library of Science, PLOS ONE is financed by charging authors a publication fee. The "author-pays" model allows PLOS journals to provide all articles to everybody for free (i.e., open access) immediately after publication. As of October 2015, PLOS ONE charged authors US$1,495[30] to publish an article. Depending on circumstances, it may waive or reduce the fee for authors who do not have sufficient funds.[31] This model has drawn criticism, however. In 2011 Richard Poynder posited that journals such as PLoS ONE that charge authors for publication rather than charging users for access may produce a conflict of interest that reduces peer review standards (accept more articles, earn more revenue). This is a junk science publishing mill. Maybe they publish good stuff too but I wouldn't bet that anyone considers it their first choice for publication. They'll go for the established reputable journals in their own field or for Nature or the other premium journals. PLOS would be their last choice if they're facing a publish-or-perish situation. We always hear about how reliable these "peer-reviewed journals" are but when you get right down to it, this is about what you get in the modern era from "peer review". IOW: it's a load of crap. And so is this junk science article they published about humans evolving first in Europe.
*I* am LOVING it! Beats the HELL out of taxpayers paying some asshat political active leftist a 6 grand annual salary to distort young people's minds with his or her PC brain farts. This is a junk science publishing mill. Maybe they publish good stuff too but I wouldn't bet that anyone considers it their first choice for publication. No,first choices will ALWAYS be for publications that pay THEM,not one they have to pay, I'd be willing to bet there are an awful lot of serious scientists that are avid readers of PLOS ONE,both for amusement purposes as well as looking for insights they can steal to develop or promote their own theories they will them get paid to publish and paid to get speeches about.
Well, sure. But the larger point is just how corrupt the supposely Holy Infallible Peer-Reviewed Scriptures really are. All they have to do is get past one assigned editor and pay $1500? Well, unless these hacks are willing to take less money to publish their pulp. Really blows a whole in the entire "peer-reviewed" scam. And how many in the public ever really learn how corrupt the entire process is? 1 in 5,000, if even that? Anyway, you can tell I loved this little gem of an exposé.
#10. To: Tooconservative (#9)
Not really. The petty personalities of academia will keep each other peeing in the punch bowls. It's all about egos.
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So you pay them $1500 (or less) and you have a 50/50 chance of getting most any garbage published in their "peer-reviewed" journal. PLOS ONE (originally PLoS ONE) is a peer-reviewed open access scientific journal published by the Public Library of Science (PLOS) since 2006. The journal covers primary research from any discipline within science and medicine. Operating under a pay-to-publish model, PLOS ONE publishes approximately 50% of submitted manuscripts.[1] All submissions go through a pre-publication review by a member of the board of academic editors, who can elect to seek an opinion from an external reviewer. According to the journal, papers are not to be excluded on the basis of lack of perceived importance or adherence to a scientific field. Although the number of submissions decreased from 2013 to 2014, PLOS ONE remained the world’s largest journal by number of papers published (about 30,000 a year, or 85 papers per day).
#7. To: Tooconservative (#5)
So you pay them $1500 (or less) and you have a 50/50 chance of getting most any garbage published in their "peer-reviewed" journal.
#9. To: sneakypete (#7)
*I* am LOVING it! Beats the HELL out of taxpayers paying some asshat political active leftist a 6 grand annual salary to distort young people's minds with his or her PC brain farts.
Replies to Comment # 9. Really blows a whole in the entire "peer-reviewed" scam.
End Trace Mode for Comment # 9.
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