An ape fossil found in Turkey may controversially suggest that the ancestors of African apes and humans first evolved in Europe before migrating to Africa, a research team says in a new study.
The proposal breaks with the conventional view that hominines — the group that includes humans, the African apes (chimps, bonobos and gorillas) and their fossil ancestors — originated exclusively in Africa.
In the new study, the researchers analyzed a newly identified ape fossil from the 8.7 million-year-old site of Çorakyerler in central Anatolia. They dubbed the species Anadoluvius turkae. “Anadolu” is the modern Turkish word for Anatolia, and “turk” refers to Turkey.
The fossil suggests that A. turkae likely weighed about 110 to 130 pounds (50 to 60 kilograms), or about the weight of a large male chimpanzee.
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The researchers suggest that A. turkae and other fossil apes from nearby areas, such as Ouranopithecus in Greece and Turkey and Graecopithecus in Bulgaria, formed a group of early hominines. This may, in turn, suggest that the earliest hominines arose in Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. Specifically, the team contends that ancient Balkan and Anatolian apes evolved from ancestors in Western and Central Europe.
