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An international team of researchers studying fossils unearthed in Ethiopia’s Chorora Formation in the Afar rift has dated some gorilla teeth fossils to approximately 8 million years ago, which the team suggests, shows that the human gorilla split had to have occurred at least 10 million years ago. The team has published a report of its findings and theories in the journal Nature.
Scientists have been trying for quite some time to nail down the earliest parts of human evolution, but have been stymied by a lack of fossil evidence. Geneticists have shown that humans and great apes share a common lineage, which has led to efforts by archeologists and others to find evidence of when splits occurred between gorillas and later chimps, our closet ancestor. Genetic evidence has suggested that humans split from chimps as recently as 5 million years ago and with gorillas approximately 7 to 8 million years ago. But these findings have conflicted with archeological findings. In this new effort the rift has widened even further as new evidence suggests at least one of the splits may have occurred much farther back in time.
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Read full, original post: Gorilla fossil suggests split from humans as far back as 10 million years ago
