European fossils may belong to earliest known hominid
Graecopithecus’ teeth suggest it was part of the human evolutionary family, researchers argue
GREEK PUZZLER This jaw and teeth previously found in Greece, along with a tooth unearthed in Bulgaria, come from a line of more than 7-million-year-old primates that might have been the oldest known hominids, a new study concludes. Other researchers are skeptical of that claim.
W. Gerber/Univ. of Tübingen
Europe, not Africa, might have spawned the first members of the human evolutionary family around 7 million years ago, researchers say.
Tooth characteristics of a chimpanzee-sized primate that once lived in southeastern Europe suggest that the primate, known as Graecopithecus, may have been a hominid, not an ape as many researchers assume. One tooth in particular, the second lower premolar, is telling. It features two partially fused roots, a trait characteristic of early hominids but not ancient apes, a team led by geoscientist Jochen Fuss of the University of Tübingen in Germany reports May 22 in PLOS ONE.
Scientists suspect the first hominids appeared sometime between 8 million and 6 million years ago. New age estimates for previously discovered fossils position Graecopithecus as potentially the earliest known hominid,
