Scientists find 7.2M-year-old pre-human remains in the Balkans

7m years ago there already was Bulgaria? Didn't know!

Rather than disputing the out of Africa theory, it seems to propose an earlier "into africa" stage. It may lend some credence to the multi-regional hypothesis though.

This is a good take which, IMHO, fits the dominant out-of-Africa data

Quote: >I think we should take seriously that Graecopithecus premolar root morphology may be yet another demonstration that supposed “hominin” characters actually evolved in other branches of apes during the Miocene. This feature is far from alone. Many other features that supposedly link Ardipithecus or Sahelanthropus with hominins are also found in other Miocene fossils. My colleagues and I documented some of these Miocene ape-like features in Sahelanthropus in 2006.

So the tooth-form that appears only in hominins could not be a marker, but a very similar tooth-form could have developed in non-hominins

>So the potential explanation is that this or a descendant found its way to Africa, and then gave rise eventually to Homo Sapiens.

given that Mediterranean dried out completely about 1M years later, back then there weren't 2 different things - Europe and Africa - like today, just a huge valley where may be a large part of our ancestors' evolution took place.

Fossils belonging to a species found in Greece showed similar features to the earliest known hominins (human species lineage), but were even older, shifting the "birthplace" of the modern human species from Africa to Europe.

They found some fossils, including jawbones and teeth, in Greece belonging to an evolutionary ancestor of homo sapiens sapiens that seem to be older than those found elsewhere.

They found two really old skeletons in Europe that are older than other skeletons. They are skeletons of a "modern"-ish human. They know because the teeth of the skeletons have a specific thing that the teeth of humans have but not the teeth of other primates.

The older skeleton is 1 million years older than old skeletons found in Africa. So now the oldest skeletons that we know about come from Europe not Africa, raising the possibility that humans evolved in Europe.

We have chimps, and we have humans. But both of us share a common ancestor. At some point, we split into two different evolutionary lines. And it's _where_, geographically, we split that is under some investigation.

Current school of thought, we think that man originated in Africa. But this recent finding (based off of a partial skull fragment) shows that non-chimp pre-humans existed in Europe, possibly hundreds of thousands of years earlier than previously theorised.

This means the split may have happened in Europe, as that is now the earliest evidence of pre-human remains.

(that's how I understand it, at least)

They did fancy 3D imaging of a jaw found in Greece and a tooth found in Bulgaria. The roots and interior structures of the teeth resemble human teeth more than it appears from the outside, so maybe these belong to early humans. The fossils are pretty old, from right around the time humans split from chimps and other apes.

it's weird to find just one fossil, with all the excavations going on and around in Europe.

"Potential hominin affinities of Graecopithecus from the Late Miocene of Europe"

I have no idea what that even says :(

I need an article written in plain English which interprets this article.

While there's little doubt of a "recent" spread of humanity out of Africa, 100 000 years ago or so and also development of earlier humans there. This is perhaps what you've learned. But this article talks about an earlier period of time, it discusses some fossils in Greece / Bulgaria that are some 7 million year old and are more human than ape. It's possible that the well known and documented development of humanity in Africa was preceded by a migration of these into Africa perhaps seeking warmer places during a cooler period millions of years ago. We simple do not know much about the transition from ape to human and this might be an important step. An emphasis on might. We know little.

I just upvoted the article for unearthing more hominim, no need for an ad hominem.

Adding on to this:

The human ancestors before this single instance were all from Africa. This title picks one particular definition of human and uses that as the basis for its claim. The ancestors of this species were certainly from Africa, and many later human descendants were also from Africa. Africa has much stronger ties to Human kind's birth than Europe does.

Also, it's very possible that this species died out and left no descendants. There are many examples of this at many stages in humanity's histories-- Paranthropus robustus, homo neanderthalensis, and Denisovans. If a common ancestor of Anatomically Modern Homo Sapiens really originated in Europe, we should be finding more evidence soon. Even if we find more evidence of that, we still can't say that Europe is the birthplace of mankind, because so much of Mankind's evolution (Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, etc) took place in Africa.

It's just silly to call Europe the birthplace of mankind.

How is it offensive?

You mean "hominin", not "hominim". Yes, the title on HN is sensationalism.

Every conceptual viewpoint reflects a particular world view, whether an officially accepted world view or an alternative world view. To rest an objection or finding a fault on the basis of a generalized statement like you made anent "world view" is actually proof of nothing and possesses little meaning of any consequence - other than, of course, that we reflect an individual or a collective world view.

As for the origin and global point of emergence of the human species, this could be debated ad nauseam. I would contend that no current view would be entirely correct.

Your post itself is inciting, because you imply that those up-voting the post did so due to "their world views". I am sure you can think of other, less offensive reasons that are more likely explanations of the votes, like scientific curiosity.

> I actually find the title offensive [...] Mostly because I'm sensitive to how unlikely it is people are up voting this because they understand it and rather they want it to reflect their world views.

What if the title said "South America" or "New Zealand" was the birthplace and people upvoted would you have found the title just as offensive?

Or to put it as another thought experiment, what continent region being upvoted would you find least offensive.

Could you elaborate on why exactly do you find it offensive, and what are the world views you think upvoters have that they want to support?

How on earth this title could be offensive? Why does it make you offended?

For several years we were tracing the beginnings of mankind to Africa. Now there is another source in Europe. In the future other sources might be discovered. How is it offensive? What does it change for you?

I did not downvote you myself (pinkie swear?) but since you asked, it's a little strange that you would immediately assume that the article was upvoted because of an ideological viewpoint.

Your meaning is not clear but based on the context it seems likely that you are implying that a group of caucasians have upvoted the article because they desperately want humanity to have come from Europe. If this is the sentiment that led you to post, then it is more than a little ironic.

For the record, I did upvote the story simply because it was interesting.

identity politics is for everyone

It's push back against the toxic strands of SJW culture that have gone from "diversity is good" to "white culure is bad".

It's a small but very vocal branch of SJWs against a small and very vocal branch of counter SJWs, but both sides of it are in a meme war (using the scientific definition of meme: a mechanism to transfer ideas and culture) and the effects of their culture clashes are large enough for you and I to notice.

Where are you seeing it now? Doesn't seem to be any in these comments or in TFA.

The internet happened.

It allows all sorts of people to gather in their own echo chambers, and feed off of their emotions. Echo chambers consume information that matches their biases, discards other information, and treats any source which argues differently as the enemy.

Rinse repeat for any and all causes. (Some causes may have inherent dampeners in extreme behavior, others will not.)

At least that's my understanding of the current dynamic.

(related reading: The spreading of misinformation on social media - http://www.pnas.org/content/113/3/554.full)

All: most comments in this subthread are breaking the HN guidelines. Flamewars on this site result in accounts getting penalized and/or banned. If you're determined to step into these minefields, please take extra care to do so respectfully and thoughtfully.

Note: lobbing explosives is not doing so respectfully and thoughtfully.

How?

Aside from that, this are just the oldest known fossils with human traits, how will your world view change if we find evidence of an even older ancestor outside Europe?

TLDR: It's Lemuria, the Atlantis of the subcontinent (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kumari_Kandam). It has about as much relevance as the biblical garden of eden.

Just read about this, it's a pretty cool origin myth! I had never heard about the legend of Lemuria before.

Haha, thanks. This is quite entertaining. A modern origin myth. Never thought I'd see something like that widespread uptake.

It says that textbooks as late as 1981 had this stuff in them. Fascinating. Boy am I glad they got rid of this stuff by the time I was in school in the '90s.