Myanmar fossil find turns human history on its head

Discovery of ancient anthropod may change how we view the development of man's earlier ancestors. The story in the article is a bit overblown, as it notes that the same creature has been found both in Africa and Asia.

However it is interesting in it proposes that our ancestors evolved not in Africa but Asia then moved back there in the time frame noted

The birthplace of the human race is Asia - our earliest ancestors came to Asia in a huge migration 37-38 million years ago, before they evolved into present-day apes and humans

Not only does Afrasia help seal the case that anthropoids first evolved in Asia, it also tells us when our anthropoid ancestors first made their way to Africa, where they continued to evolve into apes and humans,’ says Chris Beard, Carnegie Museum of Natural History palaontologist.

See the link below for a discussion of the chart above


Article

Professors are so smart they're dumb.
But they are sooo sure that NOW they have it right...YAAWN...

reply to post by Thunderheart


Usually they do plus that article was written by a jouralist who has, in my opinion, made it more strident than necessary.

Yes those professors, those morons thought they could link up the world electronically and allow people to share information - what idiots

Originally posted by Hanslune
Yes those professors, those morons thought they could link up the world electronically and allow people to share information - what idiots.

Not to split too many hairs, but there is a difference between being a professor and being a technician who builds computers and cars and Large Hadron Colliders and stuff. I appreciate a working academic as much as the next person, but over the years I've grown pretty weary of purely academic types who only exist to keep a chair warm at some university.

Still, I always find it funny when a new study or discovery is made and the anti-science types jump up and say, "See? Mainstream science is wrong again and full of lies!" Especially when the new study or discovery is made by... scientists.

P.S. -- One of my pet theories is that human beings evolved in southern central Asia, in present day Georgia between the Black and Caspian Seas. Very curious geography there.

I think the point Thunderheart is making OP, is that very clever people with titles and letters before and after their names, have decreed one scientific fact after another, had it written into school text books, called it absolute truth for decade after decade, argued strongly with those who had the gall to dissent....only for another set of very clever people, with titles and letters before and after their names, to come along a while later and pronounce something completely different as the fact and absolute truth, who in turn will argue strongly with those who have the gall to dissent....

And all it would take would be simple humility...a statement added by both sets of very clever people to the tune of 'we don't know for certain...' or 'As far as we can reasonably tell...'.

Leaving the notion that current knowledge is to be considered absolute fact out from any mention of scientific 'discovery' or principle, would be the really smart thing to do.

Physics 'facts and principles' are probably another area where 'as far as we know' would probably be a wise addition too.

Originally posted by Hanslune
Discovery of ancient anthropod may change ...

May change.
Personally, I'm not convinced yet. The genetic evidence, IMHO, is more important than a few teeth and they're not telling the story put forward here.

But in any case, the team mentioned in this article have a Press Release you can read.

I never totally believed the out of Africa theory.
It's still not set in stone and may never be.
I agree with an above poster, I think the Hominids started in Eurasia.

Originally posted by kimish
I never totally believed the out of Africa theory.

Let the casual reader not be confused.
This article is talking about something 30 or 40 million years before the proposed "out of africa" event.

The Out of Africa theory still holds. It's not dead. The academics are not wrong. Although they are calling this creature a primate, all they have is four small teeth. That's it. If we could see a skeleton it would look more like a rat than a Hominid. It was the size of a chipmunk. This find does not "turn human history on its head" in any way. All this theory means, if, indeed, you can build a theory on 4 small teeth, it is the deep predecessor of Hominids, as well as monkeys, might have been in Asia before it scampered on four legs over to Africa.

The genus Homo is out of Africa. Every find in Africa over the years has corroborated this. The picture is much better than fifty or a hundred years ago, but the new finds simply fill in thegaps. And when we get to Homo sapiens, DNA corroborates the fossil record. There have been many previous migrations, but the fact is that we are "out of Africa," all of us. Mitochondrial Eve was an African.

Of course, if you wish to indulge in space alien fantasies, feel free to deny your own ignorance.

''Myanmar fossil find'', makes a new ''truth'', untill a new fosill is found.

A team of palaeontologists in Myanmar has found the tooth of a pre-human ancestor - afrasia djijidae, so-called because it forms a missing link between Africa and Asia - that is very similar another early ancestor found in Libya

Today humans, asian people and people from Europe, are not the same, but very similar.
Just like those fossil apes on different places, which are very similar! Just like Elephants in Asia and Africa are very similar but different.

Maybe they where what we have become today, but still, it's a belief, could be very well true. Maybe not. We just never be sure, that I know.

reply to post by Blue Shift


Interesting you mentioned that region, I have an interest in the area just to the east of that around the Aral sea

Yes scientist constantly (as they should) show up other scientists, its the scientific method!

reply to post by Hanslune
Hiya Hans, I've found the abstract that inspired the article...

Reconstructing the origin and early evolutionary history of anthropoid primates (monkeys, apes, and humans) is a current focus of paleoprimatology. Although earlier hypotheses frequently supported an African origin for anthropoids, recent discoveries of older and phylogenetically more basal fossils in China and Myanmar indicate that the group originated in Asia. Given the Oligocene-Recent history of African anthropoids, the colonization of Africa by early anthropoids hailing from Asia was a decisive event in primate evolution. However, the fossil record has so far failed to constrain the nature and timing of this pivotal event. Here we describe a fossil primate from the late middle Eocene Pondaung Formation of Myanmar, Afrasia djijidae gen. et sp. nov., that is remarkably similar to, yet dentally more primitive than, the roughly contemporaneous North African anthropoid Afrotarsius. Phylogenetic analysis suggests that Afrasia and Afrotarsius are sister taxa within a basal anthropoid clade designated as the infraorder Eosimiiformes. Current knowledge of eosimiiform relationships and their distribution through space and time suggests that members of this clade dispersed from Asia to Africa sometime during the middle Eocene, shortly before their first appearance in the African fossil record. Crown anthropoids and their nearest fossil relatives do not appear to be specially related to Afrotarsius, suggesting one or more additional episodes of dispersal from Asia to Africa. Hystricognathous rodents, anthracotheres, and possibly other Asian mammal groups seem to have colonized Africa at roughly the same time or shortly after anthropoids gained their first toehold there.

Late Middle Eocene primate from Myanmar and the initial anthropoid colonization of Africa

If I read it right, it's not challenging the familiar versions of the 'Out of Africa' hypotheses of human migration. What they're speculating is that some of our anthropoid ancestors of the homo taxa (is that the right term?) originated in Asia and migrated to Africa.

If it turns out to be accurate, our African origins will still stand but we'll gain another, earlier, branch of the family tree.

Have I got that right?

Originally posted by schuyler
The genus Homo is out of Africa. Every find in Africa over the years has corroborated this. The picture is much better than fifty or a hundred years ago, but the new finds simply fill in thegaps. And when we get to Homo sapiens, DNA corroborates the fossil record. There have been many previous migrations, but the fact is that we are "out of Africa," all of us. Mitochondrial Eve was an African.

I personally believe that all species, from bacterial life upwards, operate on a biological imperative to spread and then cluster. I think that it is hardwired, and probably for very good reason, Earth has undergone some pretty radical changes since life began, and while those changes have slowed down or de-intensified as the planet has matured, it hasn't changed that, at times, it is best to spread, and at others, to cluster. So...life could be programmed to respond in this way. It is therefore, on that premise, feasible to assume that while Anthropods originally began/or thrived in Asia, that during a spread period, Asia was hit by something of a wipe out nature, but Africa wasn't, hence leaving only Africa to evolve onwards. Each such event, in my opinion, would increase our learning or responsiveness to the 'signs' of said events and this, I believe, could be at the heart of the evolutionary drive towards greater intelligence.

It's an idea anyway

Originally posted by schuyler

Of course, if you wish to indulge in space alien fantasies, feel free to deny your own ignorance.

Lol after reading the first part of your post I said "But some people are going to claim outer space, because of skin color and such"

Then I seen this bit. Gave me a chuckle.

I have a theory on the skin color bit though. If the procession of the equinox is indeed true then that means those who may have dwelled in the same general area may not have had the same Sun exposure as they do today. Then again some newborn babies are born black regardless. However, studies have shown that the Sun can alter DNA. Which is probably the cause.

Originally posted by Hanslune
Interesting you mentioned that region, I have an interest in the area just to the east of that around the Aral sea.

Another very curious region, obviously having undergone some severe climate changes in recent geological history. And of course, the rapid evolution of at least some branch of modern humanity would have likely required some kind of relative isolation in an area experiencing a series of quick and brutal climate changes. That area would probably qualify.

reply to post by Kandinsky


Hey Kandinsky, that is how I understand it, I'd also think what they are saying is that this earlier creature spread to Asia, whether it came back or the ones that stayed in Africa lead to the human line is in question. As I have noted the journalist slant on this story confuses the actual research.

Current knowledge of eosimiiform relationships and their distribution through space and time suggests that members of this clade dispersed from Asia to Africa sometime during the middle Eocene, shortly before their first appearance in the African fossil record. Crown anthropoids and their nearest fossil relatives do not appear to be specially related to Afrotarsius, suggesting one or more additional episodes of dispersal from Asia to Africa.

Thanks for finding it, I intended to find the source but was distracted by a need to research Dippel's oil

Originally posted by kimish
I never totally believed the out of Africa theory.
It's still not set in stone and may never be.
I agree with an above poster, I think the Hominids started in Eurasia.

The accepted version of the whole "Out of Africa" theory occurred a very long time after the period in discussion. What they are talking about goes much further back in time..

Fossils are bones of deceased organisms and just that.

Only though fairy tale thinking can one say that this dead bone is a product of that dead bone and gave birth to this dead bone.

Bones of the deceased do not prove evolution, the only conclusion one can make from a dead bone is that an organism lived and died.

Originally posted by ACTS 2:38

ah dude, the creationism forum is thata way>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

I think those of us with half a brain, have been aware that mainstream paleontology is a large, steaming pile, for quite some time now.