History rewritten, with Europe the birthplace of mankind
It looks like we humans may have evolved from an ape-like creature found in Bulgaria and Greece, not Africa.
Teeth from a Graecopithecus freyberg, a species discovered in Greece and Bulgaria that places the so-called Missing Link in Europe rather than Africa.
The history of human evolution continues to evolve.
Up until now, experts have believed human lineage split from apes some 7 million years ago in Africa. But now scientists have traced the first hominid species to Europe instead some 7.2 million years ago.
An international team of researchers shook up the science books with two studies published Monday in the journal Plos One. Their findings are based on two fossils of species discovered in Greece and Bulgaria.
The creature they discovered, named Graecopithecus freybergi, is nicknameded "El Graeco."
The findings shift the location of the last common ancestor of both chimpanzees and humans, what some refer to as the Missing Link, to the Mediterranean. Our ancestors were apparently already starting to evolve in Europe 200,000 years before the earliest African hominid.