The paleotological site of Orakyerler in central Anatolia, Türkiye, has yielded the fossilized bones of the Miocene-era ape species Anadoluvius turkae.
Graecopithecus freybergi lived 7.2 million years ago in the dust-laden savannah of the Athens Basin. Image credit: Velizar Simeonovski.
One of the most contentious issues in paleoanthropology is the origin of the hominines, which include humans and African apes.
Since Charles Darwin, it has been widely accepted that hominines and hominins, including humans and their fossil cousins, originated in Africa, the continent that is still home to all extant non-human hominines.
On the basis of the examination of Late Miocene apes from Europe and Central Anatolia, a European origin has lately been suggested.
Given that several species of hominines have been present in the eastern Mediterranean for at least 2.3 million years, Anadoluvius turkae attests to the long history of hominines in Europe.
The University of Toronto's Professor David Begun, a paleontologist, said that the findings "suggest that hominines not only evolved in western and central Europe but spent over 5 million years evolving there before spreading to the eastern Mediterranean before eventually dispersing into Africa, probably as a result of changing environments and diminishing forests."
At the moment, only Europe and Anatolia have members of this radiation that Anadoluvius turkae belongs to.
The Anadoluvius turkae partial skull, which is well-preserved and has the majority of the facial anatomy and the front part of the brain case, was discovered in 2015 at the orakyerler site in central Anatolia.
Using several features and attributes that are coded into a program intended to assess evolutionary links, Professor Begun remarked, "The completeness of the fossil allowed us to do a broader and more detailed analysis."
"After using mirror imaging, the face is largely finished. The forehead is the new section, with bone up to the cranium's crown still present. These fossilized brain cases are more numerous than in previously documented specimens.
Anadoluvius turkae (50–60 kg), who lived in a dry woodland environment and probably spent a lot of time on the ground, was roughly the size of a large male chimpanzee.
According to Dr. Ayla Sevim-Erol, a researcher at Ankara University, "We do not have limb bones, but judging from its jaws and teeth, the animals found alongside it, and the geological indicators of the environment, Anadoluvius turkae probably lived in relatively open conditions, unlike the forest settings of living great apes."
"More akin to the settings that we believe early humans in Africa lived in. Strong jaws and big, heavily enameled teeth point to a diet rich in rough or hard foods from terrestrial sources, such roots and rhizomes.
The species that coexisted with Anadoluvius turkae included giraffes, wart hogs, rhinos, various antelope, zebras, elephants, porcupines, hyenas, and carnivores that resembled lions. These creatures are now frequently seen in African grasslands and dry woods.
According to the research, the biological community appears to have moved from the eastern Mediterranean into Africa sometime after 8 million years ago.
The ancestors of the African apes and humans can now be added to the list of immigrants, according to Dr. Sevim-Erol. "The founding of the modern African open country fauna from the eastern Mediterranean has long been known," he stated.
According to the research, Anadoluvius turkae sprang from the same evolutionary branch of the tree as chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and humans.
The authors come to the conclusion that despite the fact that modern African apes and the oldest humans are exclusively known from Africa, their ancestors originated in Europe and the eastern Mediterranean.
The fossil apes Ouranopithecus and Graecopithecus, which are from adjacent Greece and Bulgaria, and Anadoluvius turkae, are a group that most closely resembles the earliest known hominins, or humans, in terms of morphology and ecology.
The new fossils offer the strongest proof to date that this group of early hominines originated in Europe before dispersing into Africa since they are the best-preserved examples of this group of early hominines.
The partial skull of female Anadoluvius turkae. Image credit: Sevim-Erol et al., doi: 10.1038/s42003-023-05210-5.
According to the team's findings, the Balkan and Anatolian apes descended from forebears in western and central Europe.
The study's more complete data show that these other apes were also hominines, making it more likely that the entire group evolved and diversified in Europe rather than the alternate hypothesis in which distinct ape branches first independently moved into Europe from Africa over the course of several million years, went extinct without a hitch, and then disappeared.
Although it continues to be a favorite theory among those who reject the idea that humans originated in Europe, there is no evidence for the latter, according to Professor Begun.
These results run counter to the widely held belief that humans and apes evolved only in Africa.
Until the first hominid came in Africa around 7 million years ago, early hominine fossils were completely absent from Africa, despite being common in Europe and Anatolia.
While not conclusively proving it, the new data "supports the hypothesis that hominines originated in Europe and dispersed into Africa along with many other mammals between 9 and 7 million years ago."
To prove a concrete link between the two groups, further fossils from Europe and Africa that are between 8 and 7 million years old are required.
