Categories: Science

Scientists say we’ve been looking in the wrong place for human origins

Researchers report that a newly uncovered fossil ape from northern Egypt is changing how scientists view early hominoid evolution. The discovery suggests that the closest ancestors of modern apes may have originated in northern Africa, rather than in East Africa, which has long been the main focus of fossil research. “[The] findings […] confirm that paleontologists might have been looking for crown-hominoid ancestors in the wrong place,” write David Alba and Júlia Arias-Martorell in a related Perspective.

The fossil dates to about 17-18 million years ago and belongs to a newly identified species called Masripithecus. It is considered the closest known hominoid relative to the lineage that eventually led to all living apes, including humans. Scientists generally agree that the earliest apes (stem hominoids) first appeared in Afro-Arabia during the Oligocene Epoch more than 25 million years ago. These early apes later spread into Eurasia between about 14 and 16 million years ago during the Miocene. Still, the exact origin of modern apes, which include all living species and their last common ancestor, remains uncertain because fossils from this time are rare, scattered, and often difficult to interpret. This challenge is made worse by gaps in Africa’s fossil record, where most discoveries come from a limited number of locations, leaving large areas from this period unexplored.

Masripithecus moghraensis and Early Ape Diversity

Shorouq Al-Ashqar and colleagues describe the fossil, which was found in the Wadi Moghra region of northern Egypt and dates to around 17-18 million years ago. The species, named Masripithecus moghraensis, provides new insight into ape diversity during a key period when Afro-Arabia was becoming connected to Eurasia, allowing species to spread beyond Africa.

To determine how this species fits into the evolutionary history of humans, the researchers used a Bayesian “tip-dating” method. This approach combines anatomical features with fossil ages to estimate evolutionary relationships and divergence times. Their results indicate that Masripithecus is a stem hominoid closely related to the lineage that eventually gave rise to all modern apes.

New Clues to the Origins of Modern Apes

Based on their findings, the researchers suggest that modern apes may have originated in northern Afro-Arabia, the Levant, or the eastern Mediterranean. This challenges long-standing assumptions and highlights how much remains unknown about the early evolution of apes and humans.

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