XPost: alt.politics.liberalism, sac.politics, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh   
   XPost: aus.politics   
   From: chimps@cnn.com   
      
   The first hominin species, a line that eventually leads to   
   humans, may have emerged in Europe 7.2 million years ago and not   
   Africa—the most widely accepted starting point for our ancestors.   
      
   An international team of scientists has presented two studies   
   that suggest the divergence point between chimpanzees and humans   
   took place in the Eastern Mediterranean rather than East Africa.   
   Their findings, published in PLOS ONE, are based on two fossils   
   of the species Graecopithecus freybergi, which were discovered   
   in Greece and Bulgaria and have now been dated to between 7.2   
   and 7.1 million years ago.   
      
   Previously, scientists had thought hominins and chimps split   
   between seven and five million years ago, with the first in the   
   hominin line emerging in Africa. But these fossils, scientists   
   say, tell a different story about the onset of human evolution.   
      
   Both fossils—a lower jaw and an upper premolar—were examined   
   using state-of-the-art computer tomography, allowing the   
   scientists to look at their internal structures.   
      
   Their findings showed the teeth are fused in a way that is   
   characteristic of early humans, including Ardipithecus and   
   Australopithecus, the latter of which the famous Lucy fossil   
   belongs to. The jawbone also had dental root features that   
   appear to belong to a pre-human rather than to an ancient chimp.   
      
   This raises the possibility that the fossils represent the   
   oldest hominin ever discovered and that the “major splits in the   
   hominid family occurred outside Africa,” they wrote.   
      
   Researchers say environmental changes caused the divergence and   
   used geological analysis to reconstruct the conditions from the   
   Sahara to the Mediterranean during this time. They showed that   
   the desert would have spread far into Southern Europe, creating   
   a barrier between Africa and the locations where Graecopithecus   
   was found.   
      
   The study has been met with skepticism because the vast majority   
   of fossil evidence appears to suggest our ancestors emerged in   
   Africa and migrated outwards.   
      
   James Cole, Senior Lecturer in Archaeology at the University of   
   Brighton, U.K., tells Newsweek that while the authors are   
   cautious in saying Graecopithecus is potentially the oldest   
   known hominin, their conclusions are still bold: “What they are   
   definitely suggesting is that rather than the divergence point   
   that eventually leads to us—the hominin route—being in Africa,   
   they are strongly suggesting, in both papers, that it is the   
   eastern Mediterranean landscape where that is happening. Which   
   is remarkable.   
      
   Of course it would be met with skepticism because white   
   apologist liberals want to put niggers on thrones and worship   
   them.   
      
   http://www.newsweek.com/first-hominin-europe-east-africa-human-   
   evolution-613494   
      
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    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)