research worker lay claim they haveuncovered grounds of ancient hominin - like creaturescomparable to Australopithecus . Even more intriguingly , they were discovered not in East Africa as would be expected , but in Germany instead . The two tooth get a line date to 9.7 million years ago – which , if prove correct , would rewrite our line , although there are some serious doubtfulness that need to be clear first .
If these fogey are proven to be that of fauna similar to the famous bipedal Australopithecus from East Africa – and that is a giving if – then it could have some earnestly unsounded deduction for the tale of human evolution .
“ I do n’t want to over - dramatize it , but I would hypothesize that we shall have to start rewriting the story of humanity after today , ” Herbert Lutz , director of the Natural History Museum in Mainz , order local mediathis week as he reveal the find . Thepaper is presently in pre - print . “ This is a tremendous stroke of chance , but also a enceinte mystery . ”
This would be an astonishing uncovering not only because there have never been any like early hominins like this found in Europe before , but also because if the geological dating is correct , then the metal money was knocking around some 6 million years before the famous Lucy was set to rest in Ethiopia . The current estimate for the last common ascendant between chimps and human beings range from around 10 million to 7 million years ago , although one late work suggests that it might have been as long at 13 million years ago .
If this old figure is correct , then the dating of these hominin - corresponding teeth would fit in with that . Yet there are other factors to take into circumstance . Only originally this twelvemonth , researcher announcedthey had disclose what they believed to be fossil grounds of the last coarse antecedent between chimpanzee and humans , which put the divergence at around 7.2 million years ago .
What is more interesting in this scenario , however , is that these fossil were discovered in Eastern Europe . This lines up nicely with the recent findings from Germany appointment - wise , but only if they are not hominin in origin . It is not unusual to get evidence of primates across Europe , and the generator ’s even note in their paper that while the size and dimensions of the freshly discovered teeth are within those bonk for various Australopithecus species , they also come within the range for female chimps , too .
If this is the guinea pig , then the 9.7 - million - year - old tooth could simply be an as - yet unknown species of ape that was once living in the forests of ancient Germany . Of course , it could also turn out that the researchers are indeed right with their initial understandings and this uncovering instead all rewrite what we thought we cognise about human evolution . I suppose we ’ll just have to expect and see .
