Scientists find earliest known hominid to date - in Europe!

[Simon]

Whether this changes the theory about the location of the origin of man from Africa to Europe will depend on future discoveries, but this newly named hominid is several hundred thousand years older than the earliest known hominid from Africa.  (From approx. 7.2 MYA.)

Interesting stuff:  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017/05/22/europe-birthplace-mankind-not-africa-scientists-find/

[BlueKrono]

That's pretty crazy. I wonder if it will hold up over time. Same with the recent North America news. I know the Denisovans turned out to be a big deal recent discovery that is now part of the textbooks, but this is a magnitude older.

[Dinoguy2]

This is really cool, but it's weird to sort of arbitrarily call this the "birthplace of mankind". Maybe of the human lineage? But the earliest members of our species are still from Africa. It's sort of like saying humans originated in Germany because that's where Darwinius was found.

[BlueKrono]

Darwinius was not a human ancestor. Somebody gambled big on that one ($1 million) and lost.

[Dinoguy2]

Darwinius was not a human ancestor. Somebody gambled big on that one ($1 million) and lost.

It's just as much a human ancestor as most species of Australopithecus (close side branches). It's famously very hard to determine direct ancestry in the absence of DNA.

All Darwinius suggests is that early primates lived in Germany.

All this new australopithecine suggests is that early hominids lived in Europe.

Early placentals like Eomaia lived in China, nobody is saying that's the birthplace of mankind