Cyprus-Forum.com

[GreekIslandGirl]

Not only the birthplace of civilization but also the origins of Mankind. The Ancient Greeks stated they were autochthonous and they were (to put it mildly) doubted. Now, we see how solidly true their claim actually was.

The split of our own clade from the Panini is undocumented in the fossil record. To fill this gap we investigated the dentognathic morphology of Graecopithecus freybergi from Pyrgos Vassilissis (Greece) and cf. Graecopithecus sp. from Azmaka (Bulgaria), using new μCT and 3D reconstructions of the two known specimens. Pyrgos Vassilissis and Azmaka are currently dated to the early Messinian at 7.175 Ma and 7.24 Ma. Mainly based on its external preservation and the previously vague dating, Graecopithecus is often referred to as nomen dubium. The examination of its previously unknown dental root and pulp canal morphology confirms the taxonomic distinction from the significantly older northern Greek hominine Ouranopithecus.

http://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl ... ne.0177127

The species was also found to be several hundred thousand years older than the oldest African hominid, Sahelanthropus tchadensis which was found in Chad.

"We were surprised by our results, as pre-humans were previously known only from sub-Saharan Africa," said doctoral student Jochen Fuss, a Tübingen PhD student who conducted this part of the study.

Professor David Begun, a University of Toronto paleoanthropologist and co-author of this study, added: "This dating allows us to move the human-chimpanzee split into the Mediterranean area."

Professor Böhme added: "Our findings may eventually change our ideas about the origin of humanity. I personally don't think that the descendants of Graecopithecus die out, they may have spread to Africa later. The split of chimps and humans was a single event. Our data support the view that this split was happening in the eastern Mediterranean - not in Africa.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/2017 ... ists-find/

[Sotos]

Interesting, but those "humans" were definitely not Greek or any other ethnic group because ethnic groups did not exist back then. If those are indeed the "first humans" then they are the ancestors of all humans, and not just Greeks. But still its good for Greece to have the label "the Motherland of Humans" ... along with Bulgaria, and then probably they will find more in nearby countries And later they might find an even older case somewhere else. I am sure GR would be very confused since he seems to believe that Cyprus was inhabited by humans much earlier than mainland Europe... something which we already knew to be wrong by 10s of thousands of years ... but now its in the millions

[kurupetos]

No, only mine.

[GreekIslandGirl]

Interesting, but those "humans" were definitely not Greek or any other ethnic group because ethnic groups did not exist back then. If those are indeed the "first humans" then they are the ancestors of all humans, and not just Greeks.

I don't think anyone would assign "ethnic groups" to these early ancestors as they were pretty different to modern Europeans etc. Like old wives' tales, it's just interesting to note how the Ancient Greeks did believe they were autochthonous and here, through some old bones found in Athens too, we now have some indications to say they weren't exactly wrong! It's not the first time either ...

[DrCyprus]

We can then only conclude that the whole of humanity is Greek, but the only ones called Greek today are the lazy ones who stayed behind.

[supporttheunderdog]

I was hardly surprised to see gIG puff this up.

I do not dismiss the possibility at all, but the fact of the matter is we do not know for certain if these particular creatures are a direct ancestor of humans: they are no doubt hominins but whether they are or (like the Dinosaur) are NOT our ancestor is still a moot point: we share common features with Dinosaurs but we are distant cousins, not descendants and the common features we share are NOT dinosaur remnants despite previous claims by some here to the contrary. The particular fossils are quite geographically distant from where it is widely thought Humanity later developed, and I think the fossil record is otherwise a bit scarce to do more than speculate about the issue. There is a 6 million year gap to fill.

The report itself says that more fossil evidence is needed to confirm the position about the geographical location where split between man and ape occurred

Therefore, we submit that the dental root attributes of Graecopithecus suggest hominin affinities, such that its hominin status cannot be excluded. If this status is confirmed by additional fossil evidence, Graecopithecus would be the oldest known hominin and the oldest known crown hominine, as the evidence for the gorillin status of Chororapithecus is much weaker than the hominin status of Graecopithecus [8]. More fossils are needed but at this point it seems likely that the Eastern Mediterranean needs to be considered as just as likely a place of hominine diversification and hominin origins as tropical Africa.

An interesting article in the Guardian illustrates the issue in showing what hominins might or might be our ancestors:https://www.theguardian.com/science/2017/may/23/homo-naledi-genome-will-we-ever-find-this-elusive-key-to-human-evolution

Many people tend to think of human evolution as a very linear path: from primitive creatures more or less directly to ourselves. But for most of the history of evolution, there were multiple species of hominins running (or climbing) around the African landscape, each with their own unique physical adaptations to the challenges of survival. As with all evolutionary experiments, some of these adaptations proved more successful than others. Based on careful study of fossils spanning millions of years in Africa, paleoanthropologists thought they had a good understanding of how the experiment’s results unfolded. Human evolution wasn’t a straight progression by any means, but more like a complicated bush, with branches leading off in many directions. Still, there were definite trends that made their way into our textbooks. Hominin lineages with some trait combinations died off without leaving any descendants. In the lineages that persisted, brains got bigger, legs longer, arms shorter, fingers less curved, teeth smaller.

As it is a 2009 article https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn17225-were-our-earliest-hominid-ancestors-european/ suggests the earliest hominins were African from 12million YBP, who crossed to Europe.


However as was stated in 2009

This “into Africa” scenario is likely to be controversial. Critics argue that discoveries like Moyà-Solà’s are more likely to reflect the quality of the fossil records in Africa and Europe than offer clues to the actual origins of hominids.

Jay Kelley, a palaeobiologist at the University of Illinois at Chicago, points out that the fossil record from the time in question is much better in Europe than in Africa. “If you’ve got a record on one continent but not the other, naturally you’re going to see origins of the group from the continent where you’ve got the record,” he says.

Otherwise, with similar remains in Bulgaria, it might give credence to some of GR's comments on the ancestry of the Greeks....

The full reseach article is posted here http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0177127

[GreekIslandGirl]

As it is a 2009 article ...

You can't deal with the 2017 article. That's OK. You're not an expert and your opinions have never given rise to any actualities.

[supporttheunderdog]

As it is a 2009 article ...

You can't deal with the 2017 article. That's OK. You're not an expert and your opinions have never given rise to any actualities.

What part of

Therefore, we submit that the dental root attributes of Graecopithecus suggest hominin affinities, such that its hominin status cannot be excluded. If this status is confirmed by additional fossil evidence, Graecopithecus would be the oldest known hominin and the oldest known crown hominine, as the evidence for the gorillin status of Chororapithecus is much weaker than the hominin status of Graecopithecus [8]. but at this point it seems likely that the Eastern Mediterranean needs to be considered as just as likely a place of hominine diversification and hominin origins as tropical Africa.

Do you have trouble understanding?

The 2017 report only suggests

Hominid affinities

and makes it plain

More fossils are needed

So it plainly on its own words does not confirm the claims you make for it.

But that is what you get when you read and rely upon press reports on the study and do not read the study itself.m

Oh and btw , Anatolia, Persia, Egypt, Pakistan/India and China had civilisation before Greece.

[GreekIslandGirl]

The part I understand is that these finds represent earlier comparative evidence than those from Africa.

The part I understand is that you have ignored the actual 2017 study I posted in my original post and that you are incapable of understanding academic articles.

The part I understand is that if they were found anywhere else other than around Greece you would have jumped at the chance to modify the Africa narrative - but it's around Greece, so you go into overdrive to dig up some irrelevant or outdated points that don't even bear any semblance of contradictory evidence.

Just go and find some more Grexit fake news or so-called *statements* by the EU that Greece faces expulsion from the EU. You are free to have such opinions but they have zero validity.

[supporttheunderdog]

For tge avoidance of doubt I am not disputing the science but your Hellenocentric spin on it, where I am obliged to point out the bit I quoted in my last was from the 2017 article and clearly indicates that more fossil evidence is needed. An issue you have ducked.

Thatconclusion, that more evidence is needed, in turn is not atall inconsistent with the 2009 Article I quoted from, which discusses possible Early Hominin ancester presence in Europe, may be 4.7 million years earlier, and the current Guardian Article, which highlights the diificulties in ascribing even the more recent fossil finds, of which there are more in number, to the ancestry of modern humans.

How one can therefore make definitive claims that Greece was the cradle of humanity when even the authors of the report say more evidence is needed, as I quoted, should be beyond comprehension, but then that is what you do, make incomprehensible arguements which ignore what is on the page, but with your own humpty dumpty logic.