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40 Million Year Old Primate Fossils Found In Asia
sosaited writes "It has been widely believed that our ancestors originated out of Africa, but a paper published in Nature by Carnegie Museum of Natural History scientists puts this in doubt. The paper is based on the fossils of four primate species found in Asia which are 40 million years old, during which period Africa was thought to not have these species. The diversity and timing of the new anthropoids raises two scenarios. Anthropoids might simply have emerged in Africa much earlier than thought, and gone undiscovered by modern paleontologists. Or they could have crossed over from Asia, where evidence suggests that anthropoids lived 55 million years ago, flourishing and diversifying in the wide-open ecological niches of an anthropoid-free Africa."
They were Atlanteans/aliens from outerspace.
Wasn't Asia detached from Africa 40M years ago?
most likely several prior civilizations have risen from evolution on this planet, only to be washed away by time and nature - we're simply the current, latest incarnation of life here.
The fossils were NOT found i Asia, but in Libya, which was and is a part of Africa. The point of the paper is, that the variety of fossils indicate a much deeper evolutionary history than the African fossil record accounts for, and that Asia is the likely candidate for the earliest primates.
For the sufficiently clueless, even trivial applications of common sense are indistinguishable from wisdom
"The discovery of four ancient, lemur-like creatures in what is now Libya suggests the human family tree’s taproot is in the Middle East, not Africa."
Correct me if I am wrong but Libya is in Africa. Nowhere in the article does it mention any Asian country. It says that these were found in Libya which is Africa but then goes on about these animals crossing over from Asia to Africa. So, where exactly were these fossils found?
There in a link in the comments section to a much better article that explains why even though these fossils are from Africa they are being linked to primate origins in Asia.
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/10/where-did-all-these-primates-come-from-fossil-teeth-may-hint-at-an-asian-origin-for-anthropoid-primates/
Of course your African primates are non-migratory you see...
Where is the Carnegie Museum Of Natural History Scientists located, and does it keep them in formaldehyde, or are they just pinned to the wall with a glass pane in front?
Indeed... this article is better (thanks for pointing that out).
What I haven't found in the article though is how monkeys are supposed to cross over from Asia to Africa...
Here is a map of how the continents were connected about 50 million years ago. It seems to me that it would have been a long swim.
It would be nice to see the two fields of study (paleogeology and paleontology to combine their efforts.
What would you say are the chances of detecting human artifacts in a few million years? I could imagine some signs of technological advancement last quite a bit (architecture, car/airplane relics, railroads, ...). Although I can't really quantify that. Perhaps someone else can?
Does TFA mention traces of tall dark monoliths nearby? We might need to take a closer look at the magnetic field of the Moon :D
What I really want to know is whether or not they had the liberal gene?
http://www.medicaldaily.com/news/20101027/3003/researchers-find-a-liberal-gene.htm
Armaments, 2-9-21 And Saint Attila raised the hand grenade up on high, saying, 'O Lord, bless this Thy hand grenade' N
We don't really know where early hominds or early primates came from. Signs point to Africa merely because 1) it geologically has a good track record of fossilization and 2) yearly powerful rains directly pounding millions year-old exposed mud and rock make it easy to find fossils at ground level. For all we know, early primates and hominids could have come from where Detroit or Seoul or Sydney currently is. If those sites are geologically poor at lending itself to fossilization, we'd never know.
"Love heals scars love left." -- Henry Rollins
This is a horribly muddled article.
- As stated above, the specimens were found in Africa, not Asia.
- Lemurs are part of the Suborder Strepsirrhini, which is entirely different from monkeys (Suborder Haplorrhini) [both are primates however]
- This specimen is highly unlikely to be a monkey, as monkeys first appear approx 25 mya (15 million years after these specimens)
- "Anthropoids" is term used in an old phenetic-based system of classification (currently we use a cladistics-based approach as above). Even if you are using that system, lemurs are NOT anthropoids, they are prosimians.
This article says literally nothing of value about this specimen except that it is ostensibly a primate and is 40 my old.
What does this mean for Dawkins' "We are all Africans" t-shirt sales?