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."

Comments

Re:Could they really cross continents?

[MichaelSmith]

Looking at this map it seems that they may have been in contact.

Not found in Asia

[Vingborg]

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.

Re:Not found in Asia

[biryokumaru]

Rule of thumb: Coffee first, attempts to form coherent sentences second.

Re:Not found in Asia

[HiThere]

I thought that primates arising in Asia was standard. I don't remember the time-line, but I thought they arose in Asia where the Gibbons and then Orangutangs split off, and then some migrated to Africa where the rest of the primates developed.

40 million years is a rather long span of time, so I don't see any problems. The only catch is that Libya is in Africa, so this means that primates need to have been widely distributed by then. Either that or done an awful lot of migrating and dying out in the home range. Wider distribution seems more likely.

P.S.: Primates don't generally fossilize well. When they die their bones are usually moved by predators and cracked for marrow. And most of them don't live in terrain that facilitates fossilization. (People are exceptional in this regard.) This is one of the reasons why fossils of primates are often causes for rejoicing. (Egotism is, of course, the other reason.)

Re:we weren't the first

[MichaelSmith]

Prior civilisations would have left artefacts in space. Geosynchronous orbit is both attractive and stable, but it was empty when we got here. Then there is all the fossil fuel we are burning. Why would an earlier civilisation leave it for us?

Libya != Africa?

[shiznatix]

"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?

Re:Libya != Africa?

[MichaelSmith]

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.

So the only older evidence of these animals is in Asia, suggesting they came from there originally.

Re:Libya != Africa?

[nomad-9]

The point is that these primate fossils show that they might have colonized Africa from somewhere else. Why? Because of the sudden appearance of such diversity while there is no earlier fossil evidence.

The most likely place would be Asia. Why? Probably because of the earlier findings of old fossils there and that one of the Libyan anthropoids resembled one found in Asia.

Better Article Here

[Jagen]

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/

Travelling Wilberries

[BrightSpark]

Of course your African primates are non-migratory you see...

Re:we weren't the first

[MichaelSmith]

Oh okay but lets assume our civilisation lasts a million years. We are going to be scattering material through the solar system for a lot of that time.

Paleogeology

[captainpanic]

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.

Re:Paleogeology

[c6gunner]

Here's one way. We know it's happened with various other species - assuming these "monkeys" of yours weren't too big, this method would fork quite well for them.

Re:Could they really cross continents?

[nephridium]

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/35moll.jpg (taken from http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~rcb7/mollglobe.html ) is probably the more accurate map of the period. Interestingly there seems to be a lot of (shallow?) water separating Africa and Asia.

According to these maps the land-bridge only developed later, when the Arabian peninsula emerged and connected both continents.

Monolith

[skywatcher2501]

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

African Genesis Theory is merely "convenient"

[Baby Duck]

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.

Re:we weren't the first

[Wyatt Earp]

Except some American Indians did inhabit the LA Basin.

http://www.tongva.com/links.htm
http://www.habitatauthority.org/pdf/native_american_history.pdf
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indigenous_peoples_of_California

Re:Could they really cross continents?

[pnewhook]

Very nice map link. And do you know what is also very evident? That the ice capped poles are VERY recent and NOT the normal climate of our world. So everyone please STOP complaining about the ice cap melt, they are not supposed to be there in the first place. Climate change is normal, but what we really need to be concerned about is the effect of our pollution and deforestation on the planet. Fix man's destructive effects and the climate will change as it is intended.

Re:But did they have the liberal gene?

[sumdumass]

Stop attempting to insinuate that liberals are genetic mutants.

Re:we weren't the first

[MichaelSmith]

If mankind were to vanish today and some other species were to achieve our technological advancement in fifty million years, what evidence would remain for them to find?

LM descent stages on the moon. Satellites in geosynchronous orbit. The lunar hardware should be recognizably artificial even after a billion years. GEO is stable because of minima in the earth's gravitational field. Satellites will slide along the orbit and collect (some of them) over Sri Lanka (Arthur Clarke loved that bit). Once in that stable location only impacts will move them out.

Practically everything on Earth will be gone. maybe a few durable metal components will survive. I once visited an old graveyard in Ireland. Gravestones more than 300 years old had eroded to unreadability.

Re:we weren't the first

[laron]

Not very likely. Pottery for example has been produced by pretty much every known civilization and lasts "forever". The same would go for gold objects.
Did you find any shards or jewelery that don't fit to any known human civilization?