An Asian Origin For Human Ancestors?

InfiniteZero writes "Researchers agree that our immediate ancestors, the upright walking apes, arose in Africa. But the discovery of a new primate that lived about 37 million years ago in the ancient swamplands of Myanmar bolsters the idea that the deep primate family tree that gave rise to humans is rooted in Asia. If true, the discovery suggests that the ancestors of all monkeys, apes, and humans—known as the anthropoids—arose in Asia and made the arduous journey to the island continent of Africa almost 40 million years ago."

Comments

Oceanic origin for human ancestors?

[k(wi)r(kipedia)]

From TFA:

Kay, however, says the scales are tipping toward an Asian origin. "We've all heard about Out-of-Africa for human origins," adds Beard. "Now we think there was an Out-of-Asia migration into Africa first."

Well, since we're tracing the origin of our species anyway, why not simply say our ancestors came from the sea? You can't get any further back than that, unless you think that life migrated from outer space.

Re:Oceanic origin for human ancestors?

[samoanbiscuit]

If it turns out that our primate ancestors instead evolved elsewhere, and relocated there, that is relevant to the question of human origins, because.... it's a part of that origin.

No, you said it yourself: "as far back as we can meaningfully trace". It seems that there is some ambiguity with some of the early hominin ancestors, but basically, humans and their immediate predecessors originate from Africa. This is what happens when computer geeks think they're fully qualified to talk about paleo-anthropology or other messy science things that don't involve mathematical proofs.

Re:Oceanic origin for human ancestors?

[samoanbiscuit]

You need to read the reply below you to see why I take that tone. Also, I'm not a paleoanthropologist (bioinormatics actually), but I find it hilarious that people who know a lot about a certain domain of knowledge think they don't need to read up on another domain but throw around opinions they think are perfectly valid. Also, what I wrote is a non-sequitur only if you don't know what you are talking about and don't want to read up on the topic, which is common whenever slashdot runs an article not based on CS, Math or Physics.

Re:I agree

[wisty]

Humans aren't that freaky. We are pretty much identical to chimps, with slightly better communication hardware.

Perhaps complex communication triggered divergent evolution. Humans (well, proto-human talking chimps) work well together, but not with normal chimps. Normal chimps had advantages though - they could communicate far faster. Simple communication is a good thing if all you want to say is "LEOPARD!!!!".

Once we'd diverged, the talking apes found they were better off in the savanna and beaches than the forest (where speed is more important than strategy).