New discoveries every day. A few months ago the paper on Graecopithecus freybergi hinted at a hominin living in the Balkans 7.2 Million years ago:
Fuss J, Spassov N, Begun DR, Böhme M (2017) Potential hominin affinities of Graecopithecus from the Late Miocene of Europe. PLoS ONE 12(5): e0177127. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0177127
Today I came across this article:
Gerard D. Gierliński et al. Possible hominin footprints from the late Miocene (c. 5.7 Ma) of Crete? Proceedings of the Geologists’ Association, published online August 31, 2017; doi: 10.1016/j.pgeola.2017.07.006
Amazingly, footprints of an ancient hominin were found in Crete and they are 5.7 Million years old, so here we have Balkans and Crete and hominins in two separate papers... were we from Africa?
Notice the compact foot with even sized toes, a human-like big toe and a heel! This is no chimp-like ape, this is a bipedal hominin walking along a beach in Crete! Maybe related to the Graecopithecus?. Was there an into-Africa event from Europe?
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Very interesting post!. Having read the full paper from your link, I would like to comment that;
ReplyDeleteTrachilos footprints are 2 Ma older than those made by Autralopitecus afarensis in Laetoli, Tanzania, dated at 3,6 Ma.
Though a definitive taxonomic assignment for these footprints has been prudently delayed by Gierlinki et al., the images of them (as well as the comparison with footprints of other species which could be confused with)…indeed speak for themselves…
Respect to its age, at least 5,7 Ma, it appears to be properly estimated, as they were found in an horizon just below a stratum representative of an event related with the desiccation of the Mediterranean Basin (which is well dated at 5,6 Ma).
Summarizing;
- Bipedal creature, with foot morphology not so far from that of an hominin.
- Reliably aged at the Late Miocene.
- Not found in Africa... but in Crete!!…
These factors, properly conjugated, could suggest that the feasibility of a different origin is an hypothesis that today, is worth to be considered.
In other words, the ideas/speculations you are including in this post as questions, seem to be a tentatively valid interpretation of this evidence,...and judging from the surprising rate of new discoveries of nowadays, they could probably be better supported in a relatively near future.