Human Ancestors Originated in Asia

[Dover]

Study: Human Ancestors Originated in Asia
By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News


May 31, 2005— Three newly discovered primate species that lived 30 million years ago suggest that our first ancestors originated in Asia and not in Africa, challenging the well-known "Out of Africa" theory about human evolution.

The actuality could be something a bit more complicated, such as "Out of Asia into Africa and Back to Asia," since some researchers now think Asian primates journeyed to Africa, where they evolved into humans, who then traveled both in and out of Africa.

According to a study published in this week's Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, numerous fossil teeth for the three new anthropoids were found in the Bugti Hills of central Pakistan.

cont'd

http://dsc.discovery.com/news/briefs/20050530/primate.html

-----------

[chalky]

1. Not quite as catchy

"Out of Asia into Africa and Back to Asia"

[Igel]

2. Actually, our human ancestors didn't

originate on any of today's continents.

Go far enough back, and our ancestors were single-celled organisms. Before that ...?

The question isn't where did our earliest ancestors originate, but where did the innovations that made us distinctly human (in the sense Homo sapiens) originate. More interesting is where the last group ancestral to all surviving groups last lived.

Even then, not a greatly interesting questions, because it's hard to tell (without detailed dna sequencing) which group's changed the least from our common ancestors.