A new fossil ape from an 8.7-million-year-old site in Türkiye is challenging long-accepted ideas of human origins and adding weight to the theory that the ancestors of African apes and humans evolved in Europe before migrating to Africa between nine and seven million years ago.
At this point, no. As I read this, this is the earliest homonine fossil to date, to include those found in Africa (by over a million years, no less). Again, as I read this, early primates left Africa and returned as hominids.
If this is true, it certainly upsets the apple cart regarding the hominid timeline. I’m no scientist, but my bet is the African fossil record is just incomplete, and eventually an ancestor to this creature will be found in Africa. I think it’s just a “this is the best evidence we have at the moment” kind of thing. Again, I’m just some jackwad on the internet, so probably don’t listen to anything I say
True, but how do we even know this is our ancestor and not the ancestor of, for example, neanderthals? How do we know that this line of hominids “returned to Africa” at all?
I don’t think we do know that. I understand this article to say “here is the only evidence we have, and if it’s the only evidence we ever get, we believe it to mean x”