Europe - The Cradle of Humanity?
July 7, 2020
For decades, researchers have agreed that the ancestors of Homo sapiens came from East Africa. Many fossils seem to indicate this and our closest relatives, chimpanzees, also live in the region. But now, more and more finds support the theory that the fork in the development of humans and chimps goes back to Europe. A paleontologist from Tübingen, Madelaine Böhme, believes that a fossil unearthed in Athens in 1944 but long thought to be missing is the lower jawbone of Graecopithecus freybergi and says it clearly shows human characteristics. And, like a molar also found in Bulgaria, it’s also more than seven million years old. That makes it much older than earlier finds of pre-human remains from Africa.
Do these discoveries mean the history of early human evolution should be rewritten? Other finds - including ancient human footprints on Crete and the remains of prehistoric humanoid apes unearthed in southern Germany - support this theory. This documentary explores a new dimension to humanity’s age-old story.
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TUE 18.08.2020 - 01:15 UTC
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