Web Desk(September 1, 2017): Researchers have found 5.7 million-year-old, human-like footprints in Crete, complicating the story of human evolution.
A significant body of paleontological evidence suggests early humans diverged from their ape ancestors in Africa.
A set of footprints found in Tanzania suggest hominins, the earliest human relatives, were walking upright some 3.7 million years ago.
Most researchers believe these first pre-humans evolved in southern and eastern Africa, remaining on the continent for several million years before migrating to Europe and Asia.
The newly discovered “Trachilos” tracks are unmistakably human-like, researchers say. The prints showcase a human-like big toe and the ball shape found on the sole of human feet.
Until recently, no hominin fossils older than 1.8 million years had been discovered outside of Africa.
The researchers argued the chimp-human split may have first occurred in Southern Europe, not Africa, with apes and hominins becoming separated as savannas spread across Southern Europe and deserts expanded across North Africa and the Mediterranean.
As some critics pointed out in the wake of the Graecopithecus claim, determining whether a fossil or anatomical anomaly confirms a divergence between apes and humans is exceedingly difficult.
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