If the discoveries over the preceding few decades have told us anything , it ’s that the development of humans is anything but simple . Now , a new discovery on the Mediterranean island of Crete might be about to put yet another cat among those pigeon , as investigator exact that hominin footprints discover on the island engagement backsome 5.7 million years .
The fossil have been found in Trachilos , westerly Crete , and appear to show many hominin - alike characteristics at a time when it has long been believed hominins were acquire in relative isolation in East Africa . The tracks are bipedal , and seem to indicate that the creature that made them had a prominent ballock of the groundwork , a large forward facing big toe , and a lack of hook , all of which are indicative of a hominin creator .
Published in the journalProceedings of the Geologists ’ Association , the researcher argue that despite lacking any other dodo bones , the step point that biped copycat , with hominin features were clearly present in Europe some 5.7 million years ago . This assertion is probable to be sonorous picked apart by other anthropologist , not least because 4.4 million years ago the oldest hominin known from a fairly complete fossil , Ardipithecus ramidus , was still walking on ape - similar foot in Ethiopia .
“ This find challenges the established narrative of other human evolution head - on and is likely to bring forth a lot of debate , ” explain Per Ahlberg , co - source of the late paper , ina financial statement . “ Whether the human origins research community will accept fossil footprint as conclusive evidence of the presence of hominins in the Miocene of Crete remains to be seen . ”
Interestingly , the timing of this late uncovering fits somewhat with another that was denote earlier this year , in which researchers hint that our ancient root may not have split up from Pan troglodytes in the savanna ’s of Africa , butinstead in the grassland of Europe . This notion was base on two fossil jaw bones dating to 7.2 million year old in which the teeth are like modern humans ' rather than chimpanzees ' .
As more and more discovery are made , the history of us gets more and more complicated . Rather than just a nice , simple evolutionary production line from ape to homo , the flick that emerge is one of a dense coppice of specie that form a involved and confusing image of our past . This late cogitation simply add up to that tangle , and as new find are made , hopefully more sense will be able to be made of it .
