Until now, Africa was considered the cradle of humanity. But a new find calls this into question. In Bulgaria, an international team of scientists has discovered a femur about 7.2 million years old. This is what their research shows.
Information about the find was published on the website of BAS. Various German media outlets, including SWR, also wrote about this. The international team also includes scientists from the University of Tübingen. And the study is led by paleontologist Prof. Nikolay Spasov.
What is known about Graecopithecus
According to the data provided by the scientific team, the find from the Bulgarian city of Chirpan is about one million years older than the previously known fossil remains of human ancestors.
The results of their research also make it clear that humans were able to walk upright earlier than initially thought. According to the researchers, the femur has undoubted characteristics of a bipedal hominid: an elongated and erect neck of the thigh, as well as specific attachment points for the gluteal muscles. Characteristics such as these distinguish human ancestors from arboreal primates.
According to the researchers, the femur was probably part of the body of a female individual of the Graecopithecus species weighing about 24 kilograms. This individual has similarities to modern humans, but it did not yet move like modern humans. It is assumed that the individual lived in the Azmaka area near present-day Chirpan in Bulgaria - near a river in a savannah landscape similar to the present-day savannas of East Africa.
Research continues
The new find complements earlier discoveries related to the species Graecopithecus. Back in 2017, the research team had classified a lower jaw found in Greece as belonging to the same species of human ancestors. Now, however, they have been able to prove that representatives of this species could walk upright.
"This discovery can be called – largely – Bulgarian, because out of the six authors, three are Bulgarian," said Prof. Pavel Stoev, director of the National Museum of Natural History at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, at a press conference on March 4 in Sofia.
The research team plans to continue its work in the Balkans. The goal is to discover more Graecopithecus fossils and learn more about the lifestyle of this early bipedal individual.