Income inequalities within the Aztec Empire eased the way of the conquistadores

 

VIDEO: SPANISH CONQUERORS DID NOT THEMSELVES BRING #INEQUALITY TO THE AZTEC LANDS THEY INVADED: THEY EXPLOITED THE EXTRACTIVE INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK THAT WAS ALREADY IN EXISTENCE, ADAPTING IT TO SUIT THEIR PLANS AND ADDING FURTHER LAYERS OF INEQUALITY, EXPLAINS GUIDO ALFANI (BOCCONI DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL AND POLITICAL SCIENCES). IN AN ARTICLE HE WROTE TOGETHER WITH ALFONSO CARBALLO OF NEOMA BUSINESS SCHOOL IN FRANCE HE ASSESSED WHAT KIND OF DISPARITIES THERE WERE IN THE SO-CALLED #AZTECEMPIRE BEFORE THE CONQUEST. #AZTECS THE EMPIRE ORIGINATED FROM AN ALLIANCE OF THREE CITY-STATES WHICH OVER TIME CAME TO RULE OVER A RANGE OF PROVINCES WHICH WERE REQUIRED TO PAY TRIBUTES, INCLUDING IN BLOOD. ITS AGRICULTURE WAS FAIRLY ADVANCED IN TERMS OF YIELD PER UNIT OF SURFACE, BUT EXTREMELY LABOR-INTENSIVE AS THE WHEEL WAS UNKNOWN AND NO BEASTS OF BURDEN WERE EMPLOYED. “WE ROUGHLY ESTIMATED PER CAPITA #INCOME IN THE AZTEC EMPIRE BY EXPLOITING THE VARIATION IN POPULATION DENSITY USING ARCHAEOLOGICAL DATA. ACCORDING TO OUR CALCULATIONS, PER CAPITA INCOME AT THE EVE OF THE SPANISH CONQUEST WAS ON AVERAGE APPROXIMATELY US$690, WHICH WAS SIGNIFICANTLY LOWER THAN IN 16TH CENTURY SPAIN. BUT THIS AVERAGE CONCEALS IMPORTANT DIFFERENCES BETWEEN PROVINCES,” HE SAYS. INEQUALITY IN AVERAGE INCOME LEVELS BETWEEN THE PROVINCES WAS A MAJOR SOURCE OF INEQUALITY AND WAS EXACERBATED BY THE UNEVEN TREATMENT THAT THEY RECEIVED WITHIN THE EMPIRE. THE TAXES THAT EACH PROVINCE HAD TO PAY WERE VARIABLE, DEPENDING ON HOW THE PROVINCE HAD BECOME PART OF THE AZTEC EMPIRE. THOSE PROVINCES THAT HAD MILITARILY RESISTED THE AZTECS WERE SUBJECTED TO HIGHER IMPERIAL TAX RATES ONCE CONQUERED. ANOTHER MAJOR SOURCE OF INEQUALITY WAS THE SOCIAL STRUCTURE. THE MAIN SOCIAL DISTINCTION WAS BETWEEN THE NOBILITY, THE COMMONERS AND THE SLAVES. THE NOBILITY DOMINATED THE COMMONERS BY HOLDING EXCLUSIVE CONTROL OVER PRODUCTIVE RESOURCES. OVERALL, BEFORE THE CONQUEST, THE RICHEST 1% EARNED 41.8% OF THE TOTAL INCOME; THIS FIGURE GROWS TO 50.8% IF THE RICHEST 5% IS CONSIDERED. AS THE INCOME SHARE OF THE POOREST 50% WAS JUST 23.3%, THIS MAKES FOR A VERY SKEWED INCOME DISTRIBUTION, MUCH WORSE THAN IN TODAY’S MEXICO. HIGH INEQUALITY HELPS EXPLAIN HOW A LITTLE SPANISH ARMY OF JUST A FEW HUNDRED MEN COULD QUICKLY OVERRUN THE AZTEC EMPIRE. THE HIGHLY CENTRALIZED AND UNEQUAL TAX COLLECTION WAS SO RESENTED BY VAST REGIONS OF THE EMPIRE THAT THEIR POPULATIONS REBELLED AND TOOK ARMS ON THE SPANIARDS’ SIDE. HOWEVER, THEIR HOPES OF A BETTER LIFE WERE DASHED AS SPANISH COLONIZATION FURTHER EXACERBATED THE HIGHLY EXTRACTIVE CONDITIONS THAT HAD COME INTO BEING BEFORE THE CONQUEST AND ENSURED THEIR CONTINUATION FOR CENTURIES THEREAFTER. view more 

CREDIT: BOCCONI UNIVERSITY

Spanish conquerors did not themselves bring inequality to the Aztec lands they invaded, they merely built on the socio-economic structure that was already in place, adapting it as it suited their plans. This is the subject of an article by Guido Alfani of Bocconi University, Milan, and Alfonso Carballo of NEOMA Business School in France. Their “Income and inequality in the Aztec Empire on the eve of the Spanish conquest”, has just been published on Nature Human Behaviour.

Income distribution in present-day Mexico is, as in other Latin American countries, rather unequal. Alfani and Carballo started out from this well-known fact and began to investigate whether the situation was any different before Spanish rule replaced the so-called Aztec Empire. This polity originated from an alliance of three city-states which over time came to rule over a range of provinces which were required to pay tributes, including in blood. Its agriculture was fairly advanced in terms of yield , but extremely labor-intensive as the wheel was unknown and no animals were employed.
 
The primary social distinctions in the Aztec Empire were between the nobility, the commoners and the slaves. The elite dominated the commoners by holding exclusive control over resources. The taxes established for each province were variable, depending on how the province had become part of the Aztec Empire. Those provinces that had militarily resisted the Aztec Empire were subjected to higher imperial tax rates once conquered.
 
The main hurdle in assessing income levels for pre-Hispanic Mexico lies of course in the scarcity of relevant data: Aztec archives were extensively destroyed by Spanish troops and little usable information survives. The authors therefore estimated per capita income in the Aztec Empire by exploiting the variation in population density using archaeological data. They estimate that average per capita income on the eve of Spanish conquest was approximately US$690, which is significantly lower than contemporary Spain. This average conceals important differences between the cities and the rural areas.
 
Alfani and Carballo estimated that before the conquest the richest 1% earned 41.8% of the total income; this figure grows to 50.8% if the richest 5% is considered. As the income share of the poorest 50% was just 23.3%, this makes for a very skewed income distribution, actually even worse than today. The imperial ruling class, the provincial ruling class and the non-ruling nobles amounted to less than 2% of the total population but concentrated 46.6% of the total income.

This is extremely important because it helps explain how a little Spanish army of just a few hundred men could quickly overrun the Aztec Empire. The highly centralized tax collection was so resented by vast regions of the Empire that their populations, whose living standards were only slightly above subsistence, actually took arms on the Spaniards’ side.
 
“The rapacious institutions characterizing the Aztec Empire paved the ground for subsequent colonial exploitation,” says Guido Alfani. “As we argue, the relatively high levels of income inequality that came to characterize Latin America could not be considered to have been the sole consequence of the initial conditions imposed by the Spaniards. Nor could they simply come from the predatory attitudes and institutions of the colonial elite. Instead, colonization further exacerbated the highly extractive conditions that had come into being before the conquest and ensured their continuation for centuries thereafter.”
 
Guido Alfani, Alfonso Carballo, “Income and inequality in the Aztec Empire on the eve of the Spanish conquest”, Nature Human Behaviour, published 26 June 2023, https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01636-3

Archaeologists reveal largest palaeolithic cave art site in Eastern Iberia

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHAMPTON

 

IMAGE: ENGRAVED HIND FOUND IN COVA DONES. view more 

CREDIT: A RUIZ-REDONDO/V BARCIELA/X MARTORELL

Archaeologists have discovered a major Palaeolithic cave art site, arguably the most important found on the Eastern Iberian Coast in Europe.

Over a hundred ancient paintings and engravings, thought to be at least 24,000 years old, have been found in a 500 metre-long cave in ‘Cova Dones’ or ‘Cueva Dones’ – a site located in Millares near Valencia in Spain.

The cave site is well-known by locals and often visited by hikers and explorers, but the existence of Palaeolithic paintings was unnoticed until researchers from the universities of Zaragoza and Alicante (Spain), and affiliated to the University of Southampton (UK), made the exciting discovery in June 2021.

Findings of a study into the cave art, which highlight its true significance, are now published in the journal Antiquity.

Dr Aitor Ruiz-Redondo, Senior Lecturer of Prehistory at the University of Zaragoza (Spain) and research affiliate at the University of Southampton (UK) comments: “When we saw the first painted auroch [extinct wild bull], we immediately acknowledged it was important. Although Spain is the country with largest number of Palaeolithic cave art sites, most of them are concentrated in northern Spain. Eastern Iberia is an area where few of these sites have been documented so far.

“However, the actual ‘shock’ of realising its significance came long after the first discovery. Once we began the proper systematic survey we realised we were facing a major cave art site, like the ones that can be found elsewhere in Cantabrian Spain, southern France or Andalusia, but that totally lack in this territory.”

The research team of Dr Ruiz-Redondo, Dr Virginia Barciela-González, Senior Lecturer of Prehistory at the University of Alicante (Spain) and Dr Ximo Martorell-Briz, research affiliate at the University of Alicante (Spain), have painstakingly documented over a hundred ‘motifs’, or designs, at Cova Dones so far.

The large number of motifs and the variety of techniques involved in their creation make the cave the most important Palaeolithic cave art site on the eastern Mediterranean coast of the Iberian Peninsula.  In fact, it is probably the Palaeolithic cave with the greatest number of motifs discovered in Europe since Atxurra (Bizkaia), in 2015.

The study highlights there are at least 19 confirmed animal representations, including hinds, horses, aurochs, and deer. Unusually, the majority of the paintings have been made using clay.

Dr Aitor Ruiz-Redondo explains: “Animals and signs were depicted simply by dragging the fingers and palms covered with clay on the walls. The humid environment of the cave did the rest: the ‘paintings’ dried quite slowly, preventing parts of the clay from falling down rapidly, while other parts were covered by calcite layers, which preserved them until today.”

Although painting in clay is known in Palaeolithic Art, examples of its usage (or preservation) are scarce. In Cueva Dones, however, it is the main technique.

The researchers say their investigations are at an early stage and there are still many areas to survey and panels to document – so they are likely to reveal more art in the coming years.

Mummification balm ingredients reflect Ancient Egyptian noblewoman’s high status

The ingredients of balms used in the mummification of ancient Egyptian noblewoman named Senetnay — whose remains were excavated by Howard Carter in 1900 CE — are described in a study published in Scientific Reports. The origins and complexity of the balms provide clues as to the high status of the individual.

Previous research has identified that Senetnay lived in Egypt around 1,450 BCE, was wet nurse to the Pharaoh Amenhotep II during his infancy, and bore the title “Ornament of the King”. After her death, her mummified organs were stored in four jars in a royal tomb in the Valley of the Kings.

Barbara Huber, Nicole Boivin and colleagues analysed the substances found within six balm samples from two jars that were used to store Senetnay’s lungs and liver. They report that both balms contained beeswax, plant oils, animal fats, the naturally occurring petroleum product bitumen, and resins from the family of coniferous trees that includes pines and larches. The authors also identified the presence of the compounds coumarin and benzoic acid within samples from both jars. Coumarin has a vanilla-like scent and is found in a wide range of plants including cinnamons and pea plants, while benzoic acid occurs in fragrant resins and gums obtained from several types of trees and shrubs.

While the composition of the balms from both jars appeared to be very similar, the authors identified two substances that were only present in the jar used to store Senetnay’s lungs. These were a compound known as larixol — which is found in larch resin — and another fragrant resin that they suggest is either dammar, which is obtained from dipterocarp trees that grow in India and southeast Asia, or a resin obtained from Pistacia trees — a group that is part of the cashew family. The presence of these ingredients in only one of the two jars could indicate that different balms were used to preserve different organs.

Based on a review of previous analyses of mummification balms, the authors report that the composition of those applied to Senetnay’s organs was relatively complex compared to others from the same period. Additionally, they suggest that most of the potential ingredients would likely have been imported from locations outside Egypt. The authors propose that the complexity of the balms and use of imported ingredients used in the mummification of Senetnay reflect her high social status and indicate that she was a highly valued member of the Pharaoh’s entourage.

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Article details

Biomolecular characterization of 3500-year-old ancient Egyptian mummification balms from the Valley of the Kings

DOI: 10.1038/s41598-023-39393-y

Corresponding Authors:

Barbara Huber
Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany
Email: huber@gea.mpg.de

Nicole Boivin
Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, Jena, Germany
Email: boivin@gea.mpg.de

 

Please link to the article in online versions of your report (the URL will go live after the embargo ends): https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-023-39393-y.

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JOURNAL

Scientific Reports

DOI

10.1038/s41598-023-39393-y 

Did our ancestors nearly die out?

 Population size history is essential for studying human evolution. However, ancient population size history during the Pleistocene is notoriously difficult to unravel. In this study, we developed a fast infinitesimal time coalescent process (FitCoal) to circumvent this difficulty and calculated the composite likelihood for present-day human genomic sequences of 3154 individuals. Results showed that human ancestors went through a severe population bottleneck with about 1280 breeding individuals between around 930,000 and 813,000 years ago. The bottleneck lasted for about 117,000 years and brought human ancestors close to extinction. This bottleneck is congruent with a substantial chronological gap in the available African and Eurasian fossil record. 

How a new method of inferring ancient population size revealed a severe bottleneck in the human population which almost wiped out the chance for humanity as we know it today.

An unexplained gap in the African/Eurasian fossil record may now be explained thanks to a team of researchers from China, Italy and the United States. Using a novel method called FitCoal (fast infinitesimal time coalescent process), the researchers were able to accurately determine demographic inferences by using modern-day human genomic sequences from 3,154 individuals. These findings indicate that early human ancestors went through a prolonged, severe bottleneck in which approximately 1,280 breeding individuals were able to sustain a population for about 117,000 years. While this research has illuminated some aspects of early to middle Pleistocene ancestors, there are many more questions to be answered since uncovering this information.

A large amount of genomic sequences were analyzed in this study. However, “the fact that FitCoal can detect the ancient severe bottleneck with even a few sequences represents a breakthrough,” says senior author Yun-Xin Fu, a theoretical population geneticist at University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston.

Researchers will publish their findings online in Science on August 31, 2023 (America Eastern Standard Time). The results determined using FitCoal to calculate the likelihood for present-day genome sequences found that early human ancestors experienced extreme loss of life and therefore, loss of genetic diversity.

“The gap in the African and Eurasian fossil records can be explained by this bottleneck in the Early Stone Age as chronologically. It coincides with this proposed time period of significant loss of fossil evidence,” says senior author Giorgio Manzi, an anthropologist at Sapienza University of Rome. Reasons suggested for this downturn in human ancestral population are mostly climatic: glaciation events around this time lead to changes in temperatures, severe droughts, and loss of other species, potentially used as food sources for ancestral humans.

An estimated 65.85% of current genetic diversity may have been lost due to this bottleneck in the early to middle Pleistocene era, and the prolonged period of minimal numbers of breeding individuals threatened humanity as we know it today. However, this bottleneck seems to have contributed to a speciation event where two ancestral chromosomes may have converged to form what is currently known as chromosome 2 in modern humans. With this information, the last common ancestor has potentially been uncovered for the Denisovans, Neanderthals, and modern humans (Homo sapiens).

We all know that once a question is answered, more questions arise.

“The novel finding opens a new field in human evolution because it evokes many questions, such as the places where these individuals lived, how they overcame the catastrophic climate changes, and whether natural selection during the bottleneck has accelerated the evolution of human brain,” says senior author Yi-Hsuan Pan, an evolutionary and functional genomics at East China Normal University (ECNU).

Now that there is reason to believe an ancestral struggle occurred between 930,000 and 813,000 years ago, researchers can continue digging to find answers to these questions and reveal how such a small population persisted in assumably tricky and dangerous conditions. The control of fire, as well as the climate shifting to be more hospitable for human life, could have contributed to a later rapid population increase around 813,000 years ago.

“These findings are just the start. Future goals with this knowledge aim to paint a more complete picture of human evolution during this Early to Middle Pleistocene transition period, which will in turn continue to unravel the mystery that is early human ancestry and evolution,” says senior author LI Haipeng, a theoretical population geneticist and computational biologist at Shanghai Institute of Nutrition and Health, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SINH-CAS).

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abq7487

RELATED PERSPECTIVE

Did our ancestors nearly die out?

Detailed analysis of two Late Bronze Age urn burials uncovers animal bones and jewelry

 

 amidst the cremated remains of a woman and child, and reveals insights into prehistoric funerary rites

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: CROSS SECTION THROUGH URN 2. DIFFERENT COLORATIONS REPRESENT IDENTIFIED BONE FRAGMENTS BASED ON THE CT SCANS. view more 

CREDIT: LUKAS WALTENBERGER, CC-BY 4.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/4.0/)

Detailed analysis of two Late Bronze Age urn burials uncovers animal bones and jewelry amidst the cremated remains of a woman and child, and reveals insights into prehistoric funerary rites

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Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0289140

The land use of West Estonian lowlands in Late Stone Age turned out to be seasonal

 

 

IMAGE: KRISTJAN SANDER IN FIELDWORK. PICTURE BY TEELE TAMME. view more 

CREDIT: TEELE TAMME

The time frame of the thesis begins with the end of the maximum water level of one of the development stages of the Baltic Sea following the Last Glacial Period - the Littorina Sea - since which the sea level in Estonia has been continuously falling. To this day, post-glacial rebound is particularly fast in West and North-West Estonia, and the ancient coastlines are now located as far as up to 30 km inland in certain locations. In many places, millennia-old beach formations are still visible in nature today.

In the two geographical areas examined, Kristjan Sander searched for settlements of Stone Age people on the land freed from under the sea as a result of post-glacial rebound and on inland riverbanks up to 10 km from the coastline of the Littorina Sea at its maximum water level. One of the areas studied is situated in North-West Estonia, embracing the peninsulas bordering the sea bay that lay there in the place of the present-day Suursoo, and, further northwest, the Elbiku mountain that was once an island located up to 15 km from the coast. Fieldwork took place in the villages of Kõmmaste, Risti, Vilivalla, Vihterpalu, Variku, and Nõmmemaa. The second examined area is situated on the beach of Ancient Matsalu Bay on the Üdruma - Teenuse - Vana-Vigala - Avaste route and on the southern edge of Matsalu National Park where the current highlands (Kirbla, Lautna, Kloostri, Hälvati, Lihula, Massu, and Salevere) formed an archipelago resembling today’s Väinameri Sea. New settlements were searched for by collecting finds on open land, i.e. plowed fields, allotments, road verges, firebreaks, forest roads, and clearings.

Kristjan Sander's doctoral thesis fills a big gap in studying Stone Age in Estonia as prior to Sander’s exploration only four settlements and one burial site were known in Western Estonian lowlands. During fieldwork, 102 settlements (at least 3 finds) and 39 incidental discovery sites were mapped. Surprisingly, no settlements were identified that could, based on the material found and dimensions established, be considered more permanent in nature as are known settlements in the neighboring Pärnu Bay catchment area and the island of Saaremaa. Regarding the studied period, solely seasonal land use in large areas like the ones in question is a new discovery on the entire eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, although individual seasonal settlements have also been described earlier.

Stone Age settlements in Western Estonia expanded on different terrains at different times. The oldest settlements of the Middle Stone Age are located at river estuaries and ancient coastal lagoons as well as at the tips of peninsulas. At the end of the Middle Stone Age at the latest, starting from the Narva stage (5200-3900 BC), small islands were also made use of. At the beginning of the New Stone Age, in the Comb Ware stage (approx. 3900–1800 BC), additional settlements were built on the riverbanks near the coast.

Based on ethnographic analogies, Sander hypothesizes that the observed settlement dynamics are caused by the intensification of fishing in response to the slow cooling of the climate. It can be assumed then that the seasonal settlement situated in the southern area examined originated from Saaremaa island as inhabitants of the Pärnu Bay catchment area already had an abundance of large rivers rich in fish. Assembling such a broader picture of settlements provides an insight into the ways of life and society of the distant past that cannot be replaced by excavation of individual settlements. However, archaeological excavations are indeed required to investigate the activities that took place in the newly identified settlements.

New ancient ape from Türkiye challenges the story of human origins

 

Anadoluvius lived almost 9 million years ago and is ancestral to living African apes and humans

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO

 

IMAGE: A NEW FACE AND PARTIAL BRAIN CASE OF ANADOLUVIUS TURKAE, A FOSSIL HOMININE – THE GROUP THAT INCLUDES AFRICAN APES AND HUMANS – FROM THE ÇORAKYERLER FOSSIL SITE LOCATED IN CENTRAL ANATOLIA, TÜRKIYE. view more 

CREDIT: SEVIM-EROL, A., BEGUN, D.R., SÖZER, Ç.S. ET AL.

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. 

Analysis of a newly identified ape named Anadoluvius turkae recovered from the Çorakyerler fossil locality near Çankırı with the support of the Ministry of Culture and Tourism in Türkiye, shows Mediterranean fossil apes are diverse and are part of the first known radiation of early hominines – the group that includes African apes (chimpanzees, bonobos and gorillas), humans and their fossil ancestors. 

The findings are described in a study published today in Communications Biology co-authored by an international team of researchers led by Professor David Begun at the University of Toronto (U of T) and Professor Ayla Sevim Erol at Ankara University. 

“Our findings further suggest that hominines not only evolved in western and central Europe but spent over five million years evolving there and spreading to the eastern Mediterranean before eventually dispersing into Africa, probably as a consequence of changing environments and diminishing forests,” said Begun, professor in the Department of Anthropology in the Faculty of Arts & Science at U of T. “The members of this radiation to which Anadoluvius belongs are currently only identified in Europe and Anatolia.” 

The conclusion is based on analysis of a significantly well-preserved partial cranium uncovered at the site in 2015, which includes most of the facial structure and the front part of the brain case. 

“The completeness of the fossil allowed us to do a broader and more detailed analysis using many characters and attributes that are coded into a program designed to calculate evolutionary relationships,” said Begun. “The face is mostly complete, after applying mirror imaging. The new part is the forehead, with bone preserved to about the crown of the cranium. Previously described fossils do not have this much of the brain case.” 

The researchers say Anadoluvius was about the size of a large male chimpanzee (50-60 kg) – very large for a chimp and close to the average size of a female gorilla (75-80 kg) – lived in a dry forest setting, and probably spent a great deal of time on the ground. 

“We have no limb bones but judging from its jaws and teeth, the animals found alongside it, and the geological indicators of the environment, Anadoluvius probably lived in relatively open conditions, unlike the forest settings of living great apes,” said Sevim Erol. “More like what we think the environments of early humans in Africa were like. The powerful jaws and large, thickly enameled teeth suggest a diet including hard or tough food items from terrestrial sources such as roots and rhizomes.” 

The animals that lived with Anadoluvius are those commonly associated with African grasslands and dry forests today, such as giraffes, wart hogs, rhinos, diverse antelopes, zebras, elephants, porcupines, hyaenas and lion-like carnivores. Research shows that the ecological community appears to have dispersed into Africa from the eastern Mediterranean sometime after about eight million years ago. 

“The founding of the modern African open country fauna from the eastern Mediterranean has long been known and now we can add to the list of entrants the ancestors of the African apes and humans,” said Sevim Erol. 

The findings establish Anadoluvius turkae as a branch of the part of the evolutionary tree that gave rise to chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas and humans. Although African apes today are only known from Africa, as are the earliest known humans, the study’s authors – which also include colleagues at Ege University and Pamukkale University in Türkiye and the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in The Netherlands – conclude that the ancestors of both came from Europe and the eastern Mediterranean. 

Anadoluvius and other fossil apes from nearby Greece (Ouranopithecus) and Bulgaria (Graecopithecus) form a group that come closest in many details of anatomy and ecology to the earliest known hominins, or humans. The new fossils are the best-preserved specimens of this group of early hominines and provide the strongest evidence to date that the group originated in Europe and later dispersed into Africa. 

The study’s detailed analysis also reveals that the Balkan and Anatolian apes evolved from ancestors in western and central Europe. With its more comprehensive data, the research provides evidence that these other apes were also hominines and means that it is more likely that the whole group evolved and diversified in Europe, rather than the alternative scenario in which separate branches of apes earlier moved independently into Europe from Africa over the course of several million years, and then went extinct without issue. 

“There is no evidence of the latter, though it remains a favorite proposal among those who do not accept a European origin hypothesis,” said Begun. “These findings contrast with the long-held view that African apes and humans evolved exclusively in Africa. While the remains of early hominines are abundant in Europe and Anatolia, they are completely absent from Africa until the first hominin appeared there about seven million years ago. 

“This new evidence supports the hypothesis that hominines originated in Europe and dispersed into Africa along with many other mammals between nine and seven million years ago, though it does not definitively prove it. For that, we need to find more fossils from Europe and Africa between eight and seven million years old to establish a definitive connection between the two groups.”