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'Astonishing' fossil ape discovery revealed

6 November 2019

Fossils of a newly-discovered ancient ape could give clues to how and when walking on two legs evolved.

The ability to walk upright is considered a key characteristic of being human.

The ape had arms suited to hanging in the trees, but human-like legs.

It may have walked along branches and even on the ground some 12 million years ago, pushing back the timeline for bipedal walking, say researchers.

Until now the earliest fossil evidence for walking upright dates back to six million years ago.

https://www.bbc.co.u...onment-50305423

 

 

[wjfox]

Secrets of the largest ape that ever lived

 

13 November 2019

 

A fossilised tooth left behind by the largest ape that ever lived is shedding new light on the evolution of apes.

 

Gigantopithecus blacki was thought to stand nearly three metres tall and tip the scales at 600kg.

 

In an astonishing advance, scientists have obtained molecular evidence from a two-million-year-old fossil molar tooth found in a Chinese cave.

 

The mystery ape is a distant relative of orangutans, sharing a common ancestor around 12 million years ago.

 

"It would have been a distant cousin (of orangutans), in the sense that its closest living relatives are orangutans, compared to other living great apes such as gorillas or chimpanzees or us," said Dr Frido Welker, from the University of Copenhagen.

 

https://www.bbc.co.u...onment-50409541

 

 

[wjfox]

Earliest known cave art by modern humans found in Indonesia

Wed 11 Dec 2019 18.00 GMT

Cave art depicting human-animal hybrid figures hunting warty pigs and dwarf buffaloes has been dated to nearly 44,000 years old, making it the earliest known cave art by our species.

The artwork in Indonesia is nearly twice as old as any previous hunting scene and provides unprecedented insights into the earliest storytelling and the emergence of modern human cognition.

Previously, images of this level of sophistication dated to about 20,000 years ago, with the oldest cave paintings believed to be more basic creations such as handprints.

“We were stunned by the implications of this image,” said Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University. “This was just mind-boggling because this showed us that this was possibly the oldest rock art anywhere on the face of this planet.”

https://www.theguard...nd-in-indonesia

 

 

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[wjfox]

Australopithecine, running from a gigantic Sivatherium.

(Credit: Velizar Simeonovski)