Apes by the sea at Gorongosa National Park
Susana Carvalho, Department of Science, Gorongosa National Park, Mozambique; ICAreHB (Algarve Uni.); Oxford University
May 7, 2024 | 15h30 | Hybrid Seminar (Zoom Link: https://fc-up-pt.zoom.us/j/89916639312)
It has long been clear that an understanding of human origins must involve the origins and early evolution of the African apes. Current molecular evidence indicates that African apes shared a last common ancestor in the Miocene between 8 and 12 Ma (million years ago). The earliest record of actual hominins is sparse and controversial, but dates to about 6 or 7 Ma. This means that there may be a gap of up to 6 million years between the last common ancestor of the African apes and the earliest hominin fossils. This gap is the focus of our project. Considerations of plant and animal distributions on a continental scale provides powerful biogeographic insights relevant to hominin origins. Jonathan Kingdon has shown that the main biogeographic pattern in Africa consists of a boreal or latitudinal realm that includes the Guineo-Congolian forests, and an austral or longitudinal realm that includes the coastal forests of eastern Africa, with these two realms separated by an arid corridor that emerged during the Miocene. Under these conditions, and under increasing genetic isolation during the Miocene, eastern coastal forest apes adapted by increasing terrestriality and expanding their diet by foraging for ground resources. These new ecological features and barriers to gene flow thus set the stage for the evolution of an eastern ground ape, i.e., the earliest hominins. Until now, the paleontological data to test this hypothesis has not been available, but new fossils from Gorongosa National Park in Mozambique are changing this.
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