An Asian Origin For Human Ancestors? 125
InfiniteZero writes "Researchers agree that our immediate ancestors, the upright walking apes, arose in Africa. But the discovery of a new primate that lived about 37 million years ago in the ancient swamplands of Myanmar bolsters the idea that the deep primate family tree that gave rise to humans is rooted in Asia. If true, the discovery suggests that the ancestors of all monkeys, apes, and humans—known as the anthropoids—arose in Asia and made the arduous journey to the island continent of Africa almost 40 million years ago."
Re:Oceanic origin for human ancestors? (Score:5, Insightful)
Indeed. It's a ludicrous headline, typical for the kind of hyperbole of science journalism.
Humans originate from Africa. Where very ancient primates originate from is another question, and isn't all that relevant to the particular issue of human origins. This moronic story has a headline that sounds like somebody is trying to reinvoke the multi-regional hypothesis.
Shame on Slashdot. Shame on the fucking retard who wrote the article.
It's Burma not Myanmar (Score:3, Insightful)
Please at least use the correct name for the country. It happened 37Ma ago, the junta went rampant only in 1962. We don't use renamed months when talking about Rome by Commodus or Turkmenistan by Niyazov.
Re:Oceanic origin for human ancestors? (Score:3, Insightful)
The headline makes no suggestion of multiregional origin. You misinterpreted it; any shame should be on you for that error.
The out-of-Africa hypothesis implies that our ancestry – back as far as we can meaningfully trace it – was entirely in Africa (back as far as that designation is also meaningful). If it turns out that our primate ancestors instead evolved elsewhere, and relocated there, that is relevant to the question of human origins, because.... it's a part of that origin.
Oh, and GTFU.