“When you look at the narrative for hominin origins, it’s just a big mess—there’s no consensus whatsoever,” said Almécija. “People are working under completely different paradigms, and that’s something that I don’t see happening in other fields of science.”
Between about 9.3 million and 6.5 million years ago, it is believed humans diverged from the chimpanzee lineage. Today, chimpanzees and bonobos are our closest living relatives, sharing 99% of our DNA. That’s absolutely fact, although humans still seem intent to destroy our close relative’s natural environments.
Some scientists think there is a missing chimp-like knuckle-walking ancestor that led to hominins. Others suspect it’s more likely an ancestor evolved from a species resembling Miocene apes.
Taking a “top-down” approach, some scientists study chimpanzees to attempt to reconstruct hominin origins. Others use a “bottom-up” approach, focusing on the fossil record of mostly extinct apes. Now, reconciling these two approaches “remains at the core of the human origins problem,” the study states.
After the review, the scientists believe it’s “likely that the last shared ape ancestor had its own set of traits, different from those of modern humans and modern apes.” ...<<<Read More>>>...