The timing and geography of African ape and human origins: New evidence from Europe, Africa and Asia.

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***I propose to carry out a broad program of research the major themes of which are to test the hypothesis that the African apes and human lineage (hominines) originated in Europe and not Africa and to work out the timing of major events in ape evolutionary history. The hypothesis of a European origin of the African ape and human lineage is a significant departure from current theory. It has long been assumed that the hominines originated and evolved exclusively in Africa. The only hominine to ever leave Africa was humans, roughly 2 million years ago. Now new evidence suggests that hominines actually arose in Europe. The dryopithecins are a group of great apes known from Europe and possibly China between about 12.5 and 9 million years ago. Well preserved fossils from Spain and Hungary have characters of the dentition, palate, face, brain case, basicranium and overall skull that are only found in living African apes and humans. In contrast, there are no great ape fossils known from Africa until about 10.5 Ma, when fragmentary fossils interpreted by some to be hominine are known. ****During my current grant cycle we discovered a new ape site in Hungary with a new species of fossil ape. We also re-discovered the site from which the first fossil ape was described and began exploring for new fossils there. Although St. Gaudens is the namesake (type) site of Dryopithecus, we know little about its age or ecology. We initiated surveys in western Romania and Croatia, discovering several promising sites. The research program I propose is a follows: 1) We will continue our exploration in the Balkans and the Carpathian Basin, geographically between the rich sites of the Pannonian basin to the north and Macedonia (Greece) to the south. 2) The continued description and analysis of the large sample of fossils from Rudabnya. 3) We will carry out the most comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of fossil apes ever using data obtained exclusively from direct examination of the fossil record. 4) I will continue the project in Kenya on the systematics, phylogeny and paleobiology of early Miocene apes. Now that we have named a new genus we will be allocating all specimens to individual taxa, describing these newly constituted taxa in detail, and reassessing the evolutionary history of these early Miocene apes. 5) Finally, we have begun a scanning protocol involving both micro CT scanning and sychrotron scanning of fossil apes from Rudabnya, Alstelekes (the new site) and St. Gaudens that will reveal a vast body of new evidence of the internal anatomy and the growth and development of these fossil apes. Growth indicators in the teeth of mammals reveal many indications of life history that are otherwise unknowable in fossil species. With this research we will be able to build the strongest case so far for the area of origin of our lineage and describe in more detail than ever the nature of the first apes and the common ancestor of the African apes and humans.**