mercoledì 3 giugno 2009

L'antenato dell'uomo moderno? Ha 11,9 milioni di anni e proviene dalla Spagna

He 's born in the Mediterranean, and not in Africa, the oldest ancestor of man is Lluc the ominide lived 11.9 million years ago and discovered in Spain. His "portrait", which looks modern compared to that of other apes, is published this week in the journal of the Academy of Sciences of the United States, PNAS. Spanish group of 'Catalan Institute of Paleontology, in collaboration with the Italian group of the Department of Earth Sciences, University of Florence is studying about this ancestor, whose scientific name is Anoiapithecus brevirostris."The finding provides new understanding of the early history of our family, Hominidae, which includes in addition to the orangutans, chimpanzees and gorillas" says Lorenzo Rook, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Florence, who attended to research coordinated by the Spanish Salvador Moya-Solà.Lluc was discovered in Catalonia, in the village Anoia (which inspired its scientific name), at Hostalets de Pierola. He lived in the middle Miocene, but his remains are well-preserved, revealing a modern, with a much reduced prognathism. They came to us part of the face and jaw, but scholars are sufficient to demonstrate that monkeys kenyapithecine are considered as the closest group to archaic ominidi - says Rook. The discovery, says the scholar, also indicates that "the Mediterranean region was the area of origin of our family."

(World of Science)

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