PA A 7.2 billion year old pre-human tooth and a jawbone is believed to be from Eastern Mediterranean

For the last century scientists have assumed that the lineages of man and ape diverged five to seven million years ago and that the first pre-humans developed in Africa. But the dating of a 7.2million year old pre-human tooth in the Balkans has thrown fresh doubt on the Africa theory. Present-day chimpanzees are humans' nearest living relatives and where the last chimp-human common ancestor lived is a central and highly debated issue in palaeoanthropology.

New research in the scientific journal PLOS ONE has further indicated that the split of the human lineage occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean and not - as customarily assumed - in Africa. The team, led by academics from the Senckenberg Centre for Human Evolution and Palaeoenvironment, the University of Tübingen and the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, announced the discovery after analysing two specimens of the fossil hominid Graecopithecus freybergi. Although the species was already known, the discovery of a jawbone in Greece and a tooth in Bulgaria has allowed scientists to study them using modern techniques.

PA The discovery of a jawbone in Greece and a tooth in Bulgaria was studied with modern technology

This dating allows us to move the human-chimpanzee split into the Mediterranean area Jochen Fuss

The research team found that the fossils were several hundred thousand years older than the oldest potential pre-human from Africa, the six to seven million year old Sahelanthropus from Chad. They dated the two finds by comparing the rocks they were in, or sedimentary sequence of the sites and got a nearly identical age for both fossils - 7.24 and 7.175 million years before present. Using computer tomography, they also visualised the internal structures of the fossils and found that its teeth roots were fused like modern man's. Professor Madelaine Bahme said: "While great apes typically have two or three separate and diverging roots, the roots of Graecopithecus converge and are partially fused - a feature that is characteristic of modern humans, early humans and several pre-humans including Ardipithecus and Australopithecus."

PA Fossils were several thousand years old than the oldest potential pre-human from Africa, studies say