Did humans evolve in the Balkans?

A blow to the popular the "Out of Africa" theory.

Stammt der älteste Vormensch aus Südosteuropa? Source: Wikimedia/Frank Gilbert Public Domain

The common lineage of great apes and humans split several hundred thousand earlier than hitherto assumed, according to a team of international researchers at the University of Tübingen  in Germany.

Their findings, published today in two papers in the journal PLOS ONE, indicate that the split of the human lineage occurred in the Eastern Mediterranean and not - as customarily assumed - in Africa.