TITLE:
Hominin Evolution Was Caused by Introgression from Gorilla
AUTHORS:
Johan Nygren
KEYWORDS:
Anthropology, Australopithecus, Chimpanzee, Darwin, Gorilla, Homo, Introgression, Numt, Pan, Paranthropus, Pthirus
JOURNAL NAME:
Natural Science,
Vol.10 No.9,
September
11,
2018
ABSTRACT: The discovery of Paranthropus deyiremeda in 3.3 - 3.5 million-year-old fossil sites in Afar, together with 30% of the gorilla genome showing lineage sorting between humans and chimpanzees, and a NUMT (“nuclear mitochondrial DNA segment”) on chromosome 5 that is shared by both gorillas, humans and chimpanzees, and shown to have diverged at the time of the Pan-Homo split rather than the Gorilla/Pan-Homo split, provides conclusive evidence that introgression from the gorilla lineage caused the Pan-Homo split, and the speciation of both the Australopithecus lineage and the Paranthropus lineage.