A team of researchers have found gorilla fossils that date back millions of years, suggesting that the human evolutionary split happened 10 million years ago, according to Phys.
The international collective of researchers discovered gorilla teeth fossils in the Chorora Formation in Ethiopia. When they dated the fossils they discovered they were exactly 8 million years old.
Scientists have had trouble figuring out when the split from our primitive animal ancestors occurred, so the new evidence is yet another new theory thrown into the fray and suggests that the split happened much earlier than previously thought.
"The palaeobiological record of 12 million to 7 million years ago is crucial to the elucidation of African ape and human origins, but few fossil assemblages of this period have been reported from sub-Saharan Africa," reads the study.
To date the gorilla teeth they found, the researchers used various clues to narrow down the timeline. They took volcanic rock samples and sediment particles, both below the teeth and above them.
The new evidence also suggests that the earliest forms of human life originated in Africa and not Eurasia.
The team's findings have been published in the journal Nature.
