Researchers from the Catalan Institute of Paleontology have discovered in l’Anoia (Barcelona) fossil remains that belong to anew genus of hominid primatenever described so far, who have been baptizedAnoiapithecus brevirostris.
Under the direction of Salvador Moyà Solà (whom we interviewed here a long time ago), paleontologists unearthed and analyzed fossil remains of the mandible and part of Lluc’s face found in 2004 in the Barcelona municipality of Els Hostalets, where it was also locatedPau ( Pierolapithecus catalaunicus ), another very primitive primate that would belong to a sister branch. The copy ofAnoiapithecus brevirostris, whose first name isLuke(which means “the one who illuminates” in Latin), it was an adult male who lived12 million years agoand whose face has a very flat facial morphology, extraordinarily similar to that of our species.
For Salvador Moyà Solà the new primate represents afundamental advance in the origin of our family, since their facial morphology is a transition between that of primitive primates and the family of thehominidae. As suggested by the expert in the magazinePNAS, their finding supports the theory thathominids did not originate in Africa but on the shores of the Mediterranean, since it is here where different species have been discovered that cover the entire evolution of our lineage between 15 and 10 million years old.
