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Myanmar
archaeological experts have been making research in cooperation with
international primate experts to prove the proposal — “The origin of Myanmar is Myanmar “.
These
experts have been working together yearly to find out the fossilized remains of Pontaung
primates in Pontaung rock layers.
The
findings of the primates on the Stone
Age, the Bronze Age and the Iron Age, gained from the archaeological
research in Meiktila and Yamethin districts in Mandalay division over the past
decade, stood some evidences for the Bronze Age and the Iron Age as well as for
the Myanmar culture and history, according to research report.
In
2009,
Myanmar found some more evidences
on both Bronze Age and Iron Age after excavating areas in
Thazi township, central Mandalay division, proving that Myanmar passed
through both Bronze Age and Iron Age in the ancient time.
Did
the Mogaungensis
(Amphipothecus Primate) and Bahinia
pondaungensis or their descendents migrate to Africa and
eventually become modern humans, the Homo
sapiens?
[primates
develop to humans in Africa only and reach other places by the “Out of Africa”
route as Lucy’s descendents to Myanmar] 40-42 million years B.P. Mogaungensis
(Amphipothecus Primate) live in Mogaung village, Pale township in Sagaing
Division and in Bahin village, Myaing township in Magwe Division
Teeth
and bits of jaw from a tiny, squirrel-sized animal that lived 40 million
years ago in what is now Myanmar (Burma) suggest primates originated in Asia,
not Africa as was believed, researchers said. A team of researchers from
France, Japan, and Myanmar say the little animal, which they have named Bahinia pondaungensis,
was probably the ancestor of modern apes, monkeys and humans. Jean-Jacques
Jaeger of the Universite Montpellier-II in France and colleagues found the
fossils in a layer of red clay, along with a complete lower jaw from a more
advanced primate called Amphipithecus.
The
fossilized remains of many early anthropoids have been found in Africa, most
from a single rich site in Egypt. Many scientists thus believed that Africa,
already believed by many scientists to be the cradle of humanity, also gave
rise to earlier ancestors. But a number of fossils have recently been found in
Thailand, China, and Myanmar. They are between 49 million and 33 million years
old and include some of the most primitive-looking anthropoids ever found.
American famous paleoanthropologist Russell L. Ciochon said:“The fossil finds from Burma
suggest that the first higher primates evolved in Asia some 40 to 45 million
years ago and spread from there to the other parts of the world. This
geographic spread could have occurred by way of a number of routes, but I
believe that the most likely sequence was the following one. At the end of the
Eocene, early anthropoids, the Ponnyadaung primates or their
close relatives, migrated across Asia into Africa by crossing the narrow,
swamplike Tethys Sea, which then separated the two continents. ….Once in
Africa, these early higher primates continued to evolve, with some populations
becoming ancestors of the 30- to 35-million-year-old Fayum primates of Egypt
(and ultimately of all Old World monkeys, apes, and humans). Other populations
crossed the then-narrow equatorial Atlantic Ocean by island hopping along a
series of volcanic islands. In this way they reached South America and became
the ancestors of the New World monkeys. ….. The increasing clarity with which
Western paleontologists are now able to view these events in primate evolution
is owed in large part to the discoveries made by our Burmese colleagues, who
continue to search for more fossil evidence. Although I have returned to Burma
several times since my memorable visit to Mogaung village, I have not
been granted further opportunity to visit the Ponnyadaung Hills. While a
field trip to southern China was arranged in 1983, and one to Vietnam is
planned for next year (both countries have related geological deposits), the
road to Mandalay still beckons”.
Mr.
Russell Ciochon (born March 11, 1948) is an American paleoanthropologist. He was born in Altadena,
California
and received three degrees (B.A. in 1971; M.A. in 1974; and PhD. in 1986) in anthropology from the University of California, Berkeley.[1] He is currently a professor of anthropology at the University
of Iowa.
He is known primarily for his research into Gigantopithecus.
In
the year 1978, Saya U Ba Maw and Saya U Thaw Tint and their teams unearthed two
as fossils, classified as Pondaungia, in Burma. When they tried to share their
discoveries with international researchers, they were arrested and the fossils
confiscated by the Burmese Socialist Program Party (see Houtman 1999, p. 146).
Fossils
discovered by chance by world’s paleontologists include among other things,
remains of early man.
“Anthopithicus Enectus” (the first man who could walk upright on two legs) which they scientifically termed “Pondaung Primate”, honouring the name of the place nearby Monywa, Myanmar. Much to the surprise and marvel of them, after assaying these fossils in the laboratories of their respective universities they gave out their consensus of their results that “Pondaung Primate” fossils proved over 40 million years earlier than hitherto accepted oldest primate fossils found in the Nile valley. This is merely a piece of story of Myanmar’s cultural heritage. Since the two wellknown geologists Dr.Morvius and Dr. de Terra chance-found stone tools of man of Palaeolithic Age in the dry zone area of mid Myanmar Yenangyaung and Magway, which they scientifically examined and confirmed by their colleagues as the stone implements of the old stone Age, Myanmar has become a paradise for scientific researchers. Morvius and de Terra fittingly christionized their finds as “Anyathian culture”. Myanmar people call upper Myanmar “Anya” and lower Myanmar “Akyey”. Since they found old stone implements in upper Myanmar they gave due honour by terming them “Anyathian culture”.
Since then Anyathian culture has been used in the wider context of Myanmar cultural heritage. Later, researchers who followed their footsteps discovered human settlements in coastal regions as well. Though the country seems so remote and less well-known to the world public, Myanmar’s natural resources and cultural heritages are long standing virgin fields for seekers of new frontiers of knowledge.
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"Where
did the primate line that led to man really originate? Lately most of the
evidence has pointed to Africa, where scientists have found the bones of a
knuckle-walking ape called Dryopithecus, a creature that lived some 20
million years ago and is generally believed to have given rise to both
apes and man. This ape's own ancestors seem likely to have lived in Africa
as well. As Exhibit A, Duke University Anthropologist Elwyn Simons
offered fossils, found near Cairo, of a tree-dwelling primate 30 million
years old; Simons christened the creature Aegyptopithecus.
A
team of Burmese and American scientists created a stir in anthropological
circles when they announced that they had found primate fossils in Burma
that may be 40 million years old. That could plant man's
roots in Southeast Asia..."
The
regime has reported that a study group was sent to Pon Taung Region, Sagaing
Division, in March 1997 to investigate the ancestry of primates. The group
was led by Col. Than Tun, head of Military Strategic Study of the Defence
Ministry. Two academics, Saya Dr. Tin Thein and Saya Dr. Aye Ko Aung
accompanied him. They claimed that these findings were proof that the
beginning of human life and civilization began in Burma.
Fragments
of a primate jawbone found in Burma and estimated to be 40 million
to 44 million years old provide a crucial link in the evolutionary path
that led to human beings, according to a new report by Mr. ERIK ECKHOLM. He
is a national legal correspondent of New York Times.
Researchers
agree that our immediate ancestors, the upright walking apes, arose in
Africa. But the discovery of a new primate that lived about 37 million years
ago in the ancient swamplands of Myanmar bolsters the idea that the deep
primate family tree that gave rise to humans is rooted in Asia. If true, the
discovery suggests that the ancestors of all monkeys, apes, and humans—known
as the anthropoids—arose in Asia and made the arduous journey to the island
continent of Africa almost 40 million years ago.
Until
18 years ago, fossils of every suspected early anthropoid were found in Egypt
and dated to about 30 million years ago. Then, starting in the 1990s,
researchers began discovering the remains of petite primates that lived 37
million to 45 million years ago in China, Myanmar, and other Asian nations.
This suggested that anthropoids may have actually arisen in Asia and then
migrated to Africa a few million years later. But paleontologists have lacked
the fossils to show when and how these anthropoids trekked from Asia to
Africa, says paleontologist K. Christopher Beard of the Carnegie Museum of
Natural History in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
In
2005, Beard and an international team of researchers sifting fossils of early
fish, turtle, and ancestral hippo teeth from fossil beds near the village of
Nyaungpinle in Myanmar found a molar the size of a kernel of popcorn. The
tooth, dated to about 38 million years ago, belonged to a new species of
ancient primate, which would have been the size of a small chipmunk. After
several more years of arduous fieldwork, the team has collected just four
molars of this primitive anthropoid, which they named Afrasia djijidae.
"It's a difficult place to work; it took us 6 years to find four
teeth," says Beard.
The
four molars were enough to show Beard and team leader Jean-Jacques Jaeger of
the University of Poitiers in France that Afrasia
was closely related to another primitive
anthropoid that lived at about the same time, but in Africa—Afrotarsius libycus from
Libya. When the researchers examined the teeth from the two primates under a
microscope, they were so similar in size, shape, and age that they could have
belonged to the same species of primate, says Beard. Such close resemblance
between an Asian and African fossil anthropoid has "never been
demonstrated previously," the authors write online today in the Proceedings of the National Academy
of Sciences.
On
closer examination, however, the team noticed that the new molars from the
Asian Afrasia
were more primitive than those of Afrotarsius
from Libya, particularly in the larger size of a tiny bulge at the back of
its last lower molar. These primitive traits, as well as the greater
diversity and age of early, or "stem," anthropoids in Asia rather
than Africa suggest that this group arose in
Asia and migrated to Africa 37 million to 39 million years ago. "Anthropoids
didn't arrive in Africa until right before we find their fossils in
Libya," says Jaeger.
The
Out-of-Asia scenario may have been complex. The team proposes that more than
one species of anthropoid migrated from Asia to Africa at about this time,
because there are at least two other types of early anthropoids alive at
about the same time as Afrotarsius
in Libya, yet they are not closely related to Afrotarsius or Afrasia. This may be because once they got
to Africa, they found ideal lush conditions with few carnivores and underwent
a "starburst of evolution," says Beard, rapidly giving rise to a
number of new species.
Others
agree that if both the new species of primates from Myanmar and Libya are
indeed early anthropoids, they would greatly strengthen the case for the
Asian origins of anthropoids. "If proven, the biogeographical
significance of these results is profound," says paleontologist Richard
Kay of Duke University in Durham, North Carolina. It would show that there
was a major migration of primates and probably other mammals between the two
continents at a time when it was not easy to get across the ancient Tethys
Sea that divided Africa from Asia. And for humans, it would suggest that our
deepest primate roots were in Asia, NOT Africa.
Still,
the similarity between the species rests on just four molars of Afrasia, Kay notes,
although teeth are the most reliable way to measure relatedness. And some
researchers have yet to be convinced that Afrotarsius
in Libya is a stem anthropoid rather than an ancestor of tarsiers, primates
that are not anthropoids and, thus, are more distant relatives. Kay, however,
says the scales are tipping toward an Asian origin. "We've all heard
about Out-of-Africa for human origins," adds Beard. "Now we think
there was an Out-of-Asia migration into Africa first."
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http://news.sciencemag.org/evolution/2012/06/asian-origin-human-ancestors
http://science-fare.com/article/new-primitive-primate-unearthed-myanmar
http://science-fare.com/article/new-primitive-primate-unearthed-myanmar
https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=799&dat=19790510&id=1r8wAAAAIBAJ&sjid=x1EDAAAAIBAJ&pg=6577,4032243&hl=en
http://www.nytimes.com/1985/08/16/us/earliest-higher-primate-is-reported-found.html
http://www.burmalibrary.org/show.php?cat=887
http://www.myanmars.net/myanmar-history/myanmar-pondaung-primates.htm
http://www.burmalibrary.org/reg.burma/archives/199911/msg00485.html
https://books.google.com.au/books?id=2hhUAQAAQBAJ&pg=PA265&lpg=PA265&dq=Pondaung+Primate%E2%80%9D+fossils+proved+over+40+million+burma&source=bl&ots=9WOPWfIt2G&sig=PJWP9lqmuGAnBw7JHOHKq5ZnGgw&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tzEmVdPiBZK3uAT0wIDQBA&ved=0CCkQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=Pondaung%20Primate%E2%80%9D%20fossils%20proved%20over%2040%20million%20burma&f=false
https://nyiwin.wordpress.com/2010/07/07/myanmar-history-the-origin-of-bamars/
