Graecopithecus

Graecopithecus Temporal range: Late Miocene PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Holotype jaw and premolar
Scientific classification
Domain:	Eukaryota
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Chordata
Class:	Mammalia
Order:	Primates
Suborder:	Haplorhini
Infraorder:	Simiiformes
Family:	Hominidae
Genus:	†Graecopithecus von Koenigswald, 1972
Species:	†G. freybergi
Binomial name
†Graecopithecus freybergi von Koenigswald, 1972[1]

Graecopithecus is an extinct genus of hominid that lived in southeast Europe during the late Miocene around 7.2 million years ago. Originally identified by a single lower jaw bone bearing teeth found in Pyrgos Vasilissis, Athens, Greece, in 1944,^[1] other teeth were discovered from Azmaka quarry in Bulgaria in 2012.^[2] With only little and badly preserved materials to reveal its nature, it is considered as "the most poorly known European Miocene hominoids."^[3] The creature was popularly nicknamed 'El Graeco' (word play on the Greek-Spanish painter El Greco) by scientists.^[4]

In 2017, an international team of palaeontologists led by Madelaine Böhme of the Eberhard-Karls-University Tübingen, Germany, published a detailed analysis of the teeth and age of the specimens, and came to the conclusion that it could be the oldest hominin, meaning that it could be the oldest direct ancestors of humans after splitting from that of the chimpanzees.^[5] Their simultaneous study also claimed that contrary to the generally accepted evidence of the African origin of the hominin lineage, the ancestors of humans originated from the main ape ancestry in the Mediterranean region (before migrating into Africa where they evolved into the ancestors of Homo species).^[6][4] They named the origin of human theory as the "North Side Story."^[7]

These claims have been disputed by other scientists.^[8] Rick Potts and Bernard Wood argued that the evidence is too flimsy to even say it is a hominin.^[7] Tim D. White commented that the claim was only to support a biased argument that Africa is not the birthplace of humans; while Sergio Almécija stated that single characters such as teeth cannot tell the claimed evolutionary details.^[8]