Researchers from the southern province of Guangdong, China this weekend, have found the holy grail of evolutionist. They have uncovered the bones the missing link between man and woman. The 13 million year old specimen known as Manshe, was found in a limestone cave some 15 meters under ground.
The missing link that bridges man and woman together was found by the Chinese research team headed by Hu Majong, of Guangzhou University. “This is an extraordinary find for the whole scientific world. It is the answer to the question that has eluded us for so long, until now,” said Hu Majong, one of the research team members who found the remains of Manshe. Suke Love, also of the research team stated, “For years people have been saying, man is from Mars and woman is from Venus. Well it turns out both are from one common ancestor.”
Manshe is believed to come from the Miocene Epoch, which is about 20 million to 5.5 million years ago. A bipedal creature that was the mother and father of the entire human race that was asexual. It stood nearly 2 meters tall and weighed about 80 kilograms. The breast of the creature was somewhat larger than what a typical primate would have, and was lacking external sexual organs all together. It was found with remnants of what appear to be some clothes and primitive tools were found in the cave as well.
“Upon further studies we hope to gather clues to why there are men and women” said, Hu.
Scientists think the creature lived after the lesser apes went their own evolutionary way, but before the great apes began their own diversification into different forms such as orangutans, gorillas, chimps and, of course, humans.
“The interesting part to us here, is the further diversification of humans into man and woman. Why over time did we evolve into men and women? There must have been a good reason, such as survival of the species. Our asexual predecessor would certainly survive just fine in our current time, so what caused this evolution of humans?” Hu also warned that this a new find and everything known as of yet is only preliminary. “Who knows what we will learn as time passes.”
Other scientists working on fossil apes were delighted by the discovery. But not all were convinced by the conclusions drawn by the Guangzhou researchers. Professor Matt Damon of the University of East London said, “As many as 100 different ape species roamed the Old World, from France to China in Eurasia and from Kenya to Namibia in Africa. Do you really expect me to believe that in southern China our ancestor was the equivalent of a Bangkok he/she? This is absolutely disturbing that they can even get this rubbish published.”
“I do understand this discovery will create some tension among paleontologist, but it is credible,” said, Lon Dong, a student at Guangzhou University. Other students at the university have showed support for their schools finding by wearing Manshe shirts.