But on the chimpanzee side we've had nothing. |
These represent an earlier species of human, relatives to modern humans, but not Homo sapiens. There's some controversy over what this species is called. Most would call it an advanced form of Homo erectus. They looked like people and were a fairly sophisticated culture with various stone tools and lived in the same environment as humans. |
We know today if you go to western and central Africa that humans and chimps live in similar and neighboring environments. This is the first evidence in the fossil record that they coexisted in the same place in the past. |
We know two things. First, chimps were once more widely distributed. And second, these environments have changed dramatically in the last half million years. The chimps and all the other forest loving animals that lived with them became extinct, locally, because of this change. |