WHAT Talk #15 – Jan.2023. Bert Chan "The Future of the Waterside Model"
Francesca Mansfield:
marc verhaegen "In my 2022 book p.299-300, I suggested that late-Miocene Homo-Pan lived in swamp forests along the Red Sea, and when the Red Sea opened into the Gulf (5.33 Ma? Zanclean flood), Pan went right (E.Afr.coastal forests->southern Rift etc.), and Homo went left (S.Asia->Java etc.)."
As you know, Marc, you adapted this from my original hypothesis, presented to you in 2021, which at the time you asked if you could co-author with me. I then sent you my fully researched manuscript. You then went on and published my idea yourself. You have adapted it slightly, but you even use the same words. I had said: MSC-Zanclean Flood-Red Sea. Pan went right (west), Homo went left (South & East). Great ape LCA from Europe, migrating from S-Med during the MSC. Pan & Homo separated at Sinai Peninsula when the Zanclean Flood cut them off. Homo was isolated on the Red Sea coast during the Pliocene, while Pan made it to Africa, where it diversified into robust australopithecines. (Gorilla ancestor had already migrated into Europe since the Vallesian crisis -gracile australopithecines). I have long considered you my mentor, and learned much from you, and have consistently acknowledged your ideas & influence. It's a shame you can't return the same acknowledgement to me. (Francesca Mansfield)

25.1.23 Francesca, please, I've never tried to steal your ideas! But at the time when my book "De Evolutie van de Mens" was to appear (Eburon Utrecht NL 2022, Summer IIRC), I did add (in a "hurry") a few weeks before it was going to appear an appendix which was no doubt partly based on your ideas: Bijlage 16 "Platentectoniek en Hominoïde Opdelingen?" p.299-300. I think we both agree that the Homo-Pan LCA lived in coastal forests of the Red Sea. I honestly don't remember (becoming old...?) whether I got that idea from you: if you say so, I have to admit it. Whether the Zanclean flood 5.33 Ma opened the Red Sea into the Gulf - this idea is certainly yours - is well possible - I just don't know (and I don't know how we can be sure about this).
In any case, it's clear IMO (and it's well possible that I got that idea from you) that H & P split when the Red Sea opened into the Gulf (whether caused by the Zanclean flood or not): P went right, H went left.
But we do differ in much of the rest. I'm pretty sure that, late-Miocene, 8 or 7 Ma?, different hominids (Sahalanthr.? Orrorin? Ardip.? Praeanthr.) followed the incipient northern-EARS inland, incl. fossil Gorilla Praeanthropus afarensis->boisei, see my Hum.Evol.papers, esp.1994 & 1996, and that, early-Pliocene, fossil Pan Au.africanus->robustus followed the incipient southern-EARS (Rift) inland, in parallel with Praeanthropus in the N-EARS, from (late)Pliocene "gracile" to early-Pleistocene "robust" apiths. IOW, we do differ considerably here (Gorilla ancestor into Europe?? Pan->robust apiths??).
I'd think (not sure at all, but likely IMO) that hominids(-?dryopiths) & pongids(-?sivapiths) split c 15 Ma (resp. W vs E), divided by the Mesopotamian Seaway closure (hominids Med.Sea, pongids Ind.Ocean), and (even more likely?) that apes & cercopiths split when India approached S-Asia (c 25 Ma?) and formed island archipels, full of coastal forests that were colonized by hominoids, and that great (W) & lesser (E) apes split c 20 Ma when India went further underneath Eurasia (Tethys Ocean coastal forests).