"The Pondaung Formation is a geologic formation which consists of layers of red beds alternating with grey sandstones sediments, dated to about 40 million years ago. Several of these outcrops around Bahin village, located in the Dry Zone of central Myanmar, contain fossils of the oldest representatives of anthropoid primates, which correspond to the class that includes monkeys, apes and humans. Therefore, mankind’s earliest primate ancestors are documented from these Paleontological sites which are unique in Asia, and believed to be the oldest in the world. The significance of these sites lies in the fact that for many years it was generally considered by the scientific community that anthropoid primates originated in Africa. But more than thirty years of international research has suggested that the earliest anthropoids arose in South East Asia and subsequently dispersed to Africa at about 40 million years ago during the Middle Eocene. The fossil specimens from the Pondaung Formation contain the oldest knowns anthropoids yet discovered anywhere in the world. These fossil sites have delivered 6 distinct forms of these earliest anthropoids, distributed in two families, the Eosimiidae and the Amphipithecidae. Bahiniapondaungensis, a member of the family Eosimiidae, is the most primitive known anthropoid primate, universally considered as the ancestor of modern anthropoids."
Source: UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List
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