ASIA, not Africa, was the home of the first simians. A.group of Chinese scientists working with the Beijing-based Chinese Academy of Sciences claim that they have discovered evidence at Shanghuang town in eastern Jiangsu province which pushes the history of simians back by 8 to 10 million years compared with the fossils found in north Africa in the late 1960s.

The scientists have unearthed 10,000 fossils in a quarry in Shanghuang, which they are convinced are 45 million years old. The fossils belong to 63 species of mammals that fall into 12 orders and 38 families, including 4 fainilies of suborders of primates. The anthropoid fossils - a suborder of primates - have been named Eosimias sinensis by their discoverers, after a primitive anthropoid that lived in the middle Eocene period and is believed to be the ancestor of all simians.