Why your ancestors would have aced the long jump. Duke Today, Sept. 11, 2017. A 52-million-year-old ankle fossil suggests our prehuman ancestors were high-flying acrobats. For years, scientists thought the ancestors of today’s humans, monkeys, lemurs and apes were relatively slow and deliberate animals, using their grasping hands and feet to creep along small twigs and branches. But a new study suggests the first primates were masters at leaping through the trees. Picked up by New Scientist, the Daily Mail, Futurity and NSF 360.