The Origin of Modern Humans Cannot Be Traced to Any One Single Point in Time or Space

[Peter1469]

The Origin of Modern Humans Cannot Be Traced to Any One Single Point in Time or Space

I have posted before that the Out of Africa Theory was under challenge. He is an article that supports that.

Homo sapiens today look very different from our evolutionary origins, the microbes wriggling about in the primordial mud. But our emergence as a distinct species cannot, based on the current evidence, be conclusively traced to a single location at any single point in time.

In fact, according to a team of scientists, who have conducted a thorough review of our current understanding of human ancestry, there may never even have been such a time. Instead, the earliest known appearances of Homo sapiens traits and behaviours are consistent with a range of evolutionary histories.



We simply don't have a large enough fossil record to definitively rule on a specific time and place in which modern humans emerged.


"Some of our ancestors will have lived in groups or populations that can be identified in the fossil record, whereas very little will be known about others," said anthropologist Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London in the UK.


"Over the next decade, growing recognition of our complex origins should expand the geographic focus of paleoanthropological fieldwork to regions previously considered peripheral to our evolution, such as Central and West Africa, the Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia."

[Mister D]

There has been some ideological resistance to this sort of thing but the egalitarians better get ahead of this. I suspect the more we learn the worse it's going to get.

[Peter1469]

There has been some ideological resistance to this sort of thing but the egalitarians better get ahead of this. I suspect the more we learn the worse it's going to get.

I don't see it as worse.

[Chris]

There has been some ideological resistance to this sort of thing but the egalitarians better get ahead of this. I suspect the more we learn the worse it's going to get.

Even that article clings to out of Africa: "Finally, between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago, those modern humans migrated out of Africa and across the globe, interbreeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans before those two species ultimately died out."

[Mister D]

Even that article clings to out of Africa: "Finally, between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago, those modern humans migrated out of Africa and across the globe, interbreeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans before those two species ultimately died out."

I was struck by this though.

Instead, the researchers stress the importance of trying to separate the emergence of anatomy, physiology, traits and behaviours associated with Homo sapiens from genetic ancestry. This would help separate the question of when human ancestry emerged from when human behaviour emerged.
Conflating the two, they note, risks oversimplifying what was likely a long, continuous and complex process.

[RMNIXON]

Evolution does not work as a random chaotic process period. Not on any biological level or emergent species. Never Happened!

Note I never said it did not happen in some sense and Christian Evangelists are right and vindicated.

[Captdon]

There has been some ideological resistance to this sort of thing but the egalitarians better get ahead of this. I suspect the more we learn the worse it's going to get.

The more we learn to do is a progression. I can't believe we have been around more than 100,00 years if that. A logical look at history as taught means we ran around as another animal for 3 million years.

[Peter1469]

The more we learn to do is a progression. I can't believe we have been around more than 100,00 years if that. A logical look at history as taught means we ran around as another animal for 3 million years.

"Modern" human footprints have been dated to over 300,000 years.

[Standing Wolf]

Even that article clings to out of Africa: "Finally, between 60,000 and 40,000 years ago, those modern humans migrated out of Africa and across the globe, interbreeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans before those two species ultimately died out."

And it is from those emigrants that all human beings living on Earth today are descended - that is certain, as genetics don't lie. What went before, where other population groups arose and where they went to, is something that may never be known because of the scarcity and fragility of the fossil record.