Rethinking Human Evolution

W

Walter L. Wagner

Cosmic Truth Seeker
Valued Senior Member
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/earl...o-researchers-6C10925354?lite=&lite=obnetwork

If Homo erectus was living/evolving in wide communities throughout China, as this new research shows, then how do we know that Homo sapiens did not derive from that ancestral stock, rather than Homo erectus that was living in Africa?

I believe there is an extensive fossil recored yet to be discovered in Asia that will shed more light on this, and on what our Human cousins were doing in Asia. Is it possible that the 'out of Africa' theory should maybe be 'in to Africa' instead? I.e., if Homo sapiens was living in Asia, then maybe 70 150 kya or thereabouts they migrated into Africa, replacing Homo erectus in the process (as they appear to have replaced Homo neanderthalensis in Europe).
 
Walter L. Wagner said:
http://www.nbcnews.com/science/earl...o-researchers-6C10925354?lite=&lite=obnetwork

If Homo erectus was living/evolving in wide communities throughout China, as this new research shows, then how do we know that Homo sapiens did not derive from that ancestral stock, rather than Homo erectus that was living in Africa?

I believe there is an extensive fossil recored yet to be discovered in Asia that will shed more light on this, and on what our Human cousins were doing in Asia. Is it possible that the 'out of Africa' theory should maybe be 'in to Africa' instead? I.e., if Homo sapiens was living in Asia, then maybe 70 150 kya or thereabouts they migrated into Africa, replacing Homo erectus in the process (as they appear to have replaced Homo neanderthalensis in Europe).
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I agree with you , there are a lot of dinosaurs that hold the idea to Africa only.
 
First of all genetics:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/massive-study-of-african-genetic-diversity/

"This map was generated by first using the program STRUCTURE to infer 14 ancestral populations that best define worldwide human genetic diversity; each of these clusters has been assigned a colour, and the pie graphs above show the proportions of each of these clusters contributing to each of the African populations in the study.

By contrast, using this colour scheme virtually the whole of East Asia is a virtually undifferentiated sea of pink, Europe a block of blue, and even the diversity of India is reduced to a mix of just two colours. The reason for this is simple: our species evolved in Africa, and all of us non-Africans represent just a paltry sub-sample of the genetic variation that arose there."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22096215

"haplogroup L3 encompasses not only many sub-Saharan Africans but also all ancient non-African lineages, and its age therefore provides an upper bound for the dispersal out of Africa. An analysis of 369 complete African L3 sequences places this maximum at ∼70 ka, virtually ruling out a successful exit before 74 ka"

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-migration-history-of-humans

So Homo Sapiens came from Africa fully formed, they did not evolve in Asia and go to Africa or else Asia not Africa would have the most genetic diversity instead of being an inbreed gene puddle by comparison.
 
ElectricFetus said:
First of all genetics:
http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2009/04/massive-study-of-african-genetic-diversity/

"This map was generated by first using the program STRUCTURE to infer 14 ancestral populations that best define worldwide human genetic diversity; each of these clusters has been assigned a colour, and the pie graphs above show the proportions of each of these clusters contributing to each of the African populations in the study.

By contrast, using this colour scheme virtually the whole of East Asia is a virtually undifferentiated sea of pink, Europe a block of blue, and even the diversity of India is reduced to a mix of just two colours. The reason for this is simple: our species evolved in Africa, and all of us non-Africans represent just a paltry sub-sample of the genetic variation that arose there."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22096215

"haplogroup L3 encompasses not only many sub-Saharan Africans but also all ancient non-African lineages, and its age therefore provides an upper bound for the dispersal out of Africa. An analysis of 369 complete African L3 sequences places this maximum at ∼70 ka, virtually ruling out a successful exit before 74 ka"

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=the-migration-history-of-humans

So Homo Sapiens came from Africa fully formed, they did not evolve in Asia and go to Africa or else Asia not Africa would have the most genetic diversity instead of being an inbreed gene puddle by comparison.
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Have you noticed your reference are relatively old , the finding in China is a 2013 publication and your references the newest is 2011
 
The fact that H erectus had spread widely outside of Africa has been known for a long time (when the "hobbits" were found in Indonesia, the debate over their origins included the matter of whether they were modified erectus or modified sapiens, for example: either was possible). The "out of Africa" consensus was well established by people who knew very well that H erectus had colonized Asia. Discovering wider spread and older colonies of H erectus in Asia adds to our information about H erectus, but has little or nothing to do with the origins of H sapiens, which was a different and much later evolving species.

In addition to the genetic evidence linked above, which recently slammed the door on even subsidiary contribution from backflowing genetics in the early years of dispersal (the "multiregional" hypothesis presupposed an initial migration from Africa, with modifications flowing back and mixing and then in their turn emerging - that is still a remote and minor possibility but seems to have not happened to any significant extent until modern times), the evidence from the tools and timing and so forth all points to Africa - a fairly small region in Africa, actually. There is no remaining evidence pointing anywhere else.

Aside from a couple of outlying evolutionary biologists with specific concerns about hominid evolution, I can't think of any reasonable motive behind so many people's eager seizing on any possibility of misinterpretable discovery to proclaim that humans, or some humans (always including themselves, it would seem) evolved outside of Africa. Why would they bother? Beyond a couple of specialty fields it's a minor concern - humans are so uniform genetically, so inbred as a species, that the origins of any demographic differences are the origins of trivialities anyway.
 
ElectricFetus said:
First of all genetics . . . . So Homo Sapiens came from Africa fully formed, they did not evolve in Asia and go to Africa or else Asia not Africa would have the most genetic diversity instead of being an inbreed gene puddle by comparison.
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Indeed. Read up on the work of Dr. Cavalli-Sforza. Using DNA analysis, he has traced the migratory routes of our species back to the first successful treks out of Africa. We even know which tribe we're descended from: the San or "Bushmen." All non-African humans have San DNA. Interestingly, both migrations out of Africa were by the San: A) The first one 60KYA, which occurred during an ice age when there was a drought in Africa and Asia and they eventually found their way to Australia, which happened to be a paradise; and B) The second one 10KY later, during milder weather so they settled in southwestern Asia and slowly spread to all the other continents from there.

It took them roughly 10KY to populate eastern Asia, 20KY to populate Europe, 35KY to populate the Americas, and 50KY to begin populating Antarctica.

The San still exist, but the desertification of North Africa caused a massive population shift so they now live down in the southeastern portion of the continent. They originally lived close enough to the Red Sea to make the crossing, especially during an ice age when sea levels are lower and lots of submerged islands come out of hiding. This also made their voyage to Australia less daunting that it seems to us today.

All over the world there are isolated archeological sites strongly suggesting that adventurous humans had ventured far from their homelands long before the populations we're familiar with were established. But the evidence indicates that, sadly, these communities did not survive. The most recent anomaly is Kennewick Man, a clearly European individual whose skeleton was found in Washington state on the Pacific coast of the USA, where it had been buried for nine thousand years. Before that there were the Solutreans, a party of Cro-Magnon adventurers who crossed the Atlantic during an ice age ca. 17KYA and built settlements that are now underwater 20 miles off the coast of the northeastern USA. Neither of these Europeans left any traceable amount of their DNA in the North American population.

Cavalli-Sforza's research was so detailed that he discovered traces of the DNA of the Native Australians in people living on the south coast of India. Apparently a few members of that first party of explorers got tired of walking, decided to stop and found a colony right there, and survived until they were assimilated by the next wave of migrants ten thousand years later.
 
iceaura said:
The fact that H erectus had spread widely outside of Africa has been known for a long time (when the "hobbits" were found in Indonesia, the debate over their origins included the matter of whether they were modified erectus or modified sapiens, for example: either was possible). The "out of Africa" consensus was well established by people who knew very well that H erectus had colonized Asia. Discovering wider spread and older colonies of H erectus in Asia adds to our information about H erectus, but has little or nothing to do with the origins of H sapiens, which was a different and much later evolving species.



Aside from a couple of outlying evolutionary biologists with specific concerns about hominid evolution, I can't think of any reasonable motive behind so many people's eager seizing on any possibility of misinterpretable discovery to proclaim that humans, or some humans (always including themselves, it would seem) evolved outside of Africa. Why would they bother? Beyond a couple of specialty fields it's a minor concern - humans are so uniform genetically, so inbred as a species, that the origins of any demographic differences are the origins of trivialities anyway.
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Why do we want to sweep under the rug? If there is a common ancestor for man and ape in Africa why can there be not a common ancestor for man and ape in Asia
remember Orangutan is an ape from Asia and Gorilla chimp is from Africa , there is a large distance in between thew two apes
 
arauca said:
Have you noticed your reference are relatively old , the finding in China is a 2013 publication and your references the newest is 2011
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Have you noticed the archeological evidence of Homo Erectus is Asia has nothing, NOTHING to do with Homo Sapiens?
 
ElectricFetus said:
Have you noticed the archeological evidence of Homo Erectus is Asia has nothing, NOTHING to do with Homo Sapiens?
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I don't know what you mean , but for me from Homo erect us is the next step is modern man . Are you implying there was evolution process from Asian Homoerectus ?
 
arauca said:
If there is a common ancestor for man and ape in Africa why can there be not a common ancestor for man and ape in Asia
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Because the two possibilities are mutually exclusive.

And neither one has anything to do with H erectus or any other hominid. The common ancestor of men and apes was not much like a human being.

arauca said:
remember Orangutan is an ape from Asia and Gorilla chimp is from Africa , there is a large distance in between thew two apes
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The large distance between them is one reason we think they evolved far apart, probably even on different continents, each from its own respective immediate ancestor - their common ancestor much farther back yet, nearer the beginning of the ape line.

There are no such large distances between any humans - we are not only one coherent species, but a notably inbred and homogenous one. I think that is the central difficulty behind the rejection of African origins for H sapiens - recognizing that there isn't a nickel's worth of difference between any two tribes, peoples, or other groups, of human beings.
 
arauca said:
I don't know what you mean , but for me from Homo erect us is the next step is modern man . Are you implying there was evolution process from Asian Homoerectus ?
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Oh I see the failure of your logic here you think ALL Homo Erectus evolved into Modern man, no no only a small group of them IN AFRICA evolved into Homo Sapiens, the ones in Asia DID NOT, the ones in Europe evolved into Neanderthals, both the Asian Homo Erectus and the Neanderthals were kill/aaah "died off at the same time modern man enters their territories" and modern genetics has found very little evidence for interbreeding.
 
iceaura said:
And neither one has anything to do with H erectus or any other hominid. The common ancestor of men and apes was not much like a human being.

Well I look that we are the final evolution step of the common ancestor . The apes branched off earlier and the so called common ancestor continued evolving to what we are now.

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The large distance between them is one reason we think they evolved far apart, probably even on different continents, each from its own respective immediate ancestor - their common ancestor much farther back yet, nearer the beginning of the ape line.

There are no such large distances between any humans - we are not only one coherent species, but a notably inbred and homogenous one. I think that is the central difficulty behind the rejection of African origins for H sapiens - recognizing that there isn't a nickel's worth of difference between any two tribes, peoples, or other groups, of human beings.
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I think you misunderstood " large distance " Biologically we are not to different , but as the brain evolved there were some minor changes in the components who serve the brain to survive .
My point is the there could be a homoerectus in Africa who evolved into Homosapien and an Asian Homoerectus who evolved into Homosapiens
 
arauca said:
I think you misunderstood " large distance " Biologically we are not to different , but as the brain evolved there were some minor changes in the components who serve the brain to survive
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AFAIK all the inter-group differences in the "components" the "serve the brain to survive" are found in Africa among Africans - the inter-group differences found only outside Africa are in such easily molded and essentially trivial features as earlobe shape and eye color.
arauca said:
My point is the there could be a homoerectus in Africa who evolved into Homosapien and an Asian Homoerectus who evolved into Homosapiens
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Not only are the odds against that hundreds of trillions to one, so that a sober person would not even bother considering such a possibility, but the evidence shows that it did not happen - that there was a common ancestor of H sapiens, and it lived in Africa.

And of course that makes no difference to anything now - right? Why are you bothering?
 
iceaura said:
AFAIK all the inter-group differences in the "components" the "serve the brain to survive" are found in Africa among Africans - the inter-group differences found only outside Africa are in such easily molded and essentially trivial features as earlobe shape and eye color.
Not only are the odds against that hundreds of trillions to one, so that a sober person would not even bother considering such a possibility, but the evidence shows that it did not happen - that there was a common ancestor of H sapiens, and it lived in Africa.

And of course that makes no difference to anything now - right? Why are you bothering?
Click to expand...

Time will show.
 
arauca said:
Time will show.
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Time will not show that you currently have the slightest reason or evidence to entertain the notion of an Asian origin of H sapiens.

That's a fact of the current situation, recorded and irrevocable. So why do you bother? What's in it for you?
 
ElectricFetus said:
Oh I see the failure of your logic here you think ALL Homo Erectus evolved into Modern man, no no only a small group of them IN AFRICA evolved into Homo Sapiens, the ones in Asia DID NOT, the ones in Europe evolved into Neanderthals, both the Asian Homo Erectus and the Neanderthals were kill/aaah "died off at the same time modern man enters their territories" and modern genetics has found very little evidence for interbreeding.
Click to expand...

So you're saying it is impossible for Homo erectus, as a huge population in Asia (according to the article) could not have evolved a small tribe (say 10,000 individuals) of early Homo sapiens, who then migrated to southern Africa, leaving their genetic footprint as the San, then begun the migration northward again back to lands their Homo erectus ancestors once inhabited, now displacing the non-Homosapiens they encountered. What evidence do you have to prove that?

What I'm saying is that the jury is still out, that we are still finding early fossils and have only just scratched the surface. To me it seems plausible that there were early Homo sapiens ancestors all over the place (e.g. Homo neandethalensis) with which the Homo sapiens were capable of interbreeding. At some point, a tribe of fully modern Homo sapiens would have evolved, but where that was we simply don't know for sure, since people can sure walk a long distance in a short time, and they likely had boats back then too. And the routes (and fossils) are now likely covered by several hundred feet of ocean waters since the last ice-age melt.

We've only seen just the tip of the iceberg with respect to ancestral fossils, so far as I can tell. Go out and find more!
 
Walter L. Wagner said:
So you're saying it is impossible for Homo erectus, as a huge population in Asia (according to the article) could not have evolved a small tribe (say 10,000 individuals) of early Homo sapiens, who then migrated to southern Africa, leaving their genetic footprint as the San, then begun the migration northward again back to lands their Homo erectus ancestors once inhabited, now displacing the non-Homosapiens they encountered. What evidence do you have to prove that?
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No, that improbable, not impossible. There is no evidence to support that Homo Erectus from Asia returned to Africa and spawned modern humans. Occum's Razor tells us that what your suggesting is not worth believing over the simpler "out out of Africa" theory until somekind of evidence suggest otherwise. Why not believe that we were place here by aliens and had are genomes designed to appear as if we derived from a native hominid?

What I'm saying is that the jury is still out, that we are still finding early fossils and have only just scratched the surface. To me it seems plausible that there were early Homo sapiens ancestors all over the place (e.g. Homo neandethalensis) with which the Homo sapiens were capable of interbreeding.
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"We find that observed low levels of Neanderthal ancestry in Eurasians are compatible with a very low rate of interbreeding (<2%), potentially attributable to a very strong avoidance of interspecific matings, a low fitness of hybrids, or both. These results suggesting the presence of very effective barriers to gene flow between the two species are robust to uncertainties about the exact demography of the Paleolithic populations"
--http://www.pnas.org/content/108/37/15129.short

At some point, a tribe of fully modern Homo sapiens would have evolved, but where that was we simply don't know for sure, since people can sure walk a long distance in a short time, and they likely had boats back then too. And the routes (and fossils) are now likely covered by several hundred feet of ocean waters since the last ice-age melt.

We've only seen just the tip of the iceberg with respect to ancestral fossils, so far as I can tell. Go out and find more!
Click to expand...

Again why not believe their evidence of alien intervention we simply need more fossils?
 
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