Rethinking Human Evolution

[wellwisher]

Migration is an aspect of natural selection, where the animal selects the environment in which it can be better selected. As a modern example, if you were a liberal, you would have more selective advantages at the DNC than the RNC. At the NRC (national republican convention) you would not be taken seriously but might be subject to disadvantages; never rise above. If you migrate to the DNC, all of a sudden, with you the same person, you will now be selected.

For humans, migration may have been a brain precursor gradually leading to learning to modify the environment for civilization. They begin to notice the various things they needed to be optimized, via migration, and start to make these changes in situ. In the example above, instead of waiting to fly to the DNC to feel optimized, you organize a local group. This would take will power and choice to fight against million year instinct.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

Civilization appears to be the transition time, in which humans, not under natural selection, began to separate from the pre-humans who remained part of natural selection. The latter become extinct and the former take over.

No. You need to read up on the prehistory of our species.

Our ancestors began modifying their own environment several million years ago, when they discovered the technology of flint-knapping. The first flint knives allowed them to scrape the leftover meat off of bones left by predators. This quantum increase in the protein in their diets allowed their brains to grow larger--the maintenance and operation of brain tissue requires an enormous amount of protein. So each successive species had a larger forebrain than its ancestors. Eventually their Stone Age tools became so sophisticated and effective that they became full-time hunters. In the next evolution they began losing their herbivore ancestors' huge gut with the bacterial culture that turns cellulose into protein, so they had no choice but to become obligate carnivores, even though they had no claws or fangs. This required establishing strong bonds within each clan, because they could only survive by hunting as a group.

About 3/4 of a million years ago, Homo habilis and/or Homo erectus (one of which was our immediate ancestor) discovered the technology of controlled fire. This allowed them to cook plant tissue, unlocking the bounty of amino acids in grains and legumes. This new protein source greatly expanded their diet. But it wasn't until somebody invented the technology of farming (cultivation of plants) that large quantities of plant protein became available and humans were able to backslide into a balanced carnivore/herbivore diet.

This occurred a mere 12,000 years ago, about the same time that the first animals were domesticated, resulting in a bounty of meat to go with the bounty of grains. The first cultivated plant in the Old World was the fig tree, and in the New World it was the pepper plant. The first domesticated food animal was the goat (or possibly the pig, both animals are scavengers who self-domesticated like dogs, in order to eat our garbage) in the Old World and the turkey in North America. I'm not quite clear on the first meat animal in South America since they had so many choices; they even dined on guinea pigs.

The Agricultural Revolution required our not-so-distant ancestors to stop being nomadic hunter-gatherers and settle down in permanent villages where they could tend their crops and their herds. It soon became obvious that economies of scale and division of labor make a community more productive, so every village invited the neighboring hunter-gatherers to join them so there'd be more food per capita. This allowed a few people to have "jobs" that weren't directly related to survival, such as building houses, making clothes, brewing beer and wine, playing music, and going on trading expeditions to more distant villages.

As the villages continued to grow, they reached a point at which everyone didn't know everyone else. This required an administrative structure a bit more formal than "everybody loves Grandpa so we all do what he says." At this point the first cities came into existence. This was the dawn of the technology of civilization, literally "the building of cities."

The Age of Civilization began only 11,000 years ago. That's only a few hundred human generations. Our DNA hasn't mutated very much in such a short time. In other words, we were already the same people we are today when the first civilizations were built. We became those people far back in the Stone Age. At least 150,000 years ago when our own species, Homo sapiens arose.

Natural selection was still the way we evolved. In fact, our species has a strange and unique feature: we find people who don't look like us to be sexually attractive. (How do you feel about exotic movie stars compared to the guy/girl in the next cubicle? ) We have always been interested in breeding with exotic outsiders. This strange form of natural selection, related to the Westermark Effect (the instinct that makes us loath to mate within our own family, unlike virtually all other apes), helps keep our gene pool healthy.

 

[arauca]

cook[/b] plant tissue, unlocking the bounty of amino acids in grains and legumes. This new protein source greatly expanded their diet. But it wasn't until somebody invented the technology of farming (cultivation of plants) that large quantities of plant protein became available and humans were able to backslide into a balanced carnivore/herbivore diet.

.

I think this paragraph can be taken with a grain of salt.
Are you implying if they would not cook they would not get the the bounty of amino acid ? for your info . what ever amino acids were there in green they would be in cooked , perhaps you even might loose some of the amino acid if you cook the green

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

I think this paragraph can be taken with a grain of salt. Are you implying if they would not cook they would not get the the bounty of amino acid ? for your info . what ever amino acids were there in green they would be in cooked , perhaps you even might loose some of the amino acid if you cook the green

The only amino acids (protein) in plant tissue are in the seeds. Everything else in a plant is either starch, which provides calories but no protein, or fiber, which provides no nutrition except roughage to clean out our intestines.

Nuts are seeds and they can be eaten raw. We can digest the protein in nuts. There are a few other plants that have large seeds that can be eaten raw.

But in most plants the seeds are small and it's very difficult to harvest enough of them to make a meal. The exceptions are grains (wheat, rice, corn, etc.) and legumes (beans, alfalfa, peanuts, etc.) These seeds are large and contain a lot of protein. However, we cannot digest those seeds when they are raw. Grains and legumes must be cooked before our digestive system can disassemble the tissues and extract the amino acids.

This is one of the reasons why the technology of cooking (controlled fire) was such a boon for humans. There are wild grains and wild legumes, and we were suddenly able to extract the protein from these plants. The other reason, of course, is that raw meat is very difficult to eat. We don't have any problem digesting the protein in raw meat, but we have a lot of trouble chewing it. Anthropologists estimate that our ancestors spent four hours every day, just chewing. Yes, those people had flint knives, but flint knives aren't as precise as our modern metal knives. So they were only of limited use in cutting meat.

So yes, it's exactly right: without cooking grains and legumes, humans cannot get the bounty of amino acids.

There are many animals with this problem: all the carnivores, for example. Dogs, cats, bears, hyenas, raccoons, etc. None of them can digest raw grains and legumes. That's why they eat meat.

You can easily identify a herbivore, an animal that subsists exclusively on plant tissue. They have an enormous gut, which contains a large bacteria culture. The bacteria have the enzymes to break down plant tissue; basically the bacteria eat the plant tissue and grow larger, then they reproduce by dividing into two. They've turned the plant tissue into protein, which becomes more bacteria. Then the animals digest the bacteria and that's how they get their protein.

This is why cattle, sheep, camels, elk, elephants, horses, rhinoceroses, pigs, hippopotamuses, giraffes, goats, tapirs, and a few other less well-known artiodactyls and perissodactyls have such large guts. Many of them have multi-chamber stomachs that pass the food back and forth to extract the protein.

Even our closest relatives, the other Great Apes, have large stomachs, although not as large as cattle and pigs. They eat a lot of leaves, and they have a relatively small bacteria culture that converts it to protein. However, they also eat insects and other small animals, so they get a lot of their protein that way. Our ancestors also ate insects and other small animals, so even though they were herbivores, their stomachs weren't as big as a cow's stomach.

 

[ElectricFetus]

The only amino acids (protein) in plant tissue are in the seeds. Everything else in a plant is either starch, which provides calories but no protein, or fiber, which provides no nutrition except roughage to clean out our intestines.

Bullshit, there protein in all general plant matter, just very little protein in most of it. Generally about 10% for hay made of non-legume grasses this is fine for animals with "four stomachs" that can process out that small percentage of protein from ALOT of feed, but not humans. There is no evidence that gut bacteria of such animals are synthesizing protein from raw nitrogen (Nitrogen fixation) rather all the protein or nitrates or amines for making protein comes from the plant matter these animals eat: the gut bacteria simply extract and utilizes the already fixed nitrogen consumed by the animal and even then the animals is depended on plant protein, not 'gut bacteria' protein for most of its protein needs

nfortunately I don't have notes, but many years ago I read that evidence of human habitation at the very southern tip of South America (the continent, not necessarily Tierra del Fuego) is only 1,000 years newer than the first crossing of Beringia. That's only a few miles per year. Any hearty band of explorers can move that fast.

no please cite it. Also 1000 years is not the decades Walter is proposing.

it is but a hop, skip and a jump from there to Asia

4000+ miles is not a "hop, ship and a jump" Along the coastline that distance would be multiplied by perhaps 2! Now again without evidence for the 'from asia and back' idea there is no reason to consider over the simpler 'out of africa'.

 

[sculptor]

No.
...
About 3/4 of a million years ago, Homo habilis and/or Homo erectus (one of which was our immediate ancestor) ...


The Age of Civilization began only 11,000 years ago. ....

coupl'a things.
If you would encourage conversation, it is usually wise to not begin your response with "No"

3/4 million ybp, would be homo sapiens heidelbergensis

as/re "civilization" the science remains unsettled, and will likely remain so until we come up with better underwater archaeology.

..................................
keep up the good work, and do not eschew qualifiers like "most likely"
eg: The Age of Civilization, most likely, began only 11,000 years ago(at-least that is as far back as we have, thus far, pushed the envelope).

 

[Walter L. Wagner]

4000+ miles is not a "hop, ship and a jump"[/url] Along the coastline that distance would be multiplied by perhaps 2! Now again without evidence for the 'from asia and back' idea there is no reason to consider over the simpler 'out of africa'.

hop, skip and jump, not ship and jump.

actually, it is just about 100 miles away. EAST asia is 4,000 miles away. Saudi Arabian 'peninsula' is only a few miles from Ethiopia, but it was not a 'peninsula' then, rather the Red Sea was dry land, etc. because of the ice-age lowering of sea levels. and, I suggested it could take a few miles/year travelling along a coast for a large tribe (10,000 people) to migrate from asia to Ethiopia, which is where the oldest Homo sapiens fossils are currently found.

Homo erectus, the apparent best contender for the immediate ancestor of Homo sapiens, Homo neanderthalensis, etc., was ubiquitous throughout Asia (East to West), and into Africa as well. The huge super-continent of Asia/Africa was crawling with Homo erectus for millions of years. The 'mediterranean' was dry land, except for a small salt lake at the bottom of what is now the Mediterranean sea. The 'red sea' was dry land. there was no major water-barrier impediment to travel throughout that land mass. If Homo sapiens was present in present-day Ethiopia 200,000 years ago as the fossils show, then what makes you think they could not have been present just 100 miles to the east in West-Asia 10,000 years earlier?

The fact of the matter is we don't know in what region Homo sapiens evolved. We can (presently) only fast-forward to 100 thousand years later, and find the San as Homo sapiens sapiens somewhere in Africa in the south. How they got there we don't know, and it is not logical to say they had to have evolved from the indigenous Homo erectus present in Africa, and not that they migrated there from western-Asia near to Ethiopia, or even from eastern-Asia, some 150,000 years earlier. That is not to say it is not possible they did evolve there; we simply don't know yet.

As Sculptor mentioned, most of the evidence was either scoured away by glaciers, or more likely, now buried under the sea (as I believe I've mentioned a few times too).

And Fraggle, you know protein is found in non-seed plant material, just not as high in concentration. Yes, cooking enhances it, but you speak/write in absolutes, as Sculptor gently chided you.,

The early primates became exceptionally favored to fruits with ample Vitamin C, and thus all primates lost Vitamin C biosynthesis by chance mutations that became fixed in the genome as they were non-deleterious due to the abundance of Vitamin C, even though the genetic machinery is still there (in all primates, including us), just waiting to be re-activated by chance mutations. That's why primates now require Vitamin C in their diet, while most mammals can synthesize it with still-intact genetic machinery. They (early primates) were getting their protein from the fruit (not the seed). We still can get protein from fruit, it's just easier from meat and grain.

 

[Aqueous Id]

the oldest homo sapiens remains, as being from our species, are from ethiopia.

Which suggests that modern humans evolved in Africa. Considering the relatively large number of finds for H. erectus in Asia/Oceania, it would seem to suggest that as long as no H. sapiens remains are found in Asia older than those in Africa, then the current hypothesis is the best supported one. And that's true even if you exclude the genetic evidence that supports African origins. The other side of this is that the earlier belief that the Asian H. erectus was a different species shows that there was likely some genetic diversity between the two, but this is also the requisite consequence for genetic drift under isolation. Next is the fact that H. sapiensand H. erectus coexisted and last is the fact that an intermediate form may still be found. Also don't forget the overlaps with Neanderthals and Heidelbergensis.

If we look, there is a good chance we'll find other sapiens remains on the saudi peninsula

I'm surprised you think no one is looking. http://www.northwestwildlifeonline.com/Saudi Arabian Fossils Homepage.htm

(which was apparently a lush grassland thick with gazelle, etc. back in the day).

I think you first have to wonder how many ecosystems the early migrants had to cross to get to that one. In any case, it remains to be seen when the pursuit of gazelles became profitable. It was not clear whether that proto-H. sapiens sapiens had the capability to hunt gazelle, or how that would have played a major role in human evolution.

and still further east to asia proper.

And elsewhere. But this begs the question. What was forcing the migrations in the first place? Hominids obviously didn't go to Java for gazelle. It might be more fruitful to inquire into the probable causes of migration, and what the likely capabilities of H. erectus were.

why would they remain only in ethiopia when they were chasing game-herds on annual migrations?

That assumes that they did so. A refinement on this is how H. erectus related to herd migrations as opposed to early H. sapiens. Look at the evolution of tools and there you may find some reason to believe that H. erectus probably was scavenging more than hunting, and not as likely to rely on herds for their food as other sources. Furthermore, any population dependent on following herds would more likely stay confined to its own continents. Clearly that was not the case - at least there were evidently waves of migration out of Africa - so you might want to try to explore the more plausible explanations for that. You might also want to compare this with the ways other species are known to find their way to inhospitable places and gain a foothold in the niche. It certainly requires innovation. If the hand axe was the main tool for ten times as long as the improved variants, it had t be useful enough to support the means of subsistence actually practiced. You might speculate that gazelles were killed with wooden tips, and it's certainly possible. It's just hard to imagine how the proto people might have succeeded at that. Further, if Arabia gazelles were profitable, then there ought to be proto-sapiens found in Arabia which is not the case.

that makes no sense. apparently you're not familiar with nomadic travellers living off the land as they follow migration patterns, taking them all over the place.

Now recast that for a species that evidently had no more than the crude hand axe going for it, and yet it had a foothold for nearly 2 MY. In any case it's just not clear how this supports a hypothesis that H. sapiens descended directly from H. erectus in Asia. The key here is to follow best evidence. Speculation is fine, but at some point a reasoned conclusion is simply a matter of best evidence and best interpretation. Obviously this is all very thinly constructed on fragmentary evidence, and all bets are off when the next discovery rolls out. But I think the genetic evidence probably has cornered modern humans in Africa.

for all I know, there are other tribes older than the Omo, we just havent' found it yet.

. That's true of all historical evidence of everything. Omo? We're just Homo - and African, too. What a lousy bit of news for the typical supremacists. Even worse is the likelihood that black Africans are probably the only true pure stock of H. sapiens sapiens. I laughed for weeks after that story broke. It was like the most ironic bit of evolutionary news ever, although I previously thought Oldouvai was the best wakeup call since Henry David Thoreau.

I'd suggest looking along the seashore regions, which are now about 400 feet under water.

Sounds pretty daunting. But if early people were highly mobile, that's not even necessary. In any case, I don't think you can unring the genetic bell that tolled in the last decade.

Both you and arauca seem uncomfortable with having African origins. But intelligent apes clearly originated there, so you're both pretty much stuck with the reality of this one way or the other. I can't think of a more beautiful notion, since it vindicates social justice and puts white supremacy on the extinction list.

 

[ElectricFetus]

hop, skip and jump, not ship and jump.
actually, it is just about 100 miles away. EAST asia is 4,000 miles away.

The oldest homo erectus in asia find was 90 miles west of Beijing , in EAST asia. http://www.livescience.com/38917-early-humans-lived-in-china.html

If Homo sapiens was present in present-day Ethiopia 200,000 years ago as the fossils show, then what makes you think they could not have been present just 100 miles to the East in Asia 10,000 years earlier?

First of all a sea... unless you can cite that the red sea was dry 200,000 years ago. Second of all: sure anything possible, like humans being planted here by aliens, but there is no evidence for it, just as there is not evidence of Homo Sapiens even that far away in Asia at that time.

If homo sapien movement was so great back then how come we have genetic evidence for only two migrations out of Africa between ~100,000 years ago and dawn of written history?

The huge super-contient of Asia/Africa was crawling with Homo erectus for millions of years. The 'mediterranean was dry land', except for a small salt lake at the bottom of what is now the Mediterranean sea. The 'red sea' was dry land. there was no impediment to travel throughout that land mass.

Citation please. Show me evidence that these were dry between ooh 250,000 and 150,000 years ago.

The fact of the matter is we don't know in what region Homo sapiens evolved.

We don't know that we were not planted here by aliens either. But the evidence we have is that we evolved in Africa and left Africa only twice in paleonlogical history. Anything beyond that is unfounded speculation.

 

[iceaura]

The fact of the matter is we don't know in what region Homo sapiens evolved. We can only fast-forward to 100 thousand years later, and find the San as Homo sapiens sapiens somewhere in Africa in the south. How they got there we don't know, and it is not logical to say they had to have evolved from the indigenous Homo erectus present in Africa, and not that they migrated there from western Asia near to Ethiopia, or even from eastern Asia, some 150,000 years earlier. That is not to say it is not possible they did evolve there; we simply don't know yet.

Overland colonization moving away from the equator is the most difficult kind, for large mammals. Asian origin of sapiens, to match current evidence, requires that it have happened three times - out of Africa, back into Africa and far south, and back out of Africa from that southern reach. That third time would have required the emerging sapiens to replace completely the well established sapiens all along its route and throughout Asia (the current genetic uniformity disallows intermingling with the long abandoned ancestral group in Asia).

That is necessary to explain the much greater genetic diversity of sapiens in Africa, the genetic kinship of one particular group of sapiens in southern Africa with all sapiens outside of Africa, the paleontological evidence of erectus and sapiens colonization in and out of Africa, and so forth.

Clearly that is possible. Clearly it's not the way to bet - all the evidence is against it, and no evidence recommends it, over the standard two basic waves from Africa (erectus and then sapiens), which align with all this genetic and paleontological evidence naturally and directly.

 

[Walter L. Wagner]

Overland colonization moving away from the equator is the most difficult kind, for large mammals. Asian origin of sapiens, to match current evidence, requires that it have happened three times - out of Africa, back into Africa and far south, and back out of Africa from that southern reach. That third time would have required the emerging sapiens to replace completely the well established sapiens all along its route and throughout Asia (the current genetic uniformity disallows intermingling with the long abandoned ancestral group in Asia).

That is necessary to explain the much greater genetic diversity of sapiens in Africa, the genetic kinship of one particular group of sapiens in southern Africa with all sapiens outside of Africa, the paleontological evidence of erectus and sapiens colonization in and out of Africa, and so forth.

Clearly that is possible. Clearly it's not the way to bet - all the evidence is against it, and no evidence recommends it, over the standard two basic waves from Africa (erectus and then sapiens), which align with all this genetic and paleontological evidence naturally and directly.

You and others seem not to read what I wrote, or at least not with understanding.

Here's a link to ice-age sea levels, showing land-bridges to Asia with Africa (with a lake where the red-sea now is). Likewise there is a landbridge to spain at gibraltar, leaving the 'mediterranean' as a lake. http://iceagenow.com/Sea_Level_During_Last_Ice_Age.htm

Please note that Ethipopia, where the oldest Homo sapiens fossils to-date have been found, is adjacent to that land bridge.

Fraggle has already expounded on the San genetics. I don't have a problem with showing that that tribe later populated eurasia.

What you are ignoring is that Erectus was ubiquitous for millions of years, both in Africa and Asia. How can one assert that an Erectus tribe moved out of africa only once to populate Asia? Where's the evidence. If one tribe did it, likely hundreds or thousands of tribes did it over the eons. There was a great diversity of varieties of Erectus as a consequence.

Where is the evidence that the erectus tribe that evolved into Homo sapiens was located in Africa? Just because a Homo sapiens sapiens tribe that later populated Asia some 100,000 years later was living in Africa does not mean that is where they evolved from erectus.

Indeed, using your logic, one would presume that based on the most recent evidence, they evolved in the area surrounding ethiopia, which includes asia. but there really s no evidence for that either. It could well have been a tribe living along the asian shores that migrated westward and southward, eventually reaching africa as early Homo sapiens, but leaving no trace along the way (erectus was a formidable foe). maybe that proto-homo-sapiens tribe split, with one branch evolving into neaderthal, and another into Homo sapiens, etc. they were sufficiently alike to interbreed, as shown by 5% neanderthal in European Homo sapiens.

again, I repeat, Asia is just on the other side of that lake separating Ethiopia from Asia, and all you have to do is walk around the lake. Indeed, I'd suspect that there were lots of tribes living on both sides of the lake-shore, with those sites now underwater.

Why do some people suggest 'racism' for believing there is no solid evidence for where erectus evolved into sapiens. why are some people so adamant it was Africa. that appears to be a racist reason to appease others. it is not scientific. science looks for evidence, and thus far, the evidence is insufficient to draw any firm conclusions.

And electricfetus posting a link to the same finding I posted to start this thread, to support his position, doesn't give one confidence in his reading of this thread.

Take a look at the map, and tell me how the oldest Homo sapiens bones found to date, from a tribe living some 200,000 years ago, could only have lived on the African side of the red-sea lake, but not on the Asian side. They'd be laughing themselves silly if they were alive now, about your claim.

 

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Have you noticed the archeological evidence of Homo Erectus is Asia has nothing, NOTHING to do with Homo Sapiens?

Recently (2-4 years) I've read a report about Asian erectines having been extinct from longer than previously thought. I'm not sure if "Asian" in general or some specific site.

Somehow the report (which was on the usually good Eurekalert) and/or the paper itself managed to say that it disproved out-of-Africa replacement theory, as replacement would posit that sapiens and erectus would have been contemporaries, with a more "literal" replacement, rather than just migrating there later on.

[...] The existence of the two species simultaneously has important implications for models about the origins of modern humans. One of the models, the Out of Africa or replacement model, predicts such overlap. However, another, the multiregional model, which posits that modern humans originated as a result of genetic contributions from hominin populations all around the Old World (Africa, Asia, Europe), does not. The late survival of Homo erectus in Indonesia has been used as one line of support for the Out of Africa model.

However, findings by the SoRT Project show that Homo erectus' time in the region ended before modern humans arrived there. The analyses suggest that Homo erectus was gone by at least 143,000 years ago—and likely by more than 550,000 years ago. This means the demise of Homo erectus occurred long before the arrival of Homo sapiens.

However, findings by the SoRT Project show that Homo erectus' time in the region ended before modern humans arrived there. The analyses suggest that Homo erectus was gone by at least 143,000 years ago—and likely by more than 550,000 years ago. This means the demise of Homo erectus occurred long before the arrival of Homo sapiens.

[...]

Thus, the authors concluded that the idea of a population of Homo erectus surviving until late in time in Indonesia and potentially interacting with Homo sapiens seems to have been disproven.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-06/nyu-fsh062811.php

It obviously disproves multiregional evolution and an Asian origin for sapiens (at least regarding such erectine populations specifically) even "more" than it disproves OOA (which is actually not at all, as replacement of contemporaries wasn't ever a necessary prediction, doesn't make sense).

 

[Buckaroo Banzai]

Why do some people suggest 'racism' for believing there is no solid evidence for where erectus evolved into sapiens. why are some people so adamant it was Africa. that appears to be a racist reason to appease others. it is not scientific. science looks for evidence, and thus far, the evidence is insufficient to draw any firm conclusions.

Well, just happens that many actual, self-proclaimed and proud-to-be 'racists' find that multiregional evolution would be better for their world view, for some reason. I find it weird as it would mean they're much more mixed with Africans and everybody than they'd prefer, but perhaps most of the time they're just confusing multiregional evolution with ancient-branching "candelabra" evolution. Some, perhaps most of the proponents of multiregional evolution even make the point that "races don't exist", or that only neanderthals and the like would have been true races, present-day variation being below that level.

If that wasn't explicit enough, believing in something other than OOA isn't necessarily racist. I suspect that there may be some racism/nationalism involved in the advocation for an Asian origin sometimes (just like European researchers were dying to see proves that humans had originated in Europe), but of course that's not necessarily always the case.

But what I really find curious is how this subject is a fertile ground for pet fringe theories. I'm sort of "agnostic" myself, but I'm tired of seeing people trying to spin things into some alternative view, always focusing more on the bits of evidence that seem to deviate from OOA. And virtually rewriting history, it's not uncommon at all to see people saying that admixture "refuted OOA", that "not all humans came from Africa", and things like that. I guess often it's done just because it's just "cool" if something new/different/radical is discovered/concluded, against the boring/orthodox views.

I'm not saying that's what happening here, I haven't even read much of this thread. Just one thing. If sapiens had originated in Asia, it would have probably/almost necessarily been from erectus, which is actually more of an Asian than African taxon. The "African erectus" is Homo ergaster, and sometimes rhodesiensis (often split, and lumped with heidelbergensis, sometimes "archaic sapiens").

I guess it could even be that sapiens was "almost evolving" in Asia, from Asian Homo erectus, and then migrated back to Africa, where it finally evolved into sapiens, to eventually migrate to the rest of the world.

 

[Buckaroo Banzai]

An interesting find that I've seen, from a few years ago, was a cladistic analysis of many hominid skulls. The interesting point was that in the "purely cladistic" method, there was an African (or perhaps "Afrasian", I don't recall if they've included Asian erectus, but they most likely did) clade, with ergaster, erectus, rhodesiensis, and sapiens and an European clade, with heidelbergensis and neanderthalensis. I found that surprising, I'd think it was more blurred, things like rhodesiensis and heidelbergensis, even more if you include Dali in the picture, which is often classified as erectus, but also as a possibly Asian variant of heidelbergensis. But perhaps that suggests that there's a stronger link with African than with European populations/species, like heidelbergensis. I guess it may also cast doubt into lumping rhodesiensis with heidelbergensis.

That wasn't the only analysis on the same paper, though, there was some other method that has some theoretical considerations, rather than being pure cladistics. This one made things a bit messier, with neanderthalensis and sapiens closer to each other.

 

[Buckaroo Banzai]

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.

Is there "very little evidence for interbreeding", or "evidence for very little interbreeding"?

At least since the neanderthal draft genome and the Denisova hominin genome, I had the impression that things were leaning to/nearly certain to be the second; from "very little interbreeding", to "more substantial interbreeding" (but not worldwide evolution of sapiens from worldwide erectus yet), and unlikely, nearly untenable, "no interbreeding".

I think that the "no interbreeding" position would require something like a nearly Middle-Eastern/nearly Asian/North African origin for sapiens, with the "apparently neanderthal/Denisovan" genes being remnants from a common ancestor, that was lost in the sapiens that migrated back to Africa (or to south), where they reached the largest populations ever, and eventually migrated out of Africa, massively, mixing only with those very-early sapiens.