Talk:Recent African origin of modern humans/Archive 1

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Recent?

Granted there is no controversy regarding some "single origin", but why the rename? -Ste|vertigo 21:27, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

the main name of this article should be single-origin hypothesis. Firstly because of lex parsimoniae and secondly because Lord Monboddo postulated this theory in 1789. i also agree with tannin above that we need to find more research that dates the great leap forward. the key thinking may be related to migration AND linguistic development. Anlace 17:37, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
"Recent" means that the most recent common ancestor of humans is postulated to be on the order of 100,000 years ago, not on the order of 1,000,000 years ago, as the multiregional hypothesis would predict. "Recent" doesn't refer to the hypothesis being formulated recently, although in fact it was; Lord Monboddo postulated a single origin, but not a single origin in this specific time period based on more recent fossil evidence. --JWB 20:25, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
(Fix typo in above post, for clarity: changed 'does' to 'doesn't' in "'Recent' doesn't refer to the hypothesis being formulated recently" -- Ec5618 20:32, 29 June 2006 (UTC))
i understand where the word "recent" derived. i just think it makes the title gratuitously long and misleads general readers who are not intimately conversant with this branch of knowledge. Anlace 20:36, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
Three points: ¹In any case, the intro should reflect the article's name. ²A redirect exists to help people looking for "single-origin hypothesis". ³Note also that while our article on fruitflies is titled "drosophila melanogaster", our article on dogs is titled "dog" (where laypersons would expect to find it), not "canis lupis". -- Ec5618 20:55, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
so now we have four valid arguments for changing the primary name of the article to Single-origin hypothesis:
  • The authors to date havent even mentioned the article title in the intro. defacto proof that the word "recent" is not on the tip of the tongue of those working in this field
  • Lex parsimoniae...shorter and simpler is better if the two are tied
  • even though the lay reader may find the article, he or she has to figure out why the word recent is important. its just confusing to the lay reader.
  • Lord Monboddo did derive the theory in 1789. he didnt need to see the fossil evidence. and so what if he didnt know the exact point of origin. the present name is an insult to Monboddo. Anlace 21:03, 29 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Most theories of human origin back to Genesis and beyond have been monogenesis. Polygenism has been the exception. Merely saying a theory is monogenic says very little. Both the model described by this article and the competing so-called multiregional hypothesis are single-origin hypotheses that would fit Monboddo's definition. The timing and other details are the only differences. Mention of Monboddo should be removed from the article entirely, or specifically cited as irrelevant.
  • "he or she has to figure out why the word recent is important. its just confusing to the lay reader." Figuring it out is exactly what is required for comprehension of the article's topic. Stating it prominently helps highlight this.
  • "Single-origin hypothesis" is not even the most popular name for this concept. "Out of Africa" (model/hypothesis/theory) is. "Out of Africa" is not any clearer as an actual description, but it is memorable and the best-known title.
  • "Recent replacement hypothesis" would be even more accurate and less misleading. Most accurate would be qualifying "replacement hypothesis" with the time frame or species involved, like "Homo sapiens total replacement model", "Total replacement of Homo erectus model", or "Middle Paleolithic replacement model", or "120-60ky replacement model". "Non-interbreeding model" or "Homo erectus dead-end model" would also clearly communicate the theory. I haven't looked up whether clearly communicating the article's topic in the title is a defined Wikipedia policy, but at the least it avoids confusion. --JWB 23:57, 1 July 2006 (UTC)
Why dont we just use Middle Paleolithic replacement model and everyone will be happy? Anlace 00:12, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Sounds good to me! --JWB 05:16, 2 July 2006 (UTC)
Perhaps we can wait a day and see whether anyone else weighs in before making the change. thanks for your patient and constructive dialog JWB. regards Anlace 05:20, 2 July 2006 (UTC)


can anyone tell me what the percentages are of academics worldwide, who dispute the single migration out of Africa theory?I get the impression its on been onthe wain in the last few years, but id like to get an idea of how many experts whove spent years getting paid to look at the evidence believe which theory. Also, is it treated as spurious to continue and argue that humans evolved absolutely separately in various parts of the world (all my limited knowledge in this area comes from the bbc :}80.192.59.202 18:23, 21 October 2006 (UTC)

Help wanted on related article.

Hi

I am asking for the editors of this article to help me on Hofmeyr Skull.

Regards, Gary van der Merwe (Talk) 20:26, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

When did modern humans leave Africa?

I've seen estimates ranging anywhere from 110,000 years to 25,000 years agao. It seems like every year they keep moving the date forward. What's the mainstrea scientific consensus? Also did modern humans mate with neandertals or not. I thought they DNA sequenced a neandertal and proved their was no mating, but now we have people looking at skulls claiming to have proved that we did mate with neandertals. What's the mainstream scientific thought on that question?

the earliest emigration of H. sapiens was some 80 kya according to genetic evidence. Of course there were later waves of emigration; the latest one is taking place as we speak. so far, it looks as though H. sapens did not interbreed with the Neanderthals, but this isn't final. dab (𒁳) 09:20, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The 2007 PNAS paper I referenced calculated the exodus at 51 kya and found no evidence of mating. Fegundes et al said:

In conclusion, although our best supported model (AFREG) we show here that it is much better supported by a random set of neutral loci than any other models involving interbreeding with other Homo species. Although we cannot exclude that any interbreeding ever occurred between modern and archaic humans or that any favorably selected H. erectus genes could have spread into modern humans (see, e.g., ref. 18), our results suggest that this archaic contribution, if present, should be very small.

Weaver and Roseman said [Evolutionary Anthropology January 2008]:

The most plausible interpretation

of decreasing genetic diversity with distance from Africa is that differences in within-population diversity are due to differences in founding time, because human populations were founded recently enough that they have not yet reached equilibrium. As modern humans expanded out of Africa, the most distant regions would be the least diverse because of serial loss of diversity with each founding event and because the youngest populations are the furthest from equilibrium.17,22,37,38,41 Liu and colleagues38 have conducted simulations to determine how well this particular Out-of-Africa model fits the STR data and to estimate the parameter values that produce the best fit. The overall fit of the model is extremely good. A crucial test for alternative models would be to show that they have similar probabilities of producing the observed STR data. The best-fitting parameter values suggest that modern humans expanded out of Africa starting about 50,000 years ago from a founding population with an effective size of about 1,000 individuals. Archeological evidence appears to indicate reductions in human population size in southern Africa around 50,000 years ago, probably caused by increasing aridity,50 which may be related to the timing of the modern

human expansion out of Africa.

RichBlinne (talk) 20:01, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

due weight

the intro makes it sound as if judgement was still pending between single and multiregional origin, while in reality, the scales have tilted significantly in favour of single-origin since the 1990, due to previously unavailable genetic evidence. "multiregional origin" should be presented as a theory that used to be competing, but was rendered obsolete in the course of the 1990s. dab (𒁳) 09:20, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Particularly in the last few months it has gone single-origin. I added a new reference in the opening graf referencing a recent PNAS paper to show this. Also, note this from the January 2008 issue of Evolutionary Anthropology:

Weaver and Roseman, New Developments in the Genetic Evidence for Modern Human Origins, Evolutionary Anthropology 17:69–80 (2008)

The genetic evidence for modern human origins was reviewed recently in Evolutionary Anthropology by Pearson, so our goal is to highlight new developments rather than attempt a comprehensive review. For years, polarized Multiregional and Out-of-Africa models for modern human origins were debated vigorously, but today there is substantial agreement among specialists. One area of broad consensus is that Africa or, more accurately, sub-Saharan Africa, played a predominant role in the origins of modern humans. This view is found even among researchers who argue against complete replacement of nonmodern Eurasians. The importance of Africa is clear not only from genetics, but also from the fossil record. On the other hand, most researchers also agree that, at least in principle, modern humans and nonmodern Eurasians, such as Neandertals, could have interbred with each other. The fossil record suggests that Neandertals and modern humans constituted independent evolutionary lineages, but their recent common ancestry leaves open the possibility of admixture. The open question is whether there is any evidence of admixture.

RichBlinne (talk) 19:44, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

direct quotes from some sources

feel free to add any of this futurebird 00:23, 8 March 2007 (UTC) :


In 1994 Marta Mirazon Lahr and Robert Foley wrote that, although not all would agree, evidence for a single recent origin is accumulating. They theorize that the pattern of diversity behavioural, linguistic, morphological and genetic may be interpreted as the result of dispersals, colonisation, differentiation and subsequent dispersals overlaid on former population ranges.[1] A 1996 study of DNA sequences of Alu elements indicate that the observed virtual lack of sequence polymorphism is the signature of a recent single origin for modern humans, with general replacement of archaic populations.[2] In 2006 Hua Liu, Franck Prugnolle, Andrea Manica, and François Balloux wrote that currently available genetic and archaeological evidence is generally interpreted as supportive of a recent single origin of modern humans in East Africa. However, this is where the near consensus on human settlement history ends, and considerable uncertainty clouds any more detailed aspect of human colonization history.[3]

Out of Africa but later breeding between human species

I remeber reading about in some news article this year maby national geographic that recent genetic evidence from the partial sequencing of the Neanderthal gnome suggest that at some point after we moved out of Africa modern humans mated with Neanderthals. I saw no info about this in the article. I think it would deserve at least a mention. Does anyone have more information.Lonjers 05:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The general consensus is that we just don't know. The overwhelming amount of DNA evidence supports a Recent Out of Africa model, but it should be noted that some European DNA looks like it came from Africa a lot longer ago than the 100,000 years ago that is usually given for moder human dispersal. There are two basic ways to interpret this, either the DNA that looks old is just an anomaly, and as we find out more about our genome we will be able to reconcile it with an exclusively recent out of Africa thesis, or there really was some reproduction between archaic humans and modern humans that has been passed down to some of us today. If the second is accepted, then it is usually considered to be an extremelly small contribution, because most of the evidence shows a recent African origin, and because all modern humans are very similar globally. Chris Stringer says that most [researchers] now espouse a version of the ‘out of Africa’ model, although there are differences of opinion over the complexity of the processes of origin and dispersal, and over the amount of mixing that might subsequently have occurred with archaic (non-modern) humans outside of Africa2,7. [1] If there were large amounts of archaic DNA in us, then we would all look very different to each other. By that I mean that archaic hominids were very different to modern humans, and were very different to each other in different parts of the world (Homo erectus was very different to Homo neanderthalensis for example). If there had been large gene transfer between modern humans and, say Neanderthals in Europe and Erectus in Asia, then modern Europeans would be more like Neanderthals and less like modern Asians. Clearly modern Asians are more like modern Europeans than either group is like any archaic species. This holds true for all modern humans from all parts of the world. We are all more anatomically and genetically similar to each other than any of us are to any archaic. If there was reproduction between Cro magnons and Neanderthals in Europe, then it might also mean reclassifying Neanderthals, currently the current classification is absed on an assumption of no gene transfer directly between the populations, hence they are different species, Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis, if gene transfer due to sexual activity were shown, and it were shown that these interactions produced viable offspring (ie offspring that were fully functioning and could reproduce, often the offspring of different species, like a mule or liger are sterile) then the different populations would need to be considered the same species, ie we would be Homo sapiens sapiens and Neanderthals would be Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. Some classifications do actually consider Neanderthals to be a subspecies of Homo sapiens, though I don't think this is the consensus. As for the claim that part of the Neanderthal genome has been sequenced, I have not heared anything about this. Indeed I think it unlikely that genomic DNA from the species would have survived, genomic DNA is very long, and very complex, and is likelly to have degraded. DNA has been isolated from Neandethal mitochondria on several occasions, but this is very different from modern mitochndrial DNA, and seems to indicate that our common ancestor with Neanderthals was over 400,000 years ago. Of course mtDNS has it's limitations, it can only tell us about a specific lineage, and just because so far no Neanderthal mtDNA is at all close to any modern human mtDNA, this does not proove nor disproove anything. Though this does tend to support the position that modern humans have an exclusively recent African origin. There has been speculation that remains that seem to be "intermediate" between modern humans and Neanderthals indicate reproductive activity between the populations, but there appears to be no genetic evidence for this: It is, however, worthwhile to note that samples considered as anatomically “transitional” between modern humans and Neandertals, such as Vindija (Smith 1984; Wolpoff 1999) and Mladeč (Frayer 1986, Frayer 1992; Wolpoff 1999), analyzed here, fail to show any evidence of mtDNA admixture between the two groups.[2] I would be very interested to find out about work that has managed to extract and sequence Neanderthal genomic DNA if you can remember the source. Cheers. Alun 12:01, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for the info. That is interesting stuff. Anyway I found a link http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/discoveries/2006-11-15-neanderthal-genome_x.htm . It is hard to tell without the actual journal articles whether they really will be able to get enough uncorrupted DNA to sequence a whole genome though. Lonjers 05:50, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

The new theory you read about is actually consistent with BOTH major theories, i.e. Out-of-Africa and multiregional. There is actually NOT overwhelming evidence for the Out-of-Africa theory - nuclear DNA evidence (as opposed to Y-choromosome and mtDNA) actually contradicts the Out-of-Africa theory. The new synthetic theory is kind of like an Out-of-AfricaX2 model. Anyway, the new model needs some time to get digested by the community, but it's important. On another note, because of the new model, all the pages on human evolution need a revamp. Yutgoyun 18:51, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

There's a link to the journal articles in the link you posted. Look here. I'm somewhat sceptical about AMH/Neanderthal breeding, and if it did happen it must have been small scale, modern humans are justall to similar for Europeans to have any significant Neanderthal ancestry compared to other modern humans. Significant Neanderthal ancestry for Europeans is not compatible with the fact that humans are so genetically homogeneous compared to other mammals, there would be far more between group diversity than there is. Long and Kittles wrote a very good paper showing that genetic diversity deacreases with distance from Africa, indicating a series of founder events from Africa. I don't think it's true to claim that most autosomal work contradicts the Out of Africa model, though some appears to be inconsistent with it. A great deal, probably most autosomal work supports Out of Africa. For example genetic diversity is greatest in Africa. See Tishkoff and Kid for example. Well maybe I'm just generally a sceptic, most people involved with science are. Cheers. Alun 19:26, 23 March 2007 (UTC)

These two sentences from the article seem self-contradictory: 121.44.212.249 05:03, 3 September 2007 (UTC)

Archeologists doubt that Neanderthals and homo sapiens were interfertile. This is because Neanderthals and Europeans shared the same habitat for up to 15,000 years yet no undisputed skeletal fossils have been found that show intermediate properties between the two hominids.

Possibile Map Error

I believe that haplogroup X as specified on the map is associated with the Solutrean culture that existed in present-day France and Spain. The haplogroup is shown as being farther to the East, which makes it seem like Scandinavians crossed the ice ridge. Is there a reason for this or should the map be reformed? Aeranis 07:07, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it's an error. The person who made the map based it on a map from Mitomap, I don't know the academic credentials of this map, but it's clear that the map used in the article shows haplogroup X in the same position as this mitomap. The mitomap website seems to cite it's sources well enough. If the map here is based on a map that is derived from reliable sources, then I don't see the problem. If you think there is a serious problem, then you can always address it by giving the alternative point of view in the article, as per the neutral point of view policy (if it still exists as policy, they were going to change it to attribution or something). Cheers. Alun 17:39, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Intro edits

Hope no one minds my Intro and History edits to - I think - improve expression, readability and general flow. Regards Mattjs 06:05, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

WOW: Someone has done a lot of work to the article now (including lots of pics) and I won't hold reverts of my earlier edits against her or him: think I might actually read it in its entirety now! Regards and many thanks, Mattjs 05:32, 28 May 2007 (UTC)
Added the last line in the "Physical appearance" section on sexual selection to the new editors otherwise great effort as it rounds out and completes his comments there: cf the next "Multi-regional theory" section. 220.240.58.190 19:50, 31 May 2007 (UTC)

references

  1. ^ Multiple dispersals and modern human origins Marta Mirazon Lahr and Robert Foley 1994
  2. ^ DNA sequences of Alu elements indicate a recent replacement of the human autosomal genetic complement
  3. ^ A Geographically Explicit Genetic Model of Worldwide Human-Settlement History Hua Liu, Franck Prugnolle, Andrea Manica, and François Balloux The American Journal of Human Genetics, volume 79 (2006), pages 230–237

physical appearance

This section needs to be re-vamped. Unlike our gnetics, the variation of physical appearance id definitely vary unexplained. For example, how is it that of all the northern/colder climates populations, only northern Europeans have the fairest complexions, but all the other northern peoples (Inuit, Siberians, American Indians, etc.) who have inhabited the same climates (actually much colder) just as long, if not longer, than the northern Europeans but have retaned dark hair colour, darker skin colour, darker eye colour. The NOrthern Europeans however do not have any of these fatures. Physical appearance is one of biggest main factors still able to strongly support the multi-regional and hybrid theories. 69.157.116.59 04:20, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

according to the hypothesis the reason is diet, the inuits are hunt seal and fish which are high in vitamin D. Whereas the the europeans switched to farming cereals low in vitamin D 11,000 years ago.Muntuwandi 13:13, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
Nutritional issues aside, I tend to disagree as as sexual selection and recent waves of migration (of differing tribal and racial groups in early modern times) are sufficient explanations for the physical differences. For Jared Diamond this ia a necessary argument to explain the dark skinned peoples found in some cold and temperate climates and it does in my opinion fully explain the situation. Though it may be a point of dispute to some in the multi-regional and hybrid camps it is I believe an argument that provides ample support to the out of africa hypothesis and no additional nutritional evidence is required though that would of course only add to it if well supported or established... The Jared Diamond book referenced is a very good an compeling read from someone not necessarily an expert the field painting a good broad brush overview. Regards Mattjs

Source

Combined, the finds hint at the extent of the culture and symbolism being practiced by the earliest modern humans. Art and decoration like the beads are considered good indicators of how human behavior evolved from Africa to other parts of the globe.

"A major question in evolutionary studies today is 'how early did humans begin to think and behave in ways we would see as fundamentally modern?'," said co-author Nick Barton of Oxford University. "The appearance of ornaments such as these may be linked to a growing sense of self-awareness and identity among humans."

Some researchers have suggested that humans didn't become culturally modern until they reached Europe about 35,000 years ago. But Europe, which doesn't show evidence of similar jewelry or customs until much later, actually lagged behind in cultural development, Stringer said.

"This research shows that a long lasting and widespread bead-working tradition associated with early modern humans extended through Africa to the Middle East well before comparable evidence appears in Europe," Stringer said in a 2006 prepared statement, commenting on the just-released, very ancient dates for the Israeli beads.

"Modern human anatomy and behavior have deep roots in Africa and were widespread by 75,000 years ago, even though they may not have appeared in Europe for another 35,000 years," he said.


http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070618/sc_livescience/80000yearoldbeadsshedlightonearlyculture


futurebird 18:47, 18 June 2007 (UTC)

peking man

the article says

"School textbooks in Taiwan and in China teach that the Chinese are the descendants not only of the Yellow Emperor, but also, going a lot further back in time, Peking Man."[3] Muntuwandi 23:54, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Map

Is't the map taken from nature genetics (supplement), page 266-275, volume 33, 2003? I was thinking of copy rights etc. 193.156.79.200 15:06, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

The effect of bottlenecks on human variation

This article on The effect of ancient population bottlenecks on human phenotypic variation appears to be of some relevance, at least according to /. . . dave souza, talk 18:17, 19 July 2007 (UTC)

Is the full text accessible somewhere? --JWB 23:28, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
This seems more detailed and there is probably some updated info. It seems that this article doesn't cover the topic very well, included some updated references on possible relation to Toba Catastrophe as in this BBC article. Topic is better covered in Human and Human evolution. CarolMooreDC (talk) 17:24, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Nominated most ancient common ancestor for deletion

Someone created a new article called Most ancient common ancestor. Notice that it is ancient, not recent. It appears to be a new name coined by the author without research backing (i.e. original research). I nominated that page for deletion. Please visit Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Most ancient common ancestor if you wish to participate in the discussion. I am posting this message in this discussion page because the topic in question is closely related to this article. In fact, the topic in question seemed to have been created as an attack on Recent single origin hypothesis. Again, please note that I am not nominating the Most Recent Common Ancestor article for deletion; I am nominating the newly created Most Ancient Common Ancestor. Fred Hsu 05:44, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

yes, that title is patent nonsense, probably even a speedy. dab (𒁳) 17:51, 22 July 2007 (UTC)

Recent findings about habilis and erectus

User:Al-Zaidi inserted a copy of the text at [4] to the article which I just removed. It's a great finding, but let's cite the actual paper at Nature, not yahoo news. Also, please digest the findings and rewrite it in your own words before adding it to wikipedia. Fred Hsu 20:50, 9 August 2007 (UTC)

I removed a new section Al-Zaidi added, again, in a rewritten fashion, about the same topic. I fail to see how this has any relation to this article, about the recent single origin hypothesis. The article states that H. erectus is the first hominid to leave Africa. What does H. habilis have to do with this theory? The discussion belongs to H. erectus/habilis pages or human evolution. Fred Hsu 03:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

According to a new find by the paleontologist Meave Leakey published in the British Journal of Nature, the old theory that Homo erectus directly evolved out of Homo habilis rending the evolutionary picture of ape to man, is now challenged. Her finds show that both species of hominids lived side by side in Kenya 1.5 million years ago for at least 500 000 years. Fossilised bones found in 2000, show that a complete skull of Homo erectus was found within walking distance of an upper jaw of Homo habilis(dated at 1.44 million years ago), both fossils dated from the same general time period. according to researshers, this makes it unlikey that Homo erectus directly evolved out of Homo habilis.

According to study co-author Fred Spoor, a professor of evolutionary anatomy at the University College in London, "It's the equivalent of finding that your grandmother and great-grandmother were sisters rather than mother-daughter", "The two species lived near each other, but probably didn't interact, each having its own ecological niche".

The diet of Homo habilis was most likely vegetarian whilst that of Homo erectus included meat. They most likey avoided eachother like chimps and apes.

According to Spoor human evolution is a "chaotic kind of looking evolutionary tree rather than this heroic march that you see with the cartoons of an early ancestor evolving into some intermediate and eventually unto us," Spoor said in a phone interview from a field office of the Koobi Fora Research Project in northern Kenya.

This finding is equivalent to the finding that Humans didn't evolve from Neanderthals but lived side by side.

Random discussion removed from lead section

About whether single origin is about homo or homo sapiens sapies: I can believe it has two meanings, or that the former meaning has been replaced by the second (which would be metaphorically fitting). I was sure I had heard "African Eve" in contexts about the ancestor of Java man and Peking man. But I searched "African Eve" in the Gale electronic bibliography of articles and couldn't find any use predating Wilson's mitochondrial DNA study. So now African Eve seems to mean only mitochondrial Eve. Perhaps the same fate befell "single origin." In any event, the refs for this article and the links to it from other wiki articles require that it talk about the Out-of-Africa or "replacement" model, which says Peking man and Neanderthal et al were supplanted, without interbreeding, by the descendants of recent African migrants. So it will need rewriting and probably splitting in two and changes to the links to it if "single origin" indeed refers to an African exodus of early homo. 168... 20:43 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

From Science News, May 17, 2003 "Mark Stoneking of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, an advocate of this **single-origin model** of human evolution, nonetheless regards the new evidence with caution. He hasn't seen the report but worries that the Cro-Magnon DNA is contaminated. However, mitochondrial DNA analyses of living people align with the single-origin, or **out-of-Africa,** scenario, Stoneking says. "

"Adherents of the contrasting **multiregional-origin** theory..." 168... 21:15 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Here's the earliest reference I can find to "single origin." It's a news article written by a science journalist, which appeared in Science magazine in 1987, on the heels of Stoneking and Wilson's first evidence for a "mitochondrial Eve." Note that the usage of terms in this excerpt implies that if one applies "single origin" to the million-odd-year old exodus, one will be speaking about what many people nowadays call the multi-regional origin model--i.e. the very opposite of what most people nowadays seem to mean by "single origin."

"The first, termed the candelabra model by Harvard University's William Howells, proposes that ancestral populations--specifically, Homo erectus--throughout the Old World each independently evolved first to archaic Homo sapiens, then to fully modern humans. This model, which has also been called the Neandertal phase hypothesis, therefore envisages multiple origins of Homo sapiens sapiens, and no necessary migrations. One consequence would be that modern geographic populations would have very deep roots, having been separated from each other for a very long time, perhaps as much as a million years.

"The second, which Howells called the Noah's Ark model, envisages a geographically discrete origin, followed by migration throughout the rest of the Old World. In this model, populations of Archaic sapiens might be completely replaced by the newcomers. So, by contrast with the candelabra model, here we have a single origin and extensive migration. Moreover, modern geographic populations would have relatively shallow roots, having derived from a single source in relatively recent times. "

It seems "Noah's Ark" didn't stick and "Out-of-Africa" or "African Eve model" are what researhers use.168... 21:31 17 Jun 2003 (UTC)


Re: "(anatomically modern humans)...evolved in Africa about 250,000 years ago", can you cite a source for this, SLR? Nothing I've read gives a number like this. I think the only people who speculate on this number are the Out-of-Africanists, who base their guesses on DNA evidence. In my readings, I most often see the date of the exodus and the date of the emergence of the species alike reckoned as "100 to 200 000 years ago"; i.e. separate dates aren't attached to the era of the common ancestor and the African exodus. 168... 20:07 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

It is just a number I got out of a textbook -- if you have better dating, yes please change it. I just think that we need some estimate/approximate date for the emergence of Homo sapiens. I'll check other sources, but like I said, if you know of some recent consensus among paleoanthropologists, please by all means put it in (but I would expect the date for the speciation and the date for the movement out of Africa to be different) Slrubenstein

"The age of the most recent common ancestor (MRCA) for mtDNA, on the basis of the maximum distance between two humans...is estimated to be 171,500 +/- 50,000 yr. We can also estimate the age of the MRCA for the youngest clade that contains both African and non-African sequences from the mean distance of all members of that clade to their common node as 52, 000 yr. **Because genetic divergence is expected to precede the divergence of populations, this date can be considered as the lower bound for an exodus from Africa. " From "Mitochondrial genome variation and the origin of modern humans" Ingman, Paabo and others, NATURE VOL 408 7 DECEMBER 2000

So actually, with respect to my earlier comment, actually there is some basis for distinguishing the dates of the migration and the evolution from the DNA data, and some people are trying to do so. I read this excerpt before but forgot about it.

The only place I know to look for consensus or controversy in news stories and encyclopedia articles, where I don't recall seening argument about when H sapiens evolved _in Africa_. I figure the multiregionalists don't often have cause to argue that particular point, b/c events in Africa aren't central to them. 168... 20:29 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I am sure you are right on this last place. I have misplaced my most recent textbooks; earlier ones date the emergence of Hs to the middle pleistocene but I am sure the date can be pushed further back. I also suspect that fossil evidence will suggest that Hs emerged before the MRCA. Well, every article is a work in progress. For what it is worth, though, I wanted to tell you that I think this is sha[ing into a very good article. I feel like you have been more respectful of my changes, and I appreciate that -- but I want to emphasize that I also value many of your own changes and additions. Slrubenstein

I appreciate your cooperativeness too, and am glad for the signs that we might be able to work together in the future without antagonism. That's certainly my hope. Also, just in your capacity as an anthropologist, I'm glad you approve of the shape the article is taking and of contributions I've made to it.

One point about consensus that may not need making, but which I wish I had: For the paragraph in question, of course, we only need the consensus of the Out-of-Africansts, b/c this paragraph is about their contention. That's why I felt quoting Paabo's words alone established at least something. I ended up characterizing the dates as the BBC and other news sources have done. 168... 21:01 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'm glad to see you share my feelings about working together. I also think you are quite right that for dating, it is only a consensus among the Single Origin people that need concern us. In lieu of any other information, I think the change you made to the date (the rather broad range) is good -- appropriate and well-stated. I do not know if this article is the appropriate place for a more polemical discussion of evolution, but I do think it is important that readers understand that the issue iiat hand really is whether Homo sapiens evolved in only one place or many -- not whether we all share an ancestor, for no matter where H. sapiens evolved, as long as you go back far enough evolutionary theory argues that all human beings have a common ancestor (I mean, multi-regionalists too think we have a common ancestor, it is just that our common ancestor, they argue, was H. erectus or some other species), as indeed all living organisms are descended from a common ancestor. I think this claim is something most people do not understand, or have a hostile reaction to -- and so it is important to explain it clearly. But perhaps such a general explanation belongs in the evolution article, not here (I am just musing out loud, as it were). Anyway, for the moment I think it is a fine article, Slrubenstein

The only thing that concerns me right now is the statement about when the first homo species evolved. At the very least, it's vague, and it's been made vague in order to produce a statement all the debators would agree on. I'd rather it weren't so vague. But I worry that it's inaccurate or misleading. In particular I'm thinking of the austrolopithicenes, which go back many more millions of years (4 mya?), and which I assume are Homo. Also 8 mya sticks in my mind for when apes and humans are supposed to have diverged (probably a number I picked up a long time ago, which could be out of date even if my recollection is perfect), and although I know that homo isn't supposed to have been born at the instant, I noticed on wiki the assertion that some researchers have proposed including apes in Homo. I don't know how seriously to take the assertion, but to the extent there's controversy about what species count as Homo, I don't think we should create an impression there isn't one. Given the context of this article, I think it would better under such a circumstance to come up with a sentence that avoids the subject all together. Could you say what you had in mind when you wrote that everyone agrees that the origin of Homowas "more than two million years ago"? 168... 22:36 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Actually, I see now that at least some academics don't put australopithicenes in Homo, even though they are "hominids" (and they date the first Homo to around 2 mya, as you wrote). I didn't catch on to the homind/hominoid distinction until very recently.168... 23:05 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

That's right. There are debates over the evolutionary line of descent, but obviously at some point back in time we have ancestors who are not of genus Homo -- the questions are, when, and what to call them. I don't have any books in front of me right now, but I think your 8 million figure refers to our divergence from gorillas; I think we diverged from chimps around 5 million years ago. That would be our last divergence from the line of any other living primate -- but that divergence does not necessarily mark the beginning of genus Homo. By definition, australopithecines are not genus Homo, they are genus Australopithecus.
I came up witht the "over 2,000,000" phrase because to my knowledge Homo habilus was the first species of genus Homo, and used to be dated to 2m BP, but that firgure keeps getting pushed back.
Given that we are providing a year for the out-migration, I think it is crucial to provide some similarly approximate year for the evolution of that species.
You are quite right that there is ongoing debate, but I think our phrasing right now is careful enough to be acceptable to most scholars. Perhaps what we need somewhere is a link to other articles, and an explanation that these dates and classifications are approximate and subject to some debate? Slrubenstein
The entry is shaping up well, people. Nice going! Just one comment to make at this stage (particularly as most of my attention is elsewhere at the moment) and that regards your comment that: given that we are providing a year for the out-migration, I think it is crucial to provide some similarly approximate year for the evolution of that species, SLR. I'm not so sure about that. The out-migration is a concrete event. It happened at a particular exact time. Given appropriate evidence (which may even exist somewhere and be discovered tommorow) we may be able to learn what that time was, perhaps to an accuracy of a few thousand years.
The metamorphis of early hominids into the genus Homo, however, was not a concrete event. In nature there is no such thing as a "genus", that's simply a very convenient but quite arbitrary descriptive category that we humans have taken to imposing on the world (because it helps us make sense of things). The out-migration event, in other words, happened in and close to Africa perhaps 200,000 years ago - but the genus-transformation event happened in the mind of researchers in London during 1896 and New York in 1953, and so on). (No particular significance to those dates and places here, just random examples.)
The "first creatures of genus Homo" then, is like "the smallest large town in the USA" or the "first real motor car" - within reason, you can draw the line anywhere you like. How big is a "large" town? How practical does a car have to be before it's a "real" one? Opinions vary. Indeed, as you know, a significant number of biologists (probably a minority but by no means a crackpot view) hold that the genus-transformation event has not happened at all - humans, in this view, belong to the same genus as the other great apes.
A few years ago, DNA-DNA hybridisation pioneer Charles Sibley and his co-workers made a valiant attempt to put the arbitrary species-genus-family-order distinctions we use on a firm scientific footing: they set particular levels of measured genetic difference: more than X% different = different family, less than X% = same family but different genus, and so on. Sibley did most of his work with birds (which are particularly well-studied and in most cases have genetic material conveniently available in existing collections). As I recall, at one stage if we applied the Sibley method to humans and chimps, we would have been flat out even regarding them as different species, let alone different genera!
Since then, new and improved genetic difference measurements have come along and the human-chimp DNA difference is now thought to be (from memory) more like 5% than (as was once thought) about 1%. (The jury is still out on this though, and research continues apace.) There has also been a good deal of criticism of the rather mindless numerical difference method of defining a species (or genus). Critics point out - quite rightly - that defining a genus by picking a number in advance and then melting DNA to see if it works out to more or less than 7.8% is every bit as arbitary as defining it by counting the number of toe bones or primary feathers or measuring the ratio between skull volume and estimated average body mass. Nevertheless, those studies were and continue to be enormously influential. The American Ornithologists Union, for example, has adopted the Sibley-Munroe taxonomy almost completely, as have several other major bodies, and even those who have chosen not to adopt it have been greatly influenced by it.
Having said all that, I am now going to contradict myself and say that we should try to date "the great leap forward" - the apparently rather sudden aquisition of vastly increased language (and thus cognition, cultural transmission, and survival) skills. That, for my money, is the cruical date to place alongside the out-migration event - and it is also (at least in many researchers' opinion) the one great difference between humans and non-humans. (Seems to me that if we are going to draw a line between genera, this is the best place to do it - but this last is purely my own opinion: I don't know if any of the experts share it or not.) Last I heard, the best guess date for the great leap forward was in the order of 125,000 years ago. Tannin
Tannin, I appreciate your point and fully understand it although I think we are talking about two different things. You are talking about the conceptual nature of our taxonomic categories -- a point 168 alluded to, to which I responded with a seggestion of a brief note and a link to other articles. It is true that genus and species are ideas based on statistical patterns (of gene frequencies or of osteological remains or of other criteria). But they still refer to concrete real things. Much of the evidence for migration is fossil remains, and these same fossil remains are used to reconstruct hominid/hominoid evolution.
(I think many theoretical disputes among physical anthropologists and zooligists has to do with what kind of data they rely on, fossil evidence or genetic evidence. Obviously both are important and with time I am sure scientists can work out models that fit both sorts of evidence. So I take your examples from genetics with some qualifications. But I also accept your larger point that the cutoff from one species to another is arbitrary. You are right that you can't say that a new species emerged in June 2003 -- but this doesn't mean that you can't give a date, it is just that the date must take the form of a range.)
I think some sort of date -- even if it is within a 100,000 year range -- is important because advocates of both the multiregional and the single origin models agree that we are all descended from a common African ancestor, but they disagree as to whether that common African ancestor was Homo sapiens, or of an earlier Hominoid species. To decide between these two theories it is not enough to have a date for migration, especially since there have been several migrations out of Africa. You also need a date for the evolution of Homo erectus and for Homo sapiens. I agree with you that these dates are necessarily not only approximate but must take the form of a range, given the statistical nature of that to which they refer. But to me, this does not mean that a date is inappropriate or impossible, it just means that the date will take a different form (viz. approximate and a range) than the date of a "concrete event." Slrubenstein

The Theory in its existance will never, outdo the ability of man to conclusivly adhear that he was placed on earth by some higher being, and all Evolution is in its context is a direct wall upon the thought of that being.

Yeah, whatever. Check your spelling dude, and sign your posts. -Ste|vertigo 21:28, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Implies Neanderthal existed millions of years

following sentence seems inconsistent with previous para, which states Neanderthal lasted 300k yrs

Stone technology remained relatively unchanged and unsophisticated for millions of years during the periods of erectus and the Neanderthals

revise to?

Stone technology remained relatively unchanged and unsophisticated during the periods of erectus and the Neanderthals —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.202.248.81 (talk) 12:51, August 20, 2007 (UTC)

emergence of modern behavior

"The oldest view that early Homo sapiens didn't have full modern behavior was built largely on an absence of evidence," added Minichillo. "Now we have data that doesn't match that idea. It may be that early modern humans had that ability when they first appeared on the landscape."


http://www.physorg.com/news111847910.html

22:09, 26 October 2007 (UTC)

Problematic use of sources

The following sentence from the third paragraph of the section "Modern behavior" remains completely unsupported by its references:

  • Since cultural universals are found in all cultures including the most isolated indigenous groups, scientists believe that these traits must have evolved or have been invented in Africa prior to the exodus.

There is nothing in these sources suggesting that scientists adhering to the Recent single origin hypothesis believe that all (or even most) cultural universals evolved prior to the exodus from Africa. Either the sentence needs to be stricken or the sources need to be changed.PelleSmith 22:28, 30 October 2007 (UTC)

Adapting minds page 467-468Muntuwandi 22:39, 30 October 2007 (UTC)
There is no way to view that page online and you are confirming what I saw by reading the other two sources--they DO NOT state anything of the sort (I am removing them). I'll get back to you after I take a look at this book, but even if your page reference is correct one source is a far cry from "scientists" in general.PelleSmith 11:39, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
I am moving the two references that have been misapplied here to save them since they are clearly good references for something else.
Find appropriate places for these references please.PelleSmith 11:43, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
If you have an amazon account and have purchased a book before you can have access to the page. However here is a short excerpt from a book reviewer.
the existence of a cultural universal may signal only a common origin of all the world's cultures, rather than common psychological adaptions among all the world's peoples. Review of chapter 13 of adapting minds. Muntuwandi 21:28, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for directing me to the actual book, which I got from the library today. You are entirely misrepresenting it. Here is perhaps the most relevant paragraph from page 486, which starts the way you just quoted above:

  • "Thus the existence of a cultural universal may signal only a common origin of all the world's cultures, rather than common psychological adaptations among all the world's peoples. For, rather than being independently generated within every culture by human psychologies, some cultural universals may have been produced epidemiologically within the ancestral human culture, and they may have then merely persisted in human cultures throughout the process of population expansion and divergence. In this way, some current cultural universals may have a common cultural origin, rather than common psychological origins. To put it yet another way, some cultural universals may be cultural homologies--cultural traits that derived, possibly with modification, from a cultural trait of the ancestral human population from which we all evolved."

The very next paragraph notably starts with this sentence: "There is, in fact intriguing evidence of cultural homology, although the phenomenon of cultural homology has been little studied." In this sentence we see that clearly Buller's idea of cultural homology is not representative of a large group of scientists at all--hence stating emphatically that "scientists" have concluded something is not correct. Of course Buller also makes it clear in his prose that he is only putting forth an idea, not a "conclusion"--meaning that we cannot claim that this is even a conclusion reached by this one scientist. Moreover his idea only hypothesizes that "some cultural universals may be cultural homologies"--meaning that even he does not hypothesize that all cultural universals stem from a common human culture developed prior to the exodus--of course he clearly does not claim that all cultural universals were developed fully prior to the exodus. In the end the language in the entry is atrociously misleading. Of course two of the references were also complete red herrings. I will try to reformulate the prose in this instance, but I think this entire entry needs to be thoroughly checked for this kind of source abuse.PelleSmith 22:11, 31 October 2007 (UTC)

Some cultural phenomena may be present in all cultures because those phenomena were present in the culture of the ancestral human population from which all extant cultures have descended. p467Muntuwandi 22:25, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
What's your point? Some ... may ... some ... may. Get it? I have the book. I've read the surrounding pages. You're being misleading. Drop it.PelleSmith 22:39, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Nicholas Wade writes,
Yet the ancestral population, even if generally inclined to aggression, presumable possessed all the major elements of human behavior that occur in descendant populations around the world, since otherwise all of these behaviors would have had to evolve or be invented independently in each of thousands of societies
Whatever the genesis of these universals, the fact that they are found in societies throughout the world suggests strongly that they would have been possessed by the ancestral human population before its dispersal.
Before the Dawn Page 65. Muntuwandi 23:33, 31 October 2007 (UTC)
Who else do you want to take out of context? Also Wade is a journalist and NOT a scientist. "Suggest strongly" is also simply a hypothesis.PelleSmith 02:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Your removal of reliably sourced information is without merit. Wade is a science journalist for the New York Times which is a well respected newspaper. The book has been recognized and has received good reviews [5] from scientists such as E. O. Wilson and Matt Ridley[6]. The book won the 2007 Science in Society Journalism Awards award[7]. Hence this qualifies as a reputable and reliable source. Muntuwandi 03:26, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
A number of scholars have therefore suggested that cultural universals may in fact be cultural homologies that originate from a common human ancestry. They also suggest that these universals would have evolved or would have been invented by homo sapiens prior to their dispersal from Africa around 50,000 years ago.Otherwise it would mean that these universals would have had to have been invented independently in each of the thousands of human societies found around the world.
This is no different than the quote from the book. Muntuwandi 03:37, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
There are not a number of scholars and Wade is not a "scholar" in the first place. Besides this the real scientist you cite does not suggest that at all. He suggest that "some" cultural universals "may have" evolved prior to dispersal. You're simply fabricating now.PelleSmith 03:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Pellesmith, once again you are being unprofessional by disputing reliably sourced information. In many articles that I have edited, when other editors introduce material that I do not agree with, I do not remove it if it is reliably sourced, instead I search for better quality sources. it is such behavior that results in unnecessary Edit wars. I have provided external evidence of notability of the subject matter. If you disagree find reliable sources to counter this instead of removing well sourced information. Whether it isBuller or Wade they all say the same thing. Wade is more brief and eloquent because he is a journalist. Whereas Buller is a psychologist who goes into greater detail. It does not really matter they say the same thing, that in general a cultural universal like fear of snakes or the incest taboo is likely to have a common origin. Both Wade and Buller discuss the fear of snakes as human universal that dates back to the savanna's of Africa,buller on pages 58-61 and Wade on 65. So I do not say any major differences in their approach. These universal human behaviors range from cooking, dance and divination to fear of snakes. Muntuwandi 04:22, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Your buddy User_Talk:Dbachmann was recently involved in an edit war which resulted in a block, so I suggest you take it easy with all these reverts. Muntuwandi 04:28, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Dbachmann is only my buddy in as far as he also has no tolerance for POV pushing inaccuracies. BTW, my first edit was not a revert but a removal, so you would be violating 3RR before I do, keep that in mind. Neither of these authors claim what you want them to and I have shown this clearly above. Keep in mind that months ago you originally added two other sources that have nothing at all to say about this issue. It is clear that you are being deceptive and that you know it. You want the world to believe that something that is simply a suggestion about the development of some cultural universals is a well established scientific fact about ALL cultural universals. My rewording is accurate and yours simply is not.PelleSmith 11:51, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

indeed. The fact that your tag-team tricked me into a fourth revert doesn't justify your behaviour Muntuwandi, nor does it somehow miraculously make more encyclopedic the material you are pushing. Try to wisen up and edit responsibly, it's the only way you'll ever have an effect on Wikipedia content. dab (𒁳) 14:46, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Dbachmann, please keep your comments civil and refrain from making wild accusations about "tag teams" "tricking" you. futurebird 15:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Dbachmann, I was not part of any tag team, I offline when the incident occurred. Muntuwandi 18:03, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I see WP:CIVIL invoked a lot these days by people who want to obscure the fact that they have no case content-wise. I am perfectly civil. You don't see me shouting obscenities. I will still not let civilization stand in the way of calling a troll a troll, or nonsense nonsense. How about you clean up your own act first and worry about stylistic details in the commens of other editors later. --dab (𒁳) 10:24, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't see any problem with including this material. It might help to mention the name of the author in the sentence al la: "so-and-so writes that..." for maximum NPOV effect. But, I do think it should stay. futurebird 15:43, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't either, under those stipulations, and that is exactly how my version, which was current when you wrote this, treats the information. The problem comes from Muntuwandi not being satisfied with stating the name of the scholar (he wants to say something of the effect of "many scientists"), and with his desire to state that all cultural universals originated in Africa which the scholar in question clearly does not claim. There is no problem with the accurate presentation of this material, it is distorted version that I don't care for.PelleSmith 16:12, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I have no problem with attribution. Muntuwandi 18:03, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Cultural Universals

Hi guys. I'm an anthro prof and saw your posts at WP:Anthro. Here's my take: "cultural universals" are not much pursued in anthropology these days. Many of us are rather dismissive of the notion. On the one hand, we like to show people that "race" is baloney--that all peoples everywhere are "human," which is to say they possess culture, weep, laugh, think reflexively, manipulate their environments, etc. On the other hand, these sweeping equations of universality become problematic under scrutiny: e.g., people laugh and cry for very different reasons... name a human trait, from parenting to medical diagnosis and you're liable to find such diversity that it's almost hard to compare. So most of us really avoid the pursuit of supposed 'universals.'

As for the idea that all universals developed before the exodus from Africa... it can't be tested. We have lots of evidence that early homo sapiens was recognizably "human" to us--social, spiritual, charitable, artistic, etc. Above, there's talk about dance--that's just speculation. We don't know and we never will. 'Fear of snakes' arguably predates humanity--an ape instinct--so why call it a "cultural universal?" Some things-- use of fire, cooking, funerals--were probably universal to all human groups, but we just don't (and won't ever) know. There may have been groups and branches surviving without funerals, without decorating their bodies, etc. We just can't say.

In sum, I don't think it helps to mention 'cultural universals' in this context. And I certainly think it's impossible to say that all cultural universals were present before the African exodus. The evidence just doesn't sustain that claim. Were we pretty darn "human" by the time we left Africa? Heck yeah. Maybe that's the point--we weren't a bunch of "savage" apes when we left Africa--we were fully "human:" we were communicating, caring, intelligent, tool-making, social people. We didn't become human after leaving Africa: we were humans in Africa first. Without claiming that all universals were formed there, I think the point is that were humans in Africa, and have been continuously, ever since. --Smilo Don 14:05, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

To be blunt, I really don't care much for any discussion of cultural universals, though clearly some of the institutions, beliefs and practices that are grouped as such are ubiquitous to humanity. In other words I'm not trying to defend the idea of discussing cultural universals at all. On the other hand I am disturbed by the baseless claim that all of the "institutions, beliefs and practices that are grouped as such," should be spuriously attributed to a date prior to the dispersal (especially when the sources provided do not defend this claim). The idea that we were recognizably "human" (anatomically, psychologically, socially, culturally, etc.) before the dispersal has never been disputed. It should be clear that any insinuation of such a dispute is a red herring, or part of the usual straw man arguments thrown at those who are unwilling to emphatically back Muntuwandi's exact unfounded version of human history and/or pre-history. In other words I don't disagree with any of this and gracious thanks for your input.PelleSmith 16:32, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Smilo you are right in that cultural universals are not so much pursued in Anthropology. I guess the trouble comes in actually defining what a cultural universal is. But there is a revival of interest in this, Chomsky and Donald Brown have advocated for Universal Grammar and Human Universals. In fact Wade actually references these two scholars. That humans were human before they left Africa is really saying the same thing as human or cultural universals had evolved before humans left africa. The main topic is on modern human behavior, which is what encompasses all these traits that characteristic of human population today. This is really an issue of evolutionary phylogeny. All the traits common to all human population are probably ancestral, Whereas the differences between populations occurred after the exodus. While language is universal it is ancestral but the different languages we speak around the world evolved independently. cooking is ancestral but the recipes around the world evolved independently. Muntuwandi 18:15, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
Dear Muntuwandi, it's one thing to say that cooking was likely a universal before the exodus and it is another to speak of all universals. Is it plausible that, say, body ornamentation was a universal practice before the exodus? Sure. But we'll never know. Ditto for drumming, the incest taboo, marriage, etc. It's interesting to think about, but we don't have any evidence for the claims. The suggestion that all universals were in place is interesting, but damned for a lack of proof. --Smilo Don 18:47, 1 November 2007 (UTC)
I wouldn't say that all universals would have a common origin, but certainly some of the core human universals. One day maybe cell phones will be cultural universals, but they don't have a common origin in the ancestral population. However there is proof at least of some core human universals in the fossil record, such as art or symbolism, Cooking can be inferred from the use of controlled fire from various stone age sites, but probable the Neanderthals cooked too. Archaeological finds of certain bones of birds that have been drilled or shaped to use as a flutes have been found from upper paleolithic sites in europe that date to 36,000 years ago. These indicate that humans had already evolved the capacity for music by that time too. But basically this really is the most logical explanation. Take facial expressions, Every human culture can interpret what a smile is, whether from an isolated tribal group from the highlands of New Guinea to a person in hollywood. A smile to everyone is an expression of happiness. Surely it is not possible for all populations to evolve the same facial expression to the express the same emotion independently. We would have to conclude that if you were to travel back in time and meet a person who lived more than 50000 years ago, and you smiled to him or her, they would understand what you mean. This is the basic theory in its simplest form. Of course it isn't always that simple, convergent evolution does take place but it is always less parsimonious. Muntuwandi 19:06, 1 November 2007 (UTC)

Muntuwandi, what part of WP:SYN do you find difficult to understand? Discuss cultural universals at cultural universals, and discuss current mainstream anthropological takes on OOA at this article. Stop building your personal case on the world in general at selected Wikipedia articles. Wikipedia is not your blog. dab (𒁳) 10:20, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Darned good

This is some pretty good stuff. Good balance, good prose, good lay man's information. I like that author here is keeping his options open about Multitregional vs OOA. The pendulum has swung one way but let's see what the future holds.Tom Schmal 01:10, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

this is actually a bad thing, and the very opposite of "good balance", per WP:CRYSTAL, WP:UNDUE. dab (𒁳) 10:17, 2 November 2007 (UTC)

Recent finding

[8] —Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.69.118.1 (talk) 01:56, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

Article name

I think the current article name is not an accurate reflection of its use in literature. A couple of google searches.

Out of Africa theory seems to be the most popular definition used. Muntuwandi (talk) 07:12, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

I think Recent African Origin model / theory / hypothesis would be better than Recent Single Origin. (I was the editor who renamed the article from Single Origin Hypothesis to Recent Single Origin Hypothesis some time ago because the previous title was less clear.)

I'm not sure whether Origin should be capitalized - the Google search turns up examples of both capitalized and uncapitalized.

Out of Africa is popular and memorable, though I would vote for RAO as academic rather than slangy.

"Clearest of all would be a name that makes specific reference to the time period, as there have been multiple migrations from Africa.

This deserves a separate discussion, but I also feel the article has become a home for all kinds of Paleolithic human history including that not directly relevant to RAO, and that some of that material, though good, might be better in other articles. --JWB (talk) 17:13, 17 December 2007 (UTC)

Google scholar produces the following

Using google scholar RAO is the most popular. Muntuwandi (talk) 06:54, 18 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree with the name change to Recent African origin. I find that the article as well as its title does not adequately reflect the status of the "hypothesis": Over the last ten years or so, it has solidified from the favoured of two possibilities into virtual certainty: there simply isn't any credible alternative left. Keeping it labelled as "hypothesis" is like moving human evolution to human evolution hypothesis, because, after all, Homo sapiens could also be a failed genetic engineering project of an intelligent race of shrimps from Alpha Centauri. dab (𒁳) 09:42, 18 December 2007 (UTC)
The recent scientific literature has a lot of claims of at least a little genetic continuity with earlier humans. See the references at the Multiregional page. --JWB (talk) 23:04, 20 December 2007 (UTC)
On the other hand these claims are often shown to be little more than genetic artifacts such as DNA inversions, which are apparently somewhat impervious to chromosomal recombination, and so can give the appearance of having a great age. The overwhelming evidence and consensus is that AMH are exclusively derived from a recent African exodus. Claims about continuity belong in the multiregional model article. Alun (talk) 07:35, 22 December 2007 (UTC)
If you can produce references showing the continuity claims referenced in Multiregional are merely inversions or other artifacts, I'm very interested in seeing them. Currently we do not have referenced rebuttal in Multiregional or any other article. --JWB (talk) 01:17, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Tishkoff makes the claim that so called ancient segments of DNA in the human genome may well be inversions, which are resistant to recombination in an article I read recently. I think it's this one but I'd have to double check when I get back to work. I can only see the abstract here at home, but at work I get access to the whole paper. I don't think there is much doubt that the overwhelming evidence is in favour of the RAO theory or that it is becoming more common for scientists to reject any archaic contribution to the modern human population. Alun (talk) 11:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
Hi, I checked the Reed and Tishkoff paper, and this is what they say about modern/archaic admixture:

Evidence for admixture of archaic and modern Homo populations?
Overall, the weight of evidence from both genetic and paleobiological studies supports a recent common origin of all modern humans from a population originating from the continent of Africa — probably from East Africa within the past 100 kya (summarized in [4]). Although analyses of ancient mtDNA obtained from 24 Neanderthal and 40 early modern human remains do not support high levels of admixture between archaic and modern humans [17], the possibility of limited gene flow is difficult to rule out [17–19]. Several recent studies of nucleotide sequence diversity at multiple autosomal [20��] and X chromosome [21�] loci have identified lineages with extensive linkage disequilibrium (LD) and ancient coalescence times, indicative of possible ancient population structure (throughout this review, we use the term population structure to refer to genetic heterogeneity resulting from non-random mating) followed by recent admixture (see the review by JD Wall and MF Hammer, this issue). Analyses of three 2.5-kb segments from the Xp21.1 region of the X chromosome found evidence consistent with ancient population structure in Africa extending over one million years into the past [21�]. A more recent study of 135 autosomal loci found evidence of a 5% level of archaic contributions to modern humans in both West Africa and Europe [20��]. These results raise the possibility of a small, but not insignificant, level of Neanderthal ancestry in modern Europeans, as well as possible admixture of archaic populations with modern humans in Africa [20].
Evidence consistent with multiple archaic admixture events in the ancestors of modern humans is very intriguing. However, there is a possibility that unaccounted for factors such as selection and inversion polymorphisms might be contributing to a false ‘archaic admixture’ pattern seen in these gene regions. Inversion polymorphisms deserve a special note because they have the potential to create a very similar pattern of congruentSNPs and regions of high LD. Inversions of both short and long nucleotide sequences are a common feature of recent human evolution, and many inversions are polymorphic within modern humans [22,23�]. Inversions are known to suppress recombination [24,25�] and, therefore, the degree to which inversions might contribute to the inference of archaic admixture should be investigated. In addition, natural selection might be common in the genome and can influence inferred effective population sizes along the chromosomes, increasing the variance in expected coalescence times and creating a subset of regions with atypically ancient lineages [26�]. Furthermore, inversions have long been suspected to be directly affected by positive selection in other species [27,28], examples of inversions under selection are beginning to be revealed in humans [25�]. Thus, both selection and inversion polymorphisms could be influencing patterns of LD, coalescence times, and inferences of ancient admixture events.

All the best. Alun (talk) 14:14, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
1. At a minimum, there are some interesting issues here that should be discussed in the article instead of being completely glossed over. 2. Neanderthals are not the only possible source for archaic ancestry; as the most geographically isolated population and in the most marginal environment, they may be the least likely source. Lahr and Foley who are cited by 125 discuss pre-existing African diversity. Southern Eurasia is also a possibility. 3. Selection and artifacts cut both ways. John Hawks suspects that selection operates on mtDNA, making calculated mtDNA coalescence times not representative of any other DNA.[9] 4. The inversion suggestion is interesting; let's start looking at the actual evidence for it. (What are the articles Reed and Tishkoff are referencing?) --JWB (talk) 18:28, 7 January 2008 (UTC)
1. Please state specifically what "issues" are glossed over and how they need to be discussed. Your statement is extremely vague. 2. Where does anyone claim that Neanderthals are the only source of archaic admixture? 3. So what? We are here to discuss this article and not to discuss the relative merits of the science. Someone asked me to supply the source for my statement that some apparently "ancient" segments of the human genome can be interpreted in other ways than admixture, I have done this. 4. We do not need to do this, Wikipedia relies on verifiability from reliable sources. Sarah Tishkoff is an internationally renowned molecular anthropologist, with numerous excellent publications, the review article I quote from is from a peer reviewed academic journal.[10] This makes Reed and Tishkoff's observations eminently acceptable to cite on Wikipedia. As far as I can see your suggestion amounts to pov-pushing. The RAO hypothesis is far and away the dominant hypothesis for the origin of modern humans, this is a fact and is citable from numerous sources. Whether this hypothesis is "correct" or not is not relevant, what is relevant is that we portray any point of view appropriately. As such we need to explicitly say that the dominant hypothesis for modern human origins in the RAO hypothesis. Now there is certainly "some" evidence to support the Multiregional hypothesis, but we should not imply that these two models are of equal standing in the anthropological community. In the future things may change and the Multiregional model may gain more support, but currently it is a small minority point of view. This is a fact, I get the distinct impression that you want to say that this minority theory has equal weight to RAO, well this is incorrect and we cannot say this in the article. Alun (talk) 06:28, 8 January 2008 (UTC)
1. The recent evidence suggesting surviving archaic genetic contribution should be included in the article, rather than excluding it and giving the impression there is no such evidence, which has been the state of the article up until now. 2. You have repeatedly brought up Neanderthals and not mentioned any other possible source, suggesting that lack of evidence for Neanderthal admixture is evidence against any archaic survival. 3. The possibility of mtDNA selection is highly relevant since the coalescence dates for mtDNA and Y-DNA are the evidence for RAO, and there is no reason to exclude this from the article. 4. Nobody said that Reed and Tishkoff should not be cited. Including their discussion which at least mentions recent evidence for archaic survival would be a great improvement over the current article. That does not mean discussion of the topic in the article needs to end there, with a simple dismissal of all evidence for archaic survival as inversions. Additional relevant publications can be cited. 5. Nobody has denied that RAO is the current orthodoxy or suggested this not be mentioned in the article. In fact I would love to see citation of actual studies on levels of belief in (whichever version of) RAO added to the article. But high levels of belief do not mean that we should not cover the evidence for and against total replacement. --JWB (talk) 07:34, 8 January 2008 (UTC)


arbitrary break

it isn't completely ruled out that had been Neanderthal admixture to Cro-Magnon, although there seems to be no positive evidence for it. If this should be substantiated, we will technically have "multiregional origin" (of a small admixture) without needing to adjust the RAO scenario. But the longer we proceed without evidence for Neanderthal admixture forthcoming, the more hypothetical this scenario becomes. It will never be feasible to rule out the theoretical possibility that the last individual carrying Neanderthal admixture died in the 20th century. It will just become astronomically unlikely as time goes on and no evidence is found. It is also possible that there living descendants of Neanderthals who are neither in a pure male nor a pure female line. In this case, no amount of mt or Y testing will ever reveal this, and we'd have to essentially test every gene of every living person to be sure. dab (𒁳) 13:38, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Actually sequencing of Neanderthal genomic DNA is ongoing. Two recently published sequences gave very different results. One of these seemed to suggest that Neanderthal genomic DNA was very similar to AMH DNA, the other seemed to suggest that it is very different. The results were odd because the two publications were based on DNA from the same Neanderthal sample. The Neanderthal DNA that looked most similar to AMH DNA was from sequencing over a million bp,(Green et al., 2006) the DNA that looks different was from sequencing only about 68,000 bp.(Noonan et al, 2006) A more recent analysis of these data shows that the Green et al. sample may have been contaminated with modern DNA, hence it gives a result showing Neanderthal DNA is similar to modern DNA, contamination is a common problem with ancient DNA.(Wall and Kim, 2007) Essentially Neanderthal genomic DNA really does seem to look very different to AMH DNA. It really is looking increasingly unlikely that archaics contributed at all to the modern expansion out of Africa. Obviously science is based on theorising, and theories can only ever be disproven, but the current evidence overwhelmingly supports a recent African origin, with a small amount of evidence that can be interpreted as supporting multiregionalism, but which can be interpreted in other ways as well. We need to be careful about not giving undue weight to theories that are minority theories. Multiregionalism already has a far greater footprint on Wikipedia than it should get based on the tiny level support it has in the academic community. Alun (talk) 15:42, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I agree. But we also need to be careful to distinguish racist crackpot gibberish along the lines of Carleton S. Coon from bona fide academic minority views like those of Milford H. Wolpoff or Erik Trinkaus. I think it is impossible at this point to claim that AMH somehow originated "separately": such proposals fall either under history of science or under WP:FRINGE. The possibility that there may have been minor admixture looks, as you say, increasingly unlikely, but it is nevertheless an ongoing debate. dab (𒁳) 17:08, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

Yes, we certainly do need to mention the ongoing scientific debate about admixture, this thing is definitely not settled one way or the other and we must avoid making it sound as if it is. Alun (talk) 19:29, 22 December 2007 (UTC)

I am not sure I see an academic consensus of no admixture at all from premodern Eurasian humans. Rather, prominent RAO promoters like Chris Stringer seem to reply to questions about the possibility of a small degree of nuclear non-Y genetic continuity by dismissing it as unimportant, while not bringing up the possibility in their own expository works and allowing many people to assume total replacement has been proven.

I think this article should make clear what are the secure, substantiated results: that mtDNA and Y-DNA show recent expansion from Africa, that all studied living matrilineages and patrilineages (possibly as opposed to extinct ones like Mungo Man) are traceable to this expansion.

Based on this, people have been eager to put forward detailed reconstructions of migratory history; but we need to also mention the limitations: that most autosomal DNA is not linked to matrilineages and patrilineages, that matrilineages and patrilineages are not equivalent to populations, that it is hard to detect back and forth migration, that populations involved in early migrations may have consisted mostly of matrilineages and patrilineages that are now extinct, that today's mtDNA and Y-DNA patterns are partly the result of repeated genetic drift and population expansion, and that selection pressure on mtDNA and Y-DNA has not been ruled out. --JWB (talk) 01:17, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

So you didn't read my earlier post? There is now evidence that at least Neanderthal autosomal DNA is very different to AMH autosomal DNA. This is an encyclopaedia, there are plenty of sources that we can use to substantiate the claim that most evidence supports a recent African origin and that it is becoming increasingly common for scientists to discount any archaic contribution to our gene pool whatsoever. We can do this while also acknowledging that this matter is not settled. But it is clear that this is how science usually works, very infrequently are "smoking guns" found, usually more and more evidence is gained to support one theory over the other, multiregionalism is looking less and less tenable as more evidence from genomics is aquired. Multiregionalism has already had to transform itself over the last twenty years or so, originally it did not allow for any recent origin whatsoever, now even the most avid multiregionalists have to accept an overwhelming majority of our origins are recent, with the possibility of a small contribution from archaics. The retreat of multiregionalism is a scientific fact and needs to be put into it's historical perspective. Most scientists acknowledge that a contribution from archaics is a possibility while also making it clear that it is looking like an increasingly unlikely possibility. This is what we need to say and it can be cited from numerous sources. Indeed the new multiregionalism is hardly multiregionalism at all, it is really RAO with a hint of archaic admixture rather than anything like a compromise between multiregionalism and RAO, or as Chris Stringer puts it, it's "mostly out of Africa". RAO proponents have been reluctant to exclude any archaic contribution because it would be difficult to prove, but they are getting more and more confident that the evidence supports an exclusively RAO for our species and I think that we need to say this, we are an encyclopaedia, so we need to reflect what most scientists are saying and not give the appearance that this is an equal debate. Alun (talk) 11:01, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
That "most autosomal DNA is not linked to matrilineages and patrilineages" is a truism. To harp on it would be WP:SYN. If we can find mainstream sources evaluating the likelihood that there is autosomal admixture even if there is no mt or Y admixture we should by all means cite it. My naive expectation would be that if you have 0.1% admixture, you'd also expect to find archaic mt or Y in 0.1% of individuals. Thus, if you test 1 million people, you'll still not be able to rule out admixture below 1 ppm. If you test all 700 million Europeans, you'll still not be able to rule out admixture below 0.07 ppm, so that the hypothesis of such a tiny admixture would not really be falisifiable at all. dab (𒁳) 12:55, 23 December 2007 (UTC)
I agree, it is true that mtDNA and Y chromosome lineages provide "evidence" in favour of an exclusive RAO, but to have a long discussion here about why these data doesn't "disprove" multiregionalism would indeed be over the top. Likewise the autosomal data from Neanderthals currently support an exclusively recent origin to a greater extent than they do admixture, but no one claims that there is concrete proof one way or the other. Clearly the autosomal Neanderthal data are of more utility in determining any admixture than are mtDNA or Y chromosome data, autosomal DNA is far less likely to suffer from genetic drift than mtDNA or Y chromosome DNA so all the talk of emphasising the problems of matrilineal and patrilineal descent do not apply to this work. The thing is that now we can test Neanderthal autosomal DNA and compare it to modern human DNA, this really can be used to identify the extent of any admixture by looking for SNP sharing etc. On the other hand showing that AMH admixed with Neanderthals is not the same as showing that modern humans are the direct descendants of Neanderthals. If we can prove an ancient hominid fossil has both a mixed phenotype and a mixed genotype, it does not prove that this individual was fertile, and even if it was fertile, that it does not prove that it is a direct ancestor of any modern humans. I do not have a strong opinion one way or the other regarding either of these theories, both are perfectly good scientific theories. My understanding is that both theories are really just different versions of the recent African origin theory though, one is a recent African origin with a small amount of admixture that produced fertile offspring that are the direct ancestors of modern humans, and the other is a recent African origin which led to no non-African archaic human as a direct ancestor to modern humans. Does what I am saying make sense? On the other hand I am concerned that we do represent the academic debate accurately, and it is my understanding that RAO is the consensus, that multiregionalism is more or less a tiny minority point of view, and that the debate is about either a tiny non-African archaic ancestry, or no non-African archaic ancestry? Is this a fair representation of the state of affairs? As far as I know no one is claiming either that AMH evolved independently in different continents (as per "classical" multiregionalism) nor that there is any substantial non-African archaic ancestry for any modern human. So what JWB calls multiregionalism is in fact more like a sort of RAO+. However I also think that most anthropologists now think that an exclusive RAO is the theory that most accurately fits what we observe, and I think that we should express this clearly in the article. Alun (talk) 13:47, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

"If we can find mainstream sources evaluating the likelihood that there is autosomal admixture even if there is no mt or Y admixture we should by all means cite it." I've requested you guys evaluate and respond to the references for autosomal admixture on the Multiregional page, as Alun earlier stated they belong there, not in this article. But if you now prefer that relevant references be brought to this page, I can do that instead. This evidence is not comparison with Neanderthal DNA, but based solely on contemporary human DNA and statistical arguments.

"My naive expectation would be that if you have 0.1% admixture, you'd also expect to find archaic mt or Y in 0.1% of individuals." This assumes neutrality rather than selection; and even if you do assume neutrality, mt and Y are more susceptible to drift and bottlenecking because the effective population size is half and because there is less opportunity for recombination.

"the new multiregionalism is hardly multiregionalism at all, it is really RAO with a hint of archaic admixture": I think this is a misunderstanding of multiregionalism as something like polygenism. As far as I know, pre-DNA sequencing multiregionalism never excluded the possibility of a recent African expansion or made predictions about sex-linked genes. At root, it is simply the statement that there was no complete reproductive barrier. The only specific examples of continuity suggested were regional morphological continuities in the fossil record, which were not stated to reflect any measurable proportion of the genome. --JWB (talk) 19:48, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

anything except "RAO+" has indeed been ruled out by genetics. The game at this point is looking for the "+". The more time passes without such evidence found, the more likely pure RAO becomes. Ok. So where is the debate of sources on the possibility of autosomal admixture taking place? here? dab (𒁳) 20:19, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

That talk section debates the definition of multiregionalism. Multiregional_origin_of_modern_humans#External links has some references for genetic ancient admixture or continuity. Talk:Multiregional_origin_of_modern_humans#Sources_.26_Rebuttals invites criticism of these sources, with nobody responding so far. --JWB (talk) 20:51, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

Human and Chimpanzee DNA are 98% alike. Humans and Chimpanzees last shared a common ancestor 6 million years ago. So I would imagine the difference between Neanderthal DNA and Human DNA to be even much smaller than the 2% chimpanzee difference, since the common ancestor with Neanderthal man is thought to have lived circa 600,000 years ago. Probably detecting admixture would be quite challenging, since modern human and Neanderthal DNA would have been extremely alike. It has been suggested that one reason why chimpanzees and humans cannot mate and produce offspring is that the chimpanzee's has 24 chromosomes and humans 23 chromosomes. At some stage in evolution two chimp chromosomes fused into one, a possible speciation event that prevented interbreeding between two lineages. When this occurred is not known. But if it occurred recently then the possibility exists that Neanderthals still had 24 chromosomes making cro-magnon and neanderthal interbreeding an impossibility. This could possibly explain why the two species lived alongside one another for 10,000 years yet no skeletal remains have been found that show intermediate properties between Neanderthals and cro-magnons.
For much of human history there has always been more than one hominid existing. Only recently, after the extinction of the flores man some 12,000 years ago was homo sapiens left to be the only hominid. So the potential for interbreeding with archaics has existed throughout history. But interbreeding isn't of much significance because the overall genetic differences between the species would have been small since they are all still descended from a common ancestor with chimpanzees.Muntuwandi (talk) 18:18, 10 January 2008 (UTC)

scope, cleanup

We should apply some minimal standards of coherence and pertinence to this article. The topic that should be discussed is the time of exodus from Africa and the history of the theory. What is in fact being discussed is human evolution in general, random indigenous populations and languages, and the entire topic of early human migration. This needs a lot of work. Muntuwandi, it seems that this is really your handiwork: just about every article I have seen you were involved in ended up being a lengthy essay on your ideas on human evolution in general. Can we please attempt to actually discuss the topic advertised in the article title for once? Every paragraph in this article should not only be sourced, the sources cited need also make clear how the section topic is related to the question of RAO. dab (𒁳) 11:12, 21 December 2007 (UTC)

"The hypothesis is derived from research in several disciplines, chiefly genetics, archaeology and linguistics." The hypothesis of exclusive or nearly exclusive recent African genetic origin is only from genetics.

Polygenism and Coon: Despite the connotation of phrases like "arose" "separately" and "subspecies", even Coon's model did involve gene flow rather than independent parallel mutations in different parts of the world. I don't have a reference for this handy at the moment, but we should be cautious with statements of polygenism.

Anatomical modernity may have preceded behavioral modernity - do we mention this? --JWB (talk) 19:19, 23 December 2007 (UTC)

In regards to cleanup, the above quote is repeated in the intro, making it very sloppy. I'm removing one of the repeated sentences. Master z0b (talk) 08:40, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

Lumpers and splitters

I think we have an issue of Lumpers and splitters. Dbachmann has taken the splitters view in this article by moving content to a number of other articles. I am not too concerned about that as long as all the information is available, but we do have to recognize the interdisciplinary nature of this model and the article should reflect this. This interdisciplinary approach is what many authors such as Stephen Oppenheimer, Spencer Wells or Cavalli-Sforza have taken. lumpers and splitters Muntuwandi (talk) 18:51, 29 December 2007 (UTC)

A questioning of various models is shown in john hawks's Serial founder effects, again. This could provide useful source info. .. dave souza, talk 09:59, 21 February 2008 (UTC)

modern humans leave Africa

100, 000 year old Modern Human remains have been found in south asia region, so how it is possible that they only moved out 61,000 years ago?

please explain —Preceding unsigned comment added by 124.43.232.0 (talk) 10:03, 18 July 2008 (UTC)

I assume you're talking about Homo floresiensis. Those remains were not of a modern human. They were a different species. 99.227.60.109 (talk) 23:57, 1 August 2010 (UTC)
Or you could be referring to Homo erectus soloensis which dates from 400,000 years ago to around 50,000 years ago, found on Java. Floresiensis may have evolved from the soloensis subspecies after 100,000 years ago, if not another species of Homo. -Ano-User (talk) 07:27, 2 August 2010 (UTC)

Criticism

There should be a Criticism section, not just a "competing theories" one. Many scientists have pointed out the weaknesses of the theory, but it doesn't mean that all such critics have a competing theory of their own, and so it could not be included in the current Competing Theories section. Maybe the best solution would be to add a Criticism section with a subsection on competing theories redirecting to the main articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.21.242.31 (talk) 07:07, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

WP guidelines do not recommend "criticism"sections. Which "many scientists" are you referring to? And yes, anyone who criticises the theory should have a better one of their own, that's what science is. Aunt Entropy (talk) 16:19, 13 October 2008 (UTC)

Fix the clarity... please.

The clarity on this page is a bit scattered. I was taught this in class, but it is still a hard to follow article.

First of call, there is no comparison side by side in paragraph form that clarifies the positions in a concise manner.

Something on the order of that the Recent Origin model considers Homo Ereectus and Homo Ergaster to be two groups versus that of the multi-regional theory which makes them one group is hard to extract and not very clear. Instead the article makes it even worse by saying Homo Erectus and Homo Sapiens are considered one group in the Multi-regional theory. Which, is, as far as I know, untrue. (especially considering the marked differences between the skulls and the cranial capacity.)

The pros and cons of this theory are also not clearly laid out and the dates are too definite to be true. It says definitively 200,000 years ago, yet there are estimates around 160,000 years ago, because that's the earliest Homo Sapien skull that was found. Clean up between mitochondrial evidence and fossil record please! There is a world of a difference between these and entertain the range of dates often listed.

The criticism for this theory is that proponents say that there was no gene flow. Why is this a problem? It's unclear in the article and isn't addressed at any given point and hard to read.

The Multi-regional theory has the problem of the massive amounts of gene flow needed and it also has the problem of the fossil and genetic records not supporting it. This is not delineated clearly in the article at all with the needed evidence.

The range of mixed theories about the Out of Africa Theory and the Multiregional theory should also be clearly marked, but it seems kind of swallowed into the larger article, making it hard to sort out which is which and what goes where. There is to much going on from a sheer writing point of view.

A article on Wikipedia should be NPOV, but I'm not quite sure what the range of POVs being represented are.

I would say you can fix this by fixing the lead to be more clear and encompassing, or try to fix the individual modular parts into paragraphs that clearly state what is going on. Even though I'm learning this in class, I'm having a hard time following this meaning that it's probably not that accessible to the public. I would say it warrants a label and a lot more citations. --Hitsuji Kinno (talk) 18:41, 1 December 2008 (UTC)

I tend to agree. I'm really not sure about the level of prominence given to the multiregional model. In the first instance this article is about the RAO model, so it shouldn't have to cover the multiregional model very much. Now if it was an article called "evolution of AMH" then fair enough. compare the theories. But it's not, it's specifically abut the RAO model, so make it about that. Second the RAO model is absolutely the dominant model, those supporting multiregionalism really do represent a minority in anthropology. That doesn't make them wrong, but I do think it means that we should be more neutral, and neutrality doesn't mean giving both points of view equal weight. It means giving greater weight to the more mainstream view. We have an article about the RAO, not about general human evolution, and we have a dominant theory. Let's treat it like a dominant theory. That's being neutral. Currently the article gives undue weight to the multiregional model. Alun (talk) 08:05, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

I agree. For nearly 20 years now, recent African origin has been the only game in town. We keep giving "multiregional" scenarios far too much screen time. They are effectively reduced to assumption of the possibility of spurious admixture to the recently-out-of-Africa mainstream. And these assumptions grow weaker by the day as genetic evidence continues to fail to turn up. --dab (𒁳) 15:28, 29 March 2009 (UTC)

cut from article

the following was added to the article in a section entiteld "Implications":

In a recent article, Leonard Lieberman and Fatimah Jackson have suggested that any new support for a biological concept of race will likely come from another source, namely, the study of human evolution. They therefore ask what, if any, implications current models of human evolution may have for any biological conception of race.[1]

Today, all humans are classified as belonging to the species Homo sapiens and sub-species Homo sapiens sapiens. However, this is not the first species of hominids: the first species of genus Homo, Homo habilis, evolved in East Africa at least 2 million years ago, and members of this species populated different parts of Africa in a relatively short time. Homo erectus evolved more than 1.8 million years ago, and by 1.5 million years ago had spread throughout the Old World. Virtually all physical anthropologists agree that Homo sapiens evolved out of Homo erectus. Anthropologists have been divided as to whether Homo sapiens evolved as one interconnected species from H. erectus (called the Multiregional Model, or the Regional Continuity Model), or evolved only in East Africa, and then migrated out of Africa and replaced H. erectus populations throughout the Old World (called the Out of Africa Model or the Complete Replacement Model). Anthropologists continue to debate both possibilities, and the evidence is technically ambiguous as to which model is correct, although most anthropologists currently favor the Out of Africa model.

According to the Out of Africa Model, developed by Christopher Stringer and Peter Andrews, modern Homo sapiens evolved in Africa 200,000 years ago. H. sapiens began migrating from Africa around 50,000 years ago and eventually replaced existing hominid species in Europe and Asia.[2][3] This model has gained support by recent research using mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). After analysing genealogy trees constructed using 133 types of mtDNA, they concluded that all were descended from a woman from Africa, dubbed Mitochondrial Eve.[4] Lieberman and Jackson have related this theory to race with the following comment:


this isn't wrong, or even badly written, it just isn't clear how it is supposed to fit into the article structure. In effect, the above paragraph just summarizes once more what has already been said in the article. Except for the "race" bit, which appears to be trying to debunk Carleton Coon. It is unclear why this article should suddenly swoop down on Coon, who has no credibility anyway. What this appears to be is a summary of a single paper which nobody bothered to integrate into the existing article. An article on "Race and Three Models of Human Origin" should be discussed in one of our numerous articles on race, not on the out-of-Africa article. --dab (𒁳) 08:13, 2 April 2009 (UTC)

  1. ^ Leonard Lieberman and Fatimah Linda C. Jackson (1995) "Race and Three Models of Human Origin" in ­American Anthropologist Vol. 97, No. 2, pp. 232-234
  2. ^ Modern Humans Came Out of Africa, "Definitive" Study Says
  3. ^ Christopher Stringer and Peter Andrews (1988) "Genetic and Fossil Evidence for the Origin of Modern Humans" in Science 239: 1263-1268
  4. ^ Rebecca L. Cann, Mark Stoneking, Allan C. Wilson (1987) "Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution" in Nature 325: 31-36)
  5. ^ Leonard Lieberman and Fatimah Linda C. Jackson (1995) "Race and Three Models of Human Origin" in ­American Anthropologist Vol. 97, No. 2, pp. 235–236
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