Talk:Recent African origin of modern humans/Archive 2

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L1 or L0?

I'm not clear what the statement "The first lineage to branch off from Mitochondrial Eve is L1." means. Is Mitochondrial Eve part of haplogroup L0? Or is L0 an earlier divergence? --Michael C. Price talk 08:39, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Haplogroup L0 is a recent reclassification of some L1 lineages. So the statement needs to be updated to reflect current nomenclature.This article has a recent phylogenetic tree Wapondaponda (talk) 17:19, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Thanks. I'm still confused, though. Are we saying that the mitochondrial eve sequence has since gone extinct, leaving just the L0, L1 etc variants around today? Or are we saying that mitochondrial eve was one of the L' clades, but we can't be sure which? I'm guessing the latter, but don't like guessing. (Same question would also apply to Y-adam.) --Michael C. Price talk 23:47, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
Some estimates I have seen, indicate that on average, there is one mutation in the mitochondrial DNA every 6000-12000 years. So Mitochondrial Eve's exact sequence probably went extinct over 100kya. L0 is basically the most divergent mtdna sequence relative to all other sequences. What this means is the bearers of L0, such as the san people, were genetically isolated from other populations very early in human history. As a result L0 has developed greatest number of mutations that are only unique to a relatively small population, the san. Mitochondrial Eve's sequence can be obtained by comparing L0 with any non-L0 sequence, to determine common ancestry. L0 is like the last piece in the puzzle of solving ME sequence.Wapondaponda (talk) 02:06, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
That's possible. By the same logic, the original L0 sequence has gone extinct as well. Has the ME sequence been reconstructed? --Michael C. Price talk 08:44, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
Correction, I see that L0-L6 are not extinct, according to Haplogroup L0 (mtDNA). So I rather doubt that the ME sequence is extinct either. --Michael C. Price talk 09:16, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
The sequences of all humans are essentially MEs sequence with some mutations, since all our lineages are descended from her. As mentioned earlier, mtdna undergoes a mutation on average every 6,000-10,000 years. Since Eve lived 150kya, her sequence has been undergoing mutations every 6-12kya, so her exact sequence went extinct eons ago. But her sequence can be reconstructed, by comparing the sequences of L0 and any other sequence, such as L1. By recording the location and differences, one can infer which particular DNA base pairs are ancestral, ie base pairs unchanged from ME, and which ones are in the derived state(recent mutation). This is done by comparing human sequences with mtdna of a chimpanzee which is more ancestral than ME. The scientists also have to account for reverse mutations and parallel mutations as well. But nonetheless a putative ME sequence can be inferred. It is using this sequence that scientists have been able to estimate the time ME lived as 150kya.Wapondaponda (talk) 21:44, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm not convinced by this logic, for the reasons I gave in my follow-up response: according to Haplogroup L0 (mtDNA) L0-L6 are not extinct, so I rather doubt that the ME sequence (which is probably one of L0-L6), is extinct either. However if I'm wrong, do you have a reference that states what the reconstructed ME sequence is?
Let's assume that ME lived 150,000 ya, and that the mtDNA picks up a mutation, on average, every 8,000 years. That's 19 mutations ago, which means that the original sequence should survive in 1/(2^19) individuals, or approximately 13,000 people. Granted, this is an over estimate, since I'm assuming random drift and ignoring the founder effect, but you get the idea. --Michael C. Price talk 01:27, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
Not exactly, since every 300-600 generations a mutation is expected. In other words after 300-600 generations, the descendant dna will have at least one mutation to distinguish it from its ancestral dna. As for L0 to L6, these macrohaplogroups are so named for convenience. Every haplogroup is defined by at least Unique event polymorphism or UEP. So L0 consists of several subhaplogroups, but each falls under L0 because they have the one mutation that defines L0. However all these subhaplogroups have continued to evolve their own unique mutations, so there is no single L0 sequence, they are several but they just have one mutation in common. The scientists are more interested in the mutations that occurred early in prehistory because these can be used to delineate major population events so they focus on mutations that define these macrohaplogroups. [This article http://www.genome.ou.edu/5853/outofafrica/MitoDNA-ACWilson-Nature1987.pdf] published the tree that had eve's putative sequence. Wapondaponda (talk) 03:05, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
I'm still confused: you say In other words after 300-600 generations, the descendant dna will have at least one mutation to distinguish it from its ancestral dna. but surely this is just (as you say in the preceding sentence) an expectation, i.e. an average.--Michael C. Price talk 03:17, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes its an average, but fundamental to the process of evolution is mutations. Without mutations, there is no evolution. The reason mtDNA is useful for determining ancestry is because mutations occur much faster in mtDNA than in nuclear DNA( see mitochondrial DNA explanation). If the mutation rate for mtDNA was significantly slower, by several orders of magnitude, then MEs sequence would still exist today. Since ME lived about 150kya, using 20 years as a generation, then there are about 7500 generations of mothers between mitochondrial eve and all humans alive today. If a mutation occurs on average every 300 generations, then the mtdna of all humans alive today, regardless of which haplogroup they belong to, will differ from ME's sequence by 25 mutations. Basically the same number of generations separate all living humans from Eve, so the same number of mutations separate all extant lineages from that of Eve. The assumption, is that mtDNA mutation rate is constant and can be accurately calculated. Wapondaponda (talk) 04:26, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Surely the number of mutations will fall on a normal or Poisson distribution curve? So they won't all have 25 mutations from ME? --Michael C. Price talk 09:05, 5 May 2009 (UTC)
Yes, that is true, but since mtDNA mutates quickly, even the lowest end of the distribution curve will have had several mutations. I've been trying to figure out the exact molecular clock rate that is used, and their seem to be several complex statistical methods. In addition, the hypervariable region of mtDNA have a much faster rate than the rest of the mtDNA. One study has it at 0.0043/per generation [1], which corresponds to a mutation roughly every 230 generations. Whereas Rebecca Cann writes, that individuals who shared a common maternal ancestor 2000 years ago will have mtDNA that differs by 3-4 nucleotides in a 100 nucleotide stretch. [2]. Whatever the case, it seems that the mutation rate is too fast for ME's lineage to survive today. If the mutation rate was really slow, then there would be some folks walking around with ME's sequence, or for that matter, the exact sequence of a chimp or a gorilla or maybe a mouse or even a dinosaur.Wapondaponda (talk) 15:19, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

This article has a suggested sequence of ME. It suggests that there are 52 mutations between Mitochondrial Eve and the Cambridge Reference Sequence which is Haplogroup H (mtDNA). This roughly equates to a mutation every 3000 years. Wapondaponda (talk) 21:37, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

The foam of live weves

Imagine a living foam. Where the most vigorous growth and com-petition there are te newest bubbles. Somewhere on the edges are the oldest already displaced from the bubbling centers. Imagine that you adding colors to the foam You put violet in the center then you change slowly the color like rainbow What you will see the earlier colors move to the borders and the bubbles disperse. if you will look for the violet on border you can think it was on border but in the experiment we knek it was once in center. The earlier colors was phased out by new next colors generations.

Imagine now that the colors are genes, of the tree of live, tree which some branches grown up but some decline in shadow. The look at evolution show us a loot of extincted branches only the little fraction of the tree of live now is alive that is the process of evolution. Some new genetic combination grow up some older go to corners refugia and are pushed out to extinction by new waves of the live with always new recombination, mutations. We don't know what genetic combination will be beneficial in given environmental conditions but we in science observe the going on process.

What we can see looking at human genetic picture. In the most remote locations are the oldest genetic fingerprints. Is it the genes spring up there ore are there now pushed from other the perhaps common and widespread population. The single man walking scenario was developed to fit the observable facts. There was mitochondrial Eve she get daughter, the daughter moved out with the new gene the old remain in place. But the genetic markers do not carry any benefit. Why only the newer got to move and the other not. to explain this proponents of single man walking genetic got to stack a lot of bottleneck the cataclysm which in any moment kill all but only the newer got chance to survive and spread out.

This is extraordinary scenario. Constant unusual bottleneck on p[population without any selective pressure - the genetic markers was specialy sellected to be as much as possible expresionless/empty so no prototypical effect will be correlated with it spread.

We don't have to call for Aphrodite born from sea foam to see that the living foam scenario of anthropogenesis is more realistic and can explain today genetic picture.

I can't recall the sources but perhaps you can find anyone who was considering to fit the common phenomenon of growth (even applicable to bacterial colony) to human antropogenesis. TN 76.16.176.166 (talk) 03:30, 27 May 2009 (UTC)c


Out of What?

So what is the theory on how Out of Africa and other modern human ancestors went to populate Americas? I see the map, but being visually pleasing continues to confuse me. Humans are genetically simliar to many species and more so in certain specific parts to certain species. Maybe not overall similar to say a gorilla, but that doesn't make humans to be monkeys necessarily any more or less humans are similar to plants whose beginnings uptake genetic mineral which come from the ground.....and go back once its duties are done. So out of Africa why? How do modern humans in the search of their origins/purpose become stuck in such a debate/theories of only two sides? only so that it is intended to be endless, and yet continues to move further away from having any real meaning as to the reasons behind our arrival. If you want to theorize OOA you might as well go all the way back to OOEarth & water.

Many domesticated plants/animal have in my little people opinion no origination in Africa. Who is to say they did not originate in Antarctica, OOAn? I am not proposing that regional model of origin or out of Africa is more or less correct, but there is also a possibility that what we classify as pre-historic humans are not really human ancestors nor are we a subtype of them. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.198.236.17 (talk) 18:14, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Out of Asia?

I can't find an mention of this theory anywhere in Wikipedia. http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2003/10/28/976958.htm?site=science_dev&topic=latest http://ffh.films.com/id/10388/Out_of_Asia_New_Theories_on_Evolution.htm http://202.6.74.88/science/articles/1999/10/18/60191.htm Should it be mentioned anywhere in this article? twinqletwinqle (talk) 01:04, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The "Out of Asia" concerns the evolution of primates from before 65 million years ago. So it is only indirectly related to the origin of humans. Primates have a wide distribution as they are naturally found in the Americas, Africa, Asia and primate fossils have been found in Europe. Owing to the time depth it is not yet known where the first primates originated and dispersed. Somewhere after the split between the orangutan and the african apes, gorillas and chimpanzees, the human lineage was restricted to Africa. Hence the term "out of Africa". Wapondaponda (talk) 14:45, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

looking at the world map in the late Cretaceous,
File:LateCretaceousGlobal.jpg
it becomes kind of futile to ask whether primates first originated in "Africa" or in "Asia". --dab (𒁳) 13:57, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

ref

references or refrain ?

  1. the personal web page of [3] spooting culture on Caribbean islands. Who on list of his list publications do not have any paleo related publication. Is it 'reliable' source? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.16.176.166 (talk) 22:12, 10 June 2009 (UTC)
Sorry, could you explain what you're asking? What has Quinlan got to do with the editing of this page? Fences&Windows 16:15, 18 June 2009 (UTC)
Q:What has Quinlan got to do with the editing of this page?
A: Quinlan ? Nothing. Wordy explanation: should be reference or referee having nothing to refer on subject encouraged ? (help: edit, serch for '~rquinlan') 76.16.176.166 (talk) 05:42, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

please use grammatical English, in article space contributions, and preferably also on talkpages. It is difficult to parse what you are trying to say. --dab (𒁳) 18:20, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I've worked out what 76.16.176.166 is asking about Quinlan, no thanks to their obscure writing style. "Tools made of bone and antler appear for the first time" is supported by http://www.wsu.edu/~rquinlan/mptoup.htm as a citation. Rather than asking a round-about question, why not say precisely what your issue is with this statement and citation? Fences&Windows 19:45, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I have sprotected the article. 76.16.176.166 needs to figure out what talkpages are for first, all the more for their opaque style, they'll need a few iterations on talk before it will maybe become clear what it is they are suggesting. --dab (𒁳) 20:37, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

I do not think there is place for honest debate. The same modus operandi was on the multiregional evolution page. Just deception to waste my time. No one, zero meritorious answers under my proposal only foam around. I think right now the talk page may be used only to state dislike and comment on your intelligence stupid SOP. You team try to stop the truth by any means (force). I do not care any more about your website. Now i see pedia as media, an apratus to twist perception = spread deception. You dear fringe Dub are one low paid attention I think you will dislike it too.
But I give you chance (if you ambitious and if I'm wrong) please describe why you removed true sourced information; especially why changed from sourced putative to deceptorius unsourced mainstream. You can also add new section and there:: How do you explain that theory contradicted by reality, how it is possible to call it mainstream. What politics is behind it. I like to see also what you can say about genetic histories encoded in whole genome. 76.16.176.166 (talk) 01:52, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

perhaps now would be a good time to actually make a proposal. It isn't at all clear what you want. You seem to have created a section citing a number of genetics papers, apparently chosen at random, critical of genetic clock datings based on mt and Y-DNA. It is unclear what this is supposed to have to do with this article's topic. Are you suggesting the dating is off? Are you suggesting anything at all? What is the meaning of this "genetic histories encoded in whole genome"? If this is about discussing possible improvements of molecular clock datings, why don't you just say so, and take your material to the article what actually discusses this topic?

I am sorry, but if you cannot write coherent or at least grammatical English, you should not blame others if you aren't understood. Perhaps you should consider contributing to a Wikipedia project in a language in which you can express yourself more clearly. --dab (𒁳) 06:47, 2 July 2009 (UTC)

outdated misleading misconception

The sentence about mtDNA and YDna: These are the only two parts of the genome that are not shuffled about by the evolutionary mechanisms which generate diversity with each generation. is misleading. In fact there are thousands different parts of genome exhibiting LD - not random alleles association. Is "Shuffled" - gaming or warehousing term - instrumental to this misleading misconception? The article is not fixable, I see only [view source]. Please fix it. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.16.183.186 (talk) 19:50, 4 August 2009 (UTC)

My understanding of Linkage disequilibrium (LD) is that particular alleles are more likely and other alleles less likely to be found together than if they were distributed randomly and equiprobably, not that they do not get shuffled about; have I misunderstood? If I have I should be grateful for a clarification. Certainly the Wikipedia article linked by the above post is fully consistent with my understanding. JamesBWatson (talk) 09:57, 6 August 2009 (UTC)

POV edit warring

XC is still editing without explanation, against consensus, pushing a POV and edit-warring. I've reverted their latest edits, in the expectation that they will make some effort to explain themselves here. Fences&Windows 16:51, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Ref from major source Nature (journal) can't be POV

Ref from major source Nature (journal) can't be POV. Xook1kai Choa6aur (talk) 17:45, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

One word from a review published in 2004 shows the intent of that review, but does not show the mainstream model. A more recent reputable publication describing the "near consensus" does give that information, and use of "putative" from the other review as though it is the majority view is original research, as well as failing to give due WP:WEIGHT to the majority view. Perhaps you can provide more suitable references: please discuss them on this talk page to gain consensus, and don't just edit war to assert your opinion. Also note that Darwin's description in Descent sets out the "out of Africa" idea, his proposals showed more recent human origin than some other ideas of that time, but much earlier origin than the 6,000 years or so that had been accepted up to the mid 19th century. Will provide cited information to resolve this issue. . dave souza, talk 18:44, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

XC's difficulty with communication has been a consistent problem over the last couple of months. Numerous editors have complained about his communication problems, however he continues with his unilateral edits. XC is a prolific editor, and as a result his controversial edits are found in numerous articles, many are quickly reverted, but others remain. A long term solution is warranted, either XC should start cooperating, or he should be prevented from editing. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:12, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Mungo man

The controversy surrounding the DNA of Mungo man is not taken very seriously. Scientists have failed to extract Ancient DNA from Egyptian mummies that are less than 5,000 years old, so the idea that DNA could be extracted from 40,000 year old remains buried in the desert is highly suspect. The Mungo man study was shrouded in secrecy with the authors refusing to release some of the details. After which Mungo man was returned to the authorities and it was not possible for other scientists to independently verify the presence of ancient DNA. Consequently the reference to Mungo Man's DNA being evidence that disputes the RAO model needs to adjusted to reflect the reality. Wapondaponda (talk) 19:12, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Darwin, African apes and Harvard

Have started sorting out the historical section: issues of polygenism vs. monogenism can also be referenced to Bowler, and to Peter Kitson's contributio to Samuel Taylor Coleridge and the sciences of life By Nicholas Roe. I've absentmindedly put the first Bowler ref I've added in harvnb format, and have added the book reference template to the references section, as well as a reference for Darwin's Descent. If preferred the whole book reference can be repeated for every inline citation, as with other cites here, but the harvnb setup saves a lot of repetition. . dave souza, talk 23:10, 5 September 2009 (UTC)

Grammar

The grammar breaks down in the passage about Mungo man in the first paragraph.

mainstream & Out of Africa

doi: 10.1111/j.1558-5646.2009.00640.x This recent (2009) article may support use "mainstram" in connection with "Out of Africa". Given bas subject - one may find it obvious, but is not clearly straightforward and more search is needed. [4] 76.16.183.158 (talk) 11:34, 14 September 2009 (UTC)

That comment is so incoherent that it is difficult to be sure what it is intended to mean. However, if, as I guess, it is meant to suggest that referring to the Out of Africa theory as the mainstream view is biased, then it is mistaken: the substantial majority of scientific opinion supports this view. I have also looked at the Google search which is linked above, and frankly cannot see what is supposed to be its relevance. JamesBWatson (talk) 10:51, 17 September 2009 (UTC)

Merging early human migration article

File:Migration map4.png
Map of early human migrations according to mitochondrial population genetics

I suggest merging some of the content regarding early human migrations into this article, as the Out of Africa hypothesis is incomplete without discussing how Europe, South Asia, Australia, East Asia and the Americas were populated after the Out of Africa migration. Wapondaponda (talk) 17:35, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't follow your reasoning. We already discuss subsequent expansion in this section: Recent_African_origin_of_modern_humans#Subsequent_expansion, with a clear link to Early human migrations. I don't think merging material here would help the reader. Fences&Windows 00:57, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
The article Early human migrations is a mix of various migrations, including those of homo erectus, and other migrations not related to the Out of Africa migration. I suggest the section of early human migration that relates to the Out of Africa migration should be covered in this article. The format used in scientific literature does not treat the OOA migrations as a separate subject from Early Human migration. The content will also be consistent with maps used to describe the OOA migration and how it relates to various DNA haplogroups. Wapondaponda (talk) 07:27, 28 September 2009 (UTC)
I think that it should be a separate topic. The OOA theory predates DNA evidence. SDas (talk) 22:02, 4 November 2009 (UTC)
Oppose clearly they are two different topics that share similar roots ...Also WAY TO BIG to merge... it would take lots of timing, that would remove much relevant data......Buzzzsherman (talk) 03:48, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
Oppose Different concepts.--Michael C. Price talk 07:18, 25 January 2010 (UTC)

AfD of John D. Hawks

This article was attacked as nonnotable and proposed for deletion. You can comment atWikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/John_D._Hawks#John_D._Hawks. --JWB (talk) 22:42, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Lousy citation standards

The article is full of vague, unintelligent citations. These are news releases that announce actual letters or articles in the professional literature, but do not provide proper bibliographic citations. There is at least one extreme case (saying Australians and Europeans originate from the same wave of migration out of Africa) in which the entire article provides only the names of two coauthors and no clue as to what these authors said that was new (virtually the whole news release is a rehashing of the general "out of Africa" theory). And no journal name. When you search for these two coauthors together with Google Scholar, you get about 200 hits.

Therefore, the sourcing of this article needs extensive editing. I will contribute to this (I have just made the first improvement). Hurmata (talk) 20:48, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Creation Myths

Creation Myths, whether or not they are believed in, are not appropriate in this article. That the Bible has single origin for mankind and that some Native American cults believed in poly-genesis for mankind is interesting but doesn't belong here. Nitpyck (talk) 21:42, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

Support view and subsequent edits to remedy... I Agree 100% ..Buzzzsherman (talk) 21:44, 24 February 2010 (UTC)

If you delete the creation myths what else sincere do you want to put in this article? The creation myths are essential part of this sic origin theory since scientific data hardly support it. This article is blocked from editing; so only those brain-trained to Wikipedia standards are allowed to meas up here. The numerous [citation needed] one may consider as an example of fictional wikpeded content not supported or contradicted in current science.

This article is about the scientific theory: Recent African origin of modern humans. Including non-scientific or even pseudo-scientific theories is inappropriate. Not sure what you mean by sincere?Nitpyck (talk) 22:18, 4 May 2010 (UTC)

Johann Friedrich Blumenbach and James Cowles Pritchard were the first "scientists" that, in early 19th century, talqued talked about the human evolution, but were also creationist. Thats why the Darwyn publications were a great leap and set the grounds of the modern study of human evolution, he was the first non-creationist to write about it. The sentence in wich the word "creation" is used should be edited to avoid misunderstandings.--95.17.11.194 (talk) 18:57, 10 June 2010 (UTC)

What does this mean?

I've just rephrased the section on early homo sapiens, though a second look wouldn't do any harm. But one statement has me baffled:

Hua Liu & al. analyzing autosomal microsatellite markers dates to c. 56,000±5,700 years ago mtDNA evidence.

Does anybody know what this means? Groogle (talk) 03:57, 23 March 2010 (UTC)

Pending changes

This article is one of a number (about 100) selected for the early stage of the trial of the Wikipedia:Pending Changes system on the English language Wikipedia. All the articles listed at Wikipedia:Pending changes/Queue are being considered for level 1 pending changes protection.

The following request appears on that page:

Comments on the suitability of theis page for "Penfding changes" would be appreciated.

Please update the Queue page as appropriate.

Note that I am not involved in this project any much more than any other editor, just posting these notes since it is quite a big change, potentially

Regards, Rich Farmbrough, 23:42, 16 June 2010 (UTC).

Neanderthal Genome fully sequenced

It may be time to make a major revision of this article. There may still be "near-consensus" that this theory is correct but that will change rapidly now that the Neanderthal Genome sequencing draft has been released and shown proof of admixture. It seems that the multi-regional hypothesis was correct after all.--Senor Freebie (talk) 09:24, 7 May 2010 (UTC)

The paper actually supports the out of Africa theory. You may want to read up on it before assuming it supports something it doesn't 75.187.75.140 (talk) 20:52, 7 May 2010 (UTC)
"Out of Africa" is a vague term. This article is specifically about the Recent African Replacement theory. The 1%-4% genetic contribution of neandethals to modern nonafrican humans disproves the complete replacement posited by that theory.
The recent finding that modern melanesians have an additional 4%-6% contribution from the denisovans provides further evidence that replacement is not the correct model. Warren Dew (talk) 04:45, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
I believe these are very preliminary findings. A statistical analysis of ancient DNA from a single individual is a long way from conclusively proving archaic and modern human interbreeding after the OOA exodus. The Green and Reich papers still acknowledge that their theory is not full proof. Wapondaponda (talk) 09:23, 1 January 2011 (UTC)
Possibly the findings could have been considered "preliminary" back in May, though I would have said that was a more accurate description when the sequencing effort provided preliminary reports back in 2009. The findings now are based on complete sequencing of three neanderthal individuals; they can't be considered "preliminary" any more. Some of Green's previous findings from years ago were successfully challenged within months, so in May when this talk sections was opened, there was reason for a "wait and see" attitude. Now, though, eight months later, no serious challenge has emerged, and in fact the neanderthal data has been strengthened by the denisova find, which indicates that the neanderthal finding isn't as surprising as we might have thought back then.
As you say, Green and Reich do point out that theoretically, the relevant genetic lines could have developed in Africa and then been lost in Africa and retained only outside of Africa in neanderthals and modern Eurasians. This is just them being extra careful, possibly because of Green's disputed earlier findings. Realistically, the chance of that scenario as small as the chance that the "Eve" mitochondrial findings are really the result of development outside of Africa and a nonafrican Eve, with the nonafrican diversity having been lost outside of Africa and retained only inside of Africa. Both ideas are incredibly unlikely.
Warren Dew (talk) 17:12, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

New Sequence does NOT Support Multi-regional Hypothesis

The article supports the RAO hypothesis and mtDNA evidence supports the hypothesis as well. The paper states that:

"Neandertals presumably came into contact with anatomically modern humans in the Middle East from at least 80,000 years ago (6, 7) and subsequently in Europe and Asia."

Anatomically modern humans entered the Middle East from East Africa around 80,000 years ago, as hypothesized by Stephen Oppenheimer, but our ancestors constantly came into contact with archaic human populations already existing outside of Africa (Neanderthals, Homo Erectus, Homo floresiensis, etc.). There is archaeological evidence stating that Neanderthals occupied the Middle East, as well as Europe, around the time of the African Exodus (per the Qafzeh, Shanidar, and Tabun sites).

The article just states that modern humans out-of-Africa and Neanderthals were able to, and did in fact, interbreed. There is no indication saying that modern European Homo Sapiens are the direct genetic descendants of European Neanderthals, and thus the Multi-regional hypothesis fails to meet the criteria, as far as the Science article is concerned. -Ano-User (talk) 06:59, 9 May 2010 (UTC)

Any significant interbreeding would disprove the "recent African origin" discussed in this article, because it would mean that some of our gene pool was outside of Africa throughout "recent" times. Human "origin" would then be pushed back to one or two million years ago. The point of "recent African origin" is that modern humans are a species that originated recently (in Africa), and the definition of species is that they don't interbreed with each other.
Warren Dew (talk) 17:18, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Denisova DNA sequencing

I also added information regarding the recent denisova DNA sequencing. This has been reverted in a series of edits. I plan to undo the revert because no reason was given for deleting this information. If you feel a need to delete it again, please discuss here. Warren Dew (talk) 09:24, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Genomic analysis

The material in this section on genomic analysis has not been connected in any way to theories on human origins. I suggest either making it relevant or deleting it. Wapondaponda (talk) 01:32, 13 May 2010 (UTC)

I have cut the section down substantially and clarified the relevance to the article. I have also retitled the section "Autosomal DNA", so it can contain more relevant recent findings regarding neanderthal and denisovan DNA that I will add. Warren Dew (talk) 06:05, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Recent edits

We have a bunch of edits that have completely changed the page Recent African origin of modern humans, Was going to mass revert as its clear that the edits were done to support multiregional origin of modern humans. The whole page has been converted to this theory. Statements after statement have been added to dismiss this pages concept. Ref added for this purpose are old or misunderstood. Before i revert would like a second opinion as we have blanking of refs etc... . Moxy (talk) 16:17, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

Don't blank any references, and please discuss any major changes here. There are significant recent findings that have not been properly incorporated into the article that do in fact cast a lot of doubt on recent African origins. I would contend that a lot of the references that were already in the article are the ones that are misunderstood or questionable.
I'm happy to work with you to incorporate the recent findings in a way that retains a neutral point of view.
Warren Dew (talk) 17:29, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Yes we should talk about any major changes like what you have done to make the theory look old and irrelevant. We have to remove all that is not related to this page - because you have changed the view of this page and in the process have removed many refs. This page is about Recent African origin of modern humans not the multiregional origin of modern humans page . You have reworded the page to match multiregional origin of modern humans (this is wrong). They are 2 different views. You have added info that has not conclusive but state that it is. Its clear that what you believe in the multiregional origin this is fine but not here . Basically you have worded the page to make sure that only the multiregional origin view looks right. Your making a conclutyion based on a few studies that have yet to be published with there findings. In fact the report says its an admixture process not a multiregional development. I have gone ahead and reverted the whole thing as per Wikipedia:BOLD, revert, discuss cycle. Just so all know i am not a proponent of either model as i personal believe its a mixture of both that is Small textMoxy (talk) 18:19, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
The mainstream view is the "out of Africa" hypothesis (this article) while the multiregional origin of modern humans article presents a significant minority view. Changing the majority point of view in this article to the minority view is not appropriate, especially since the minority view already has an article devoted to it and is linked in the lead of this article. Boghog (talk) 19:31, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
No one changed the majority point of view in this article; in fact the lead continued to present recent African origin as "the mainstream model" - direct quote from the first sentence of the lead - throughout. My edits were actually quite limited, made specifically to (1) fix a very clumsily worded description of multiregional evolution in the lead of the recent African origins page, (2) introduce a source or two to provide a more balanced view of the analysis of autosomal evidence since 2000, and (3) introduce material on 2010 analyses of neanderthal and denisovan DNA. Over 90% of the page was untouched, including the first 80% or so of the lead. Warren Dew (talk) 19:36, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
I don't think I've made this theory look "old and irrelevant"; I've left the lead characterizing the theory as "the mainstream theory" throughout, despite the fact that in my opinion it isn't the only mainstream theory, and in my most recent versions I have balancing left contrary evidence out of the lead. I'd appreciate knowing what specific wording you think portrays the theory as "old and irrelevant", so we can see what we can do about it.
Can you say what info you think is not conclusive that I've presented as conclusive? If you're talking about the 2005 Templeton paper, have you read the paper? In any case, if the problem is that you think the wording presents some findings as conclusive when they aren't, wouldn't it be more appropriate to fix the wording rather than just reverting?
And if we're going to be more careful about presenting findings as overly conclusive, shouldn't we be talking about some of the existing material as well? A few papers claiming that the "consensus" is on one side doesn't actually mean those papers are right about where the consensus is.
With respect to admixture, irrespective of whether it supports multiregional evolution, it is contrary to the recent African origins theory because it means we have significant recent genetic interchange with archaic nonafrican populations. Recent African origins would say that any genetic interchange would be limited to very small amounts of introgression, since the "origin" we're talking about is of a new species that would not be significantly interbreeding with other species; admixture implies significant interbreeding.
Warren Dew (talk) 20:01, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
WP:DUE Lets look at some of your edits closer (besides all the stuff in the lead)- let me show you how you have reworded the whole article to the POV of the other article.
  • The recent single origin of modern humans in East Africa is the near-consensus position held within the scientific community.
    • Was changed with no references to = The recent single origin of modern humans in East Africa was the near-consensus position held within the scientific community 'until 2010.
  • However, recent sequencing of the full Neanderthal Genome suggests Neanderthals and some modern humans share some ancient genetic lineages. The authors of the study suggest that their findings are consistent with Neanderthal admixture of up to 4% in some populations. But the study also suggests that there may be other reasons why humans and Neanderthals share ancient genetic lineages.
    • Was changed with the references removed an none added to = autosomal DNA from neanderthals and from an archaic human from denisova suggest that these populations, which were already outside of Africa at the posited time of the recent African human origin, also contributed to the modern human gene pool.
  • With the advent of archaeogenetics in the 1990s, scientists were able to date the "out of Africa" migration with some confidence. In 2000, the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) sequence of "Mungo Man" of ancient Australia was published.
      • You change the wording of the above that was fine but then you addded- However, autosomal evidence from the 2000s rejects a recent African origin. In 2010, analysis of two sources of archaic human autosomal DNA provided concrete evidence for genetic contributions from nonafrican archaic humans from before 200,000 years ago.

Your additions are all based on a few studies and are all on the POV of the multiregional origin of modern humans and should go there as you have already done.Moxy (talk) 20:12, 10 January 2011 (UTC)

I am following this discussion and I think both sides are making valid points. Evidence suggesting limited interbreeding of species (on the order of 5%) doesn't necessarily invalidate the single origin theory, but the theory may need to be modified to accommodate this new evidence. Hence recent edits to this article, while scientifically accurate, may give the impression that the single origin theory has serious problems. My suggestion is that we not incorporate this new evidence in existing sections, but rather add it to a new section that also puts it in context (i.e., that there has been limited interbreeding, but ~95% of the origin of humans is still out-of-Africa). Boghog (talk) 21:25, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
Thats the problem with the edits - leads our readers to believe as you put it "single origin theory has serious problems". What has been presented here is a few studies from the past 5 years or so - during the same time other studies continue to support this page view - there just not being added as only one view is and the view has its page and is y we split the pages long ago. Not sure how familiar everyone here is with the topic but in this field we do not talk about absolutes as we understand we are at the beginning of our knowledge on the topic. This studies are not a revelation or conclusive in any manner as stated in the refs. What they do represent is a bit more evidence but nothing that blows us out of the water. Moxy (talk) 21:53, 10 January 2011 (UTC)
How hard would it be to add the more recent studies which do support this theory, just to keep the article up to date? That would help here wouldn't it? Warren Dew, a change in the scientific consensus can't be immediately reflected in Wikipedia. WP will lag till available sources catch up to the subject. That doesn't really seem to be the case here, but even if the scientific consensus has changed in the minds of the scientists in the field, we would still not publish that till the sources catch up. BE——Critical__Talk 01:47, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
I'm going to answer Boghog's comment in several parts, so that we can discuss different parts of the question one at time. Feel free to insert comments right after my signature after each part.
"arguments against": In the multiregional article, I added arguments against that hypothesis in the relevant sections throughout the article, but I have no objections to grouping the arguments against this hypothesis in a separate section in this article if people prefer it that way. What's a good name - "Evidence against the recent African origin hypothesis", maybe?
Warren Dew (talk) 07:35, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
With respect to the context, I have no problem with context that is verifiable. I do think we have to be careful - the neanderthal numbers, for example, are minimum contributions, not best estimates, so we might have significantly less than 95% "recent African origin" genes (we know melanesians have less because of the denisovan result). I think we might be able to safely say a "substantial fraction" is still of recent African origin, or point out that neanderthals still came out of Africa, just not recently, or something like that, though.
Warren Dew (talk) 07:35, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
With respect to the "near consensus", despite what a few sources may try to claim, I don't think there has been anything near a consensus for recent African origins since about 2002, and most physical anthropologists - the guys who look at fossils rather than genes - have always been skeptical of "mitochondrial Eve". (There is a consensus for some kind of African origin - even the multiregional hypothesis posits an African origin, just an ancient one - but this article is specifically about recent African origins, not all African origins.) That said, I don't have a problem with the claim appearing somewhere in the article - but if it appears in the lead, then the opposing position described in the 2005 Templeton paper that "rejects recent African origins" should also appear in the lead. I think the best compromise here is to leave both of these out of the lead, and rely on the "is the mainstream model" part of the first sentence to get across the idea that recent African origins is the "incumbent", so to speak.
Warren Dew (talk) 07:35, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Also not yet discussed is my edit to the sentences in the lead on the multiregional hypothesis. The current description flows poorly and does a disservice to the multiregional hypothesis. What was the problem with "The competing hypothesis is multiregional origin of modern humans, which contends that any recent expansion out of Africa would have interbred with the preexisting nonafrican archaic human forms. Under the multiregional theory, Darwin's posited single origin occurred with the evolution of Homo erectus, rather than of Homo sapiens sapiens, pushing back human origins to about two million years ago.[6][7]"? Or did that just get lost in the crossfire, and it's okay for me to put that back?
Warren Dew (talk) 07:35, 11 January 2011 (UTC)


Lets look at the latest books on the topic - i can provide many many more. To use a few studies to discredit 40 years of research is not how things work in the science field.Moxy (talk) 02:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Videos on this topic

So lots of sources, cool. Yes this was the wrong revert, thanks for correcting. I can't tell what happened by looking at the history. BE——Critical__Talk 05:04, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I have no problem adding new info - my problem was/is that the addition saying "However", "rejects a recent African origin" and so on were added to many sections thus leading our readers to believe that the "multiregional origin of modern humans" model is the only correct one. You will notice that this page does not try to contradict the "multiregional origin of modern humans" directly with wording - it simply puts forth this sides argument with facts and not comparisons. The Multiregional origin of modern humans article should also be of this nature - that is to put forth the argument without trying to bash the other models. The Multiregional.... article was like this before this edits - but my main concern about the other article is Y was so many of the references and further readings section simply blanked out - I do like some of the rewording but overall because of the blanking of refs its a bit concerning. Y are this being removed as they were here?Moxy (talk) 05:42, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
"rejects a recent African origin" is the scientific way to describe the conclusions of that article, along with "p < 10-17", where "rejects" has a specific statistical meaning for hypothesis testing. I can see how the word "rejects" could be misinterpreted to have a broader meaning, though, and I'm open to rewording to fix that as long as it still reflects what the source says, or alternatively adding context that provides other points of view if sources can be found for them, or both.
With respect to the multiregional article, I don't want to go into that in too much detail here since it's not directly relevant, but it was a mess before my rewrite - see the old version here [5] - and most of what I did was clean up the wording while retaining the references. I did add a few references both for and against multiregional origins. Most of the references that looked like they disappeared were actually incorporated into inline references per wikipedia guidelines, or already had duplicate references as inline references. The external links section violated WP:EL and had a tag on it; I fixed it by removing dead links and redundant sources, per the WP:EL guidelines. Anyone interested in more detail can check my edit summaries.
Warren Dew (talk) 07:52, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
I am puzzled at y you are giving the Templeton report so much weight even thought its says - This does not preclude the possibility that some Eurasian populations could have been replaced, and the status of Neanderthals is indecisive. Demographic inferences from haplotype trees have been inconsistent, so few definitive conclusions can be made at this time. Haplotype trees from human parasites offer additional insights into human evolution and raise the possibility of an Asian isolate of humanity, but once again not in a definitive fashion.. You have also said a few time that this is not the main model since 2000s (can you provide a references to that effect) Because this book from 2010 says it still is even mentioning the other models and Y it differs. Anyways what do you propose - keeping in mind that this article and its lead is to describe this model not to go into detail about others.Moxy (talk) 08:16, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
The passage you're quoting just means that, as Templeton and others saw things as of 2005, while recent African origins was wrong - see p.49, where he says "The strong rejection of the recent out-of-Africa replacement is particularly noteworthy ..." - there were still blank spots to be filled in. For example, neanderthals might have been replaced, with the mixing occurring with Homo erectus or some other form of archaic human instead.
With respect to consensus, Templeton talks about the consensus on pp.55-56, and sees it as finding that "the out-of-Africa replacement hypothesis" is "strongly rejected", so there's an opposing view on consensus. Note that, as discussed above in my replies to Boghog, I don't think Templeton needs to be presented as correct; he just represents a different view of what the consensus was, demonstrating that there wasn't really a consensus, just some people claiming a consensus.
Proposal: As discussed in my reply to Boghog, my proposal is to keep the stuff about "consensus" and "rejection" out of the lead. Move the "near consensus" statement, the Templeton cite/discussion, and the neanderthal and denisova data out of the lead to a new "evidence against" or "criticism" section. Maybe we handle this chronologically, something like "As of 2005, some scientists considered the recent African origin theory rejected based on analysis of 25 genetic regions (P < 10-17),[templeton cite, plus more if you think I should add more] although as of 2009, some still considered recent African origin the consensus model.[existing cites] In 2010, analysis of neanderthal DNA indicated that living nonafricans have at least 1-4% neanderthal genetic contributions,[cites] and analysis of archaic denisovan DNA indicated that they contributed an additional 4-6% of the genome of living melanesians.[cites]" The lead can be cut down to the first current long paragraph, with a brief paragraph mentioning the multiregional hypothesis similar to what I suggested to Boghog.
Warren Dew (talk) 18:34, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Note: It sounds like Warren Dew made a lot of good edits along with the ones to which people objected. Those should be retained. They probably just need to be added back. Wholesale reverts are normal in these cases but that can be extremely frustrating as well as time consuming, so Warren don't feel like you're being shoved out of the article it's just that wiki software can't be used to only revert some edits and not others. BE——Critical__Talk 21:19, 11 January 2011 (UTC)
Not sure i like the proposal as it can easily be referenced away - As all can see this is a big debate ( in the real world )with each side publishing new findings all the time . We have to be carefully as there is always apposing views and findings are challenged and/or interpreted differently -like this 2 refs that challenge the conclusions that are stated above Deep divergences of human gene trees and models of human origins, September 28, 2010 and Neanderthal genes 'survive in us' 6 May 2010 . Each article should stand on its own merits and not on the comparison and/or a tit for tat of findings of each model. This are two competing models and i think they should stay as separated as possible - with simple mention of each other. PS we need articles on hybridization-and-replacement model and the assimilation model Moxy (talk) 04:41, 12 January 2011 (UTC)
Thanks, Becritical. I'm just trying to figure out what the objections are and how to address them. For example, no one seems to have objected here to my rewording of the description of the multiregional hypothesis in the lead, quoted above in the last paragraph of my response to Boghog above. Does that one look okay to you?
Warren Dew (talk) 22:23, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Link error

The link at the bottom to the atlas by the National Geographis outdated. New one: https://genographic.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/atlas.html Ced22 (talk) 13:52, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

Fixed, thank you. - 2/0 (cont.) 21:35, 17 January 2011 (UTC)

inaccurate

"The trend in cranial expansion and the acheulean elaboration of stone tool technologies which occurred between 400,000 years ago and the second interglacial period in the Middle Pleistocene (around 250,000 years ago) provide evidence for a transition from H. erectus to H. sapiens."

H. sapiens evolved from H. heidelbergensis, not H. erectus, which represents a separate lineage. See http://thamesandhudsonusa.com/web/humanpast/summaries/ch03.html. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 86.45.235.209 (talk) 16:12, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

"The" mainstream model?

Calling out-of-Africa "the" mainstream model seems to imply that multiregional is fringe or "alternative" science, rather than a legitimate minority viewpoint. The claim of "near-consensus" is cited to five papers, but only the first citation actually uses "near-consensus" or words to that effect; the others actually describe two scientific theories, OOA and multiregional. It looks like this page is skewed rather too far in favor of OOA. OOA should be presented as the pre-eminent model of human origins, but not the subject of certainty, scientific consensus, or "near-consensus" (a lovely way of spinning "hasn't achieved consensus support.") TiC (talk) 23:00, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Not sure its all that off - What are you suggesting for the rewording? Replace "near-consensus" with "pre-eminent model"? Moxy (talk) 23:25, 23 February 2011 (UTC)
You're right that it's a somewhat minor point, I'm not proposing any kind of major overhaul. I would prefer something like "In paleoanthropology, the recent African origin of modern humans is one of two mainstream models describing the origin...The recent single origin of modern humans in East Africa is the predominant position held within the scientific community." OK? TiC (talk) 01:57, 24 February 2011 (UTC)
Sound ok to me ...This article needs updating.Moxy (talk) 03:39, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes, "out of Africa" is one of two principal theories, hotly debated. But science doesn't stand still. A "News Focus" article in the 28 January issue of Science describes "A New View Of the Birth of Homo sapiens", and gives a quick overview of the debate and how current views are adapting elements of both theories. - J. Johnson (JJ) (talk) 22:02, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Yes still great big debate.. Deep divergences of human gene trees and models of human origins, September 28, 2010 and Neanderthal genes 'survive in us' 6 May 2010 ...Like you say views change we realy should make an article called African hybridization-and-replacement explaining both and the new mixed of the two theories.Moxy (talk) 22:15, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Please make the article more balanced

There is much evidence againt the out of africa theory, to make the page more balanced, a criticism section should be added. 86.10.119.131 (talk) 16:40, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Could you provided some references?Moxy (talk) 17:41, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Here is Akhil Bakshi's scientific paper:

"CONTINENTAL DRIFT AND CONCURRENT EVOLUTION OF HUMAN SPECIES" A critique of the African-origin theory by Akhil Bakshi

Akhil Bakshi's scientific paper

This website here has debunked the Out of Africa theory, please read over the website it has many valid sources.

Out of Africa theory debunked

86.10.119.131 (talk) 15:30, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Both fail our criteria at WP:RS as sources as they are self-published. Which you've been told elsewhere also, I believe. Dougweller (talk) 15:51, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Did first humans come out of Middle East and not Africa? The discovery of 400,000 year old teeth debunk Out of Africa theory

Link 1

Link 2

Anthropologists Dispute Latest ‘Out of Africa’ Claims

Link 3

110,000-year-old Chinese Fossil Poses Challenge to 'Out of Africa' Theory

Link 4

Fossil challenge to Africa theory

Link 5

Georgian skeletons challenge 'out of Africa' theory

Link 6

86.10.119.131 (talk) 17:04, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

you really need to centralize discussion and have replied elsewhere on this material. The Resident Anthropologist (Talk / contribs) 19:12, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

According to the out of africa theory the oldest fossil evidence should be in Africa, but the oldest current find in the world is found in Israel, so already we have fossil evidence against the out of africa theory. 400,000 year old teeth found in Israel completly challenge the out of africa theory. A section about this needs to be added to the article. 86.10.119.131 (talk) 19:33, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

The author of the paper caught a lot of flack for that paper since he has no evidence to say they are "human teeth" almost all great apes have very similar teeth much less the various homonids. Also News a reports are bunk provide us with peer reviewed papers not what the latest news report is. Any one can tell you News Org reccuringly fail at two things Science and religion. The Resident Anthropologist (Talk / contribs) 22:20, 8 March 2011 (UTC)

Wow, I thought that kind of scientific racism was dead and buried. No, these articles, specially the first one do not belong here. 212.163.172.180 (talk) 21:07, 18 May 2011 (UTC)Leirus 212.163.172.180 (talk) 21:07, 18 May 2011 (UTC)

Hold your horses

Boynamedsue (talk · contribs) made an addition in which Denisova hominin was prominently featured as disproving out of africa theory. While the discovery means a multi-regional hypothesis greater credibility its not a paradigm shift quite yet. Our article should not give the impression that a paradigm shift has occurred until scholarly consensus shifts. The Resident Anthropologist (Talk / contribs) 02:11, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

As seen above this has come up a few times. You are correct in your overview of the situation. I also have a concern with this articles counterparts wording on this findings. I caution the wording to the weight given to this one finding - in that the other article will be outdated very quickly if the primary counter point is this one finding. As seen here (just a news report but with Chris Stringer). Moxy (talk) 02:20, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Hi, I've changed thewording from the initially too strong "discredited" to "further challenged", I would have thought that was accurate, as the various scientific articles on this matter have all indicated that. Boynamedsue (talk) 02:44, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

BTW, the references I attatched is from 2010 paper in nature, so assuming a Good Faith error in your revert, as per-your edit summary re. 3 year old sources, I will revert to the last edit until discussion can be completed.

Boynamedsue (talk) 02:47, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Its a bit better but not sure this ref is all that good as per Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources#News organizations (can we find the actual paper see if the conclusion is the same on the report. By the way did you read this not that is a good source just interesting. My main problem i have as seen above is there are many explanations for this percentage of DNA in modern people. I will get some refs and add a part in a few days. Moxy (talk) 02:57, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

That's not my edit, I only added the last sentence about Denisovans. The Neanderthal stuff is all based in current genetic research though, I can get the abstracts if some of the sources are dodgy. Boynamedsue (talk) 03:03, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

OMG sorry was thinking it was just added..o well missed that one...your refs are just fine..I will have to clean this article up in general soon.Moxy (talk) 03:07, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

In the end

Considering the rest of this article (for eg "Genetic reconstruction"), can someone tell me where the change below is difficult to understand so much so that was removed? Thanks.--Andrea Jagher (talk) 11:40, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

  • material in violation of copyright please do not restore
Its in coherent to the average reader - And nicely POVd in the end. Removal was more then warranted. Moxy (talk) 12:22, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
Not to mention nicely cut and pasted into the article. The Resident Anthropologist (Talk / contribs) 17:31, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

Yes you are right. As the sentence that you wrote may be copyrighted in some place. Like a dictionary i suppose. Then we must revert to some ancestral language not copyrighted.--Andrea Jagher (talk) 19:30, 6 March 2011 (UTC)

As I said in my edit summary, I don't think a 'conclusion' is appropriate. Another editor and I found it incomprehensible to the average reader. Dougweller (talk) 19:39, 6 March 2011 (UTC)
Hi Dougweller. This paragraph (here) added in this article, was a well-referenced attempt to criticize in a different way this human hypothesis (the RAO, but for that matter any hypothetical human theory) pointing out its weaknesses and inconsistencies leading us to find only what we are looking for: the logical conclusion of the assumptions behind any theoretical construction (methods or models). Ending up believing to be true the most likely theory that satisfies the aesthetic aspects of our nature: political/moral, personality clashes/ambitions, favored source... Our (western) science being simply our aesthetic physiognomy of what we call reality: the the so-called scientific point of view of our (western) nature on the external one, that once generated us and the other living beings and creatures. (See for eg the evolutionary epistemology of Konrad Lorenz in "Behind the Mirror" or "The Mind of God" by Paul Davies)--Andrea Jagher (talk) 19:41, 11 March 2011 (UTC)
It's a very vague, poorly written, and opinionated paragraph (although I'm not exactly sure what the opinion is, because of the two former problems.) It certainly doesn't belong. TiC (talk) 21:23, 12 March 2011 (UTC)

Competing hypotheses

If there are no objections, I would like to add this paragraph in "Competing hypotheses": "Other hypothesis see the emergence of Homo erectus outside Africa (in Eurasia)[6] and then returning to colonize that continent from which his ancestors originated[7][8][9]." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrea Jagher (talk • contribs) 09:55, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Out of North Africa?

The article's head evokes 'A growing number of researchers also suspect that "long-neglected North Africa", was the original home of the modern humans who first trekked out of the continent'. But I cannot find expansion on this (interesting) hypothesis in the article body. Denispir (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 17:09, 31 July 2011 (UTC).

There are 3 references about that. The first talks about archaic-looking hominins, not about modern humans. The second is about genetics, but for only one antique sample and there are more in Cameroon of this lineage. The third is a combination of primitive traits shared with early Homo and derived traits shared with later Homo. Honestly all of this is not about modern humans. --Maulucioni (talk) 06:48, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
The only land routes connecting Africa to Eurasia go through North Africa. There isn't much doubt that North Africa played an important role in early human evolution. But it should be noted that the divisions of Africa into various regions is done sometimes for convenience. During certain wet phases of the Sahara, North Africa and the rest of Africa would have formed one ecological zone with similar flora and fauna. In short the "Out of North Africa" model may not be so different from the "Out of Africa" model. Wapondaponda (talk) 08:07, 3 August 2011 (UTC)

please clarify, edit

  • "Hua Liu & al. analyzing autosomal microsatellite markers dates to c. 56,000±5,700 years ago mtDNA evidence" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.70.67.226 (talk) 18:46, 31 August 2011 (UTC)

it:wiki

can we put it:Origine africana dell'Homo sapiens? --Placca condor (talk) 20:34, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Isn't "human" the same as "Homo sapiens"?

Second paragraph of article: "...members of one branch of Homo sapiens left Africa by between 125,000 and 60,000 years ago, and that over time these humans replaced earlier human populations such as Neanderthals and Homo erectus." Shouldn't the "human populations" be "hominid populations" because "human" implies Homo sapiens? --Champaign (talk) 16:47, 20 October 2011 (UTC)

This is a semantic issue. Most scientists today prefer to refer to Neanderthals (and Denisovans) as "archaic humans" as their similarities with "homo sapiens" are quite strong (99.5%). In the 1960s, neanderthals and humans were considered subspecies. Since the 1980s, the trend has been to consider Neanderthals as a separate species. Recent DNA finds, however, are swinging the argument back toward, at the least, two species that were close enough to interbreed:

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/07/26/dna-evidence-confirms-humans-and-neanderthals-mated/

Ryoung122 18:38, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Here's an example of the "archaic human" usage:

http://www.livescience.com/16171-denisovans-humans-widespread-sex-asia.html

mating between modern humans and archaic humans such as Neanderthals and Denisovans

Studies of Neanderthals have shown that they had religious beliefs, buried their dead, and did a lot of other things that would qualify them as "human". Where to draw the line, however, is a hotly debated issue. I think most scientists currently use "modern human" to refer to homo sapiens and "human" to refer to those in the genus homo. The Latin name "homo" means "man." Authorities differ, however.Ryoung122 21:49, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Theory Needs Tweaking

Greetings,

As with any theories, a "theory" is a model, and a model is, by definition, a simplification of reality. The idea that all humans today are 100%-descended from ancestors that left Africa just 100,000 years ago has been strongly challenged in recent years:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/05/100506-science-neanderthals-humans-mated-interbred-dna-gene/

http://newsfeed.time.com/2011/07/26/dna-evidence-confirms-humans-and-neanderthals-mated/

Even if 90-95 percent (the percentage varies by individual person) of human DNA today is from the "recent" migration out of Africa, evidence is accumulating from DNA analyses that "modern" humans interbred with "archaic" humans (i.e., neanderthals, denisovans) in sufficient quantity to count for about 5-10% of human DNA today. Considering that humans have two parents, four grandparents, 8 great-grandparents, and 16 great-great grandparents, that would be the approximation of having 14-15 "modern human" great-grandparents and 1-2 "archaic" human great-grandparents. Do we say those great-grandparents and their lineage does not count? Moreover, interbreeding raises the issue of whether we were separate species to begin with (see speciation). The ability to interbreed argues in favor of us not quite becoming separate species over several hundred thousand years of mostly isolation.Ryoung122 18:31, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

Not just my opinion:

http://www.livescience.com/15911-humans-interbred-extinct-relatives.html

"We need to modify the standard model of human origins in which a single population transitioned to the anatomically modern state in isolation — a garden of Eden somewhere in Africa — and replaced all other archaic forms both within Africa and outside Africa without interbreeding," researcher Michael Hammer, a population geneticist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, told LiveScience. "We now need to consider models in which gene flow occurred over time."

Ryoung122 19:13, 24 October 2011 (UTC)

I have reverted the additions as per WP:NEWSORG and WP:RS/AC. It all sounds fine and the article does need updating - However we need much better refs then some news reports for this article. Are this conclusions published in a paper/book that has been peer reviewed like a scientific journal? The reason I ask is that this has been mentioned - See Talk:Recent African origin of modern humans/Archive 2 for many talks about this. Moxy (talk) 03:23, 25 October 2011 (UTC)

I also wonder about the section title "Exodus" from Africa; it implies that *all* humans left Africa 120K or so years ago (at least in a Biblical sense) when of course many African groups of humans never left (as is made clear in the discussion of mtDNA in the article). Xanthoptica (talk) 18:55, 13 February 2012 (UTC)

Linguistics

Recent linguistic theory has made play of the fact that the languages furthest removed from Africa seem to have the least phonemes, and those in Africa have the most. Maybe this article should include something on linguistics.--MacRusgail (talk) 17:43, 20 February 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps link up the articles in a sentence - "Linguists and biologists have reached a similar conclusion based on analysis of language groups and ABO blood group system distributions".Moxy (talk) 17:56, 20 February 2012 (UTC)
I wouldn't pretend it's completely similar... but the basic hypothesis is that Polynesian languages contain the least phonemes, as the Polynesians are supposed to have travelled the furthest from Africa. (Further than some of the peoples of the Americas even)
Where this breaks down, IMHO, is how Tlingit seems to have more phonemes than English...--MacRusgail (talk) 13:45, 23 February 2012 (UTC)
Hundreds of indigenous languages in Australia, Polynesia and the Americas have more phonemes than English. That research is nonsensical from a linguistic standpoint. There is no valid reason to assume that number phonemes decline by distance traveled. There isn't even a single recognized way to count phonemes in a given language. Atkinson is not a linguist and linguists have taken him to task for the problems with his data, methods and assumptions. It should not be included. [unsigned]
Well, I have to admit, I'm highly sceptical of the idea... but it should be mentioned. Even if it is highly disputed, both the theory, and the criticism thereof should be noted.--MacRusgail (talk) 13:55, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
This debate need not be included if it is a fringe theory. The Wiki policy on NPOV says that major viewpoints should be covered, not all viewpoints.Ryoung122 20:09, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Oversimplification of the subject into theoretical extremes

It's perhaps more of an issue with the articles of "multiregional model" and "models of human evolution" than with this one, but I'm just guessing that here the discussion is more likely to be read, and it's all related anyway.

Perhaps it would be interesting to add more about the "gray area" between "African replacement" and "multiregional model". These days, with all the news regarding evidences of interbreeding, it seems that the "out of africa replacement" is often assumed to be the most radical theory in which it does not allow no hybridization whatsoever, whereas any degree of hybridization satisfies the ever more vague standards for "multiregional continuity" (the "multiregional model" article itself, and perhaps related ones, had and may even have examples of such simplifications). In fact, whereas "zero hybridization" seemed to be the case according with the data at a time, it's not really a crucial factor refuting "OOA", one can easily find on scholarly papers descriptions of "pure" OOA (that is, not yet an intermediate model per se) as a replacement with "little or no hybridization", emphazis on "little".

But even though OOA allows for little hybridization itself, there are actual intermediate models that allow for "more". One of such intermediates is the "African hybridization and replacement model" (Brauer and/or Rimbach, maybe there is some detail that differs). On this range (perhaps even before that) there are authors who even accept adaptive introgression into those sapiens that were moving out of Africa and largely replacing the previous humans.

Other one may be the "assimilation model" (Smith), which comes significantly closer to the multiregional evolution, albeit it's yet more "recent African origins" in a way than something really multiregional; the replacement is thought to have happened more in the long-term genetic level rather than in a demic/populational level. Then there is "out of Africa again and again" (Templeton), which may be just a more specifically delineated version of the latter, suggesting two big migrations out of Africa, followed by hybridization.

I think that the last two are very near the actual "perfect gray" range, after that there are several multiregional versions that would range from a more significant role/continuity from the earlier humans outside Africa, like having even anatomical remnants of such heritage (most of Wolpoff does I think), to the most extreme versions that come close to multiple origins (Carleton Coon's "candelabra model"), and finally multiple origins itself. --Extremophile (talk) 08:13, 4 December 2011 (UTC)

Trying to make it very clear: "out of Africa"/"recent replacement" does allow for hybridization

Hybridization/interbreeding is not sufficient to characterize multiregional theory, at least not according to many people[who?]. More than a matter of hybridization, it's a matter of a theoretical spectrum of multiregional continuity of humans versus a more geographically restricted origin of sapiens in Africa and posterior replacement, which in one end of the spectrum ("ultra-hard OOA") is perfect demic replacement with no hybridization whatsoever, but it does allow for hybridization, and then the theories "blend" with genetic replacement scenarios, which would posit that while there was no demic replacement, eventually more than 90% of the genes of people all around the world came from recently sapiens migrants out of Africa, rather than multiregional continuity, replacing the "archaic" regional genes. Before this perfect 50/50 theory there's also room for predominantly demic replacement (OOA sapiens replacing neanderthals and erectines) with some interbreeding, which seems to be the actual scenario according to the new evidence, rather than any sort of relevant displacement of "out of Africa". While you'll still find that most scientists support OOA, you'll only rarely find one trying posit alternative explanations to the apparent interbreeding with archaics. Because that can still happen in scenario that is better described as "OOA" than "multiregional evolution" of modern humans. --Extremophile (talk) 19:32, 13 March 2012 (UTC)

Exactly. Hybridization is not evidence for the multiregiional model in itself.·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 19:33, 13 March 2012 (UTC)
I've found a good summary of the whole theoretical gradation on Stringer's "Modern human origins: progress and prospects", 2002:
The growing body of archaeological, morphological and genetic evidence concerning modern human origins is still generally assessed against two contrasting models known as ‘Recent African Origin’ (also called ‘Out of Africa’,‘African Replacement’, or simply ‘Replacement’ model) and ‘Multiregional Evolution’ (also sometimes called ‘Regional Continuity’). However, as Aiello (1993) discussed, there are two other models of modern human evolution that also merit consideration (figure 2). One (‘Hybridization and Replacement’) can be viewed as a variant of Recent African Origin, while the other (‘Assimilation’) combines elements of Recent African Origin and Multiregional Evolution. Aiello summarized them as follows (my editing [ ]):
  • (1) [Recent African Origin] argues that modern humans first arose in Africa about 100 000 years ago and spread from there throughout the world…. Indigenous premodern populations in other areas of the world were replaced by the migrating populations with little, if any, hybridization between the groups [figure 2a].
  • (2) The (African) Hybridization and Replacement Model is similar to the above, but allows for a greater or lesser extent of hybridization between the migrating population and the indigenous premodern populations…[figure 2b; Bräuer 1992].
  • (3) The Assimilation Model also accepts an African origin for modern humans. However, it differs from the previous models in denying replacement, or population migration, as a major factor in the appearance of modern human…. Rather, this model emphasizes the importance of gene flow, admixture, changing selection pressures, and resulting directional morphological change [figure 2c].
  • (4) [Multiregional Evolution] differs from the previous three in denying a recent African origin for modern humans…. It emphasizes the role of both genetic continuity over time and gene flow between contemporaneous populations in arguing that modern humans arose not only in Africa but also in Europe and Asia from their Middle Pleistocene forebears [figure 2d]
I may have mentioned previously, there's also at least one hypothesis (but possibly 2) that's more or less between 1 and 3, on which modern humans first arose as hybrids of premodern Africans and premodern Europeans (or perhaps Asians or Middle-Easterners), and some authors may put emphasis on how that's "not OOA", whereas a different author puts the same thing as "the first step OOA". There's a frequent problem of tone, like in a nearly unrelated subject where at least one author makes the seemingly outlandish claim that "apes evolved from humans", when what he means by "humans" is what most people would describe just as "bipedal apes". --Extremophile (talk) 08:01, 14 March 2012 (UTC)

My reversion

I reverted an edit by Lothar von Richthofen which placed the dominance of the OOA model in the past tense. It cited a recent article by Lalueza and Gilbert. However, in the conclusion the article says: "While the out of Africa migration of anatomically modern humans continues to play a dominant role in the origin of modern Eurasians, it is clear that successive episodes of hybridisation with archaic hominins have played a role in this process." In other words the authors do not challenge the OOA model or advocate for the multi regional model but show that the OOA model is more complex than a single migration and rather includes a long period of mirgation and geneflow between Africa and Eurasia. The authors clearly recognize that the OOA model is the consensus model and that also the new genetic data supports it. ·ʍaunus·snunɐw· 15:22, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Indo-Eurasians are not descended from Sub-Saharan Africans (Haplogroups A and B)

Recent fossil discoveries in central Asia have turned the "Out Of Africa" theory of human evolution upside down. Now geneticists through recent Genome Wide Association Studies show that DNA disproves the theory. There findings were published in Advances in Anthropology. The entire article can be read online.

www.scirp.org/journal/PaperInformation.aspx?paperID=19566[predatory publisher]

There are, however, four distinct SNPs which present in both Africans and Europeans of haplogroup R1a1, taken the latter as an example. They seem to be the most ancient SNPs, which are defined the alpha-haplogroup (see Figure 3). Tables 1 and 2 illustrate this statement.

The ancestral alleles of the above four SNPs should correspond to the alpha haplogroup. All four are mutated in haplogroup R1a1, and the WTY data show. All four are still ances- tral in the A1 subclade. All other subclades of haplogroup A show various combinations of the SNPs which do not match those in haplogroup R1a1 (see also Table 2).

Table 2 shows SNPs of five subclades of "African" haplogroup A. None of those SNPs have been observed in haplogroup R1a1, it maintains their ancestral state. These data, based on the SNPs (Single Nucleotide Polymorphism), along with the data based on the STRs (Short Tandem Repeats), described in this study, are compatible with each other and undeniably indicate that non-African people, bearers of haplogroups from C to T, did not descend from the "African" haplogroups A or B. Their origin is likely not in Africa. A higher variance of the DNA in Africa, which was a cornerstone of the "Out of Africa" theory, is explained by Figure 3, in which haplogroup A has been evolving (mutation-wise) for 132,000 years, while the non-European haplogroups are much younger. Hence, there is a lower variability in the latter. The same is related to language variability, which has also been used as an argument of the African origin of non-Africans. We believe that those arguments upon which the "Out of Africa" theory was based were, in fact, conjectural, incomplete and not actually data-driven. Therefore, we are left holding the question of the origin of Homo sapiens.

Based on palaeoarchaeological evidence, the region, where anatomically modern humans have likely originated, is comprised of a vast territory from Central Europe in the west to the Russian Plain in the east to Levant in the south. Each of these regions is renowned for discoveries of the oldest skeletal remains of modern humans dating back to 42,000 – 44,000 ybp. To date, none of these sub-regions has clear and unequivocal advances in this regard. 71.212.255.44 (talk) 20:54, 4 June 2012 (UTC)

All I have to say is "Anatole Klyosov" and "Jogg"!!!!Moxy (talk) 04:56, 5 June 2012 (UTC)

Edit request: Competing hypotheses.

The first and second paragraphs of the aforesaid subsection currently state:

The ambiguous wording makes it possible to interpret the word "theory" as either the Out of Africa theory or the multiregional hypothesis. I'm of the opinion therefore that its meaning ought to be clarified. --190.19.75.190 (talk) 01:18, 19 June 2012 (UTC)

Chimpanzee and human admixture

How is it possible that 4-6% percent of the human gene pool is from Neanderthals / Denisovans, yet the similarity between human and chimpanzee DNA is 95-99%? FonsScientiae (talk) 09:50, 31 July 2012 (UTC)

Perhaps the answer is that the 95% similarity between the homo and chimpanzee lines is the proportion of the total genome, whereas the 5% which some modern humans derive from the Denisovans is only related to those genes which have diverged since the Denisovans/Neanderthals split from the sapiens line about 800,000 ago. Dudley Miles (talk) 16:29, 1 August 2012 (UTC)
I could swear I answered this somewhere not too many weeks ago, but I can't find it now. These are counting apples and oranges. Even among modern humans, this type of conflict exists. If you look at their coding sequences (the actual parts of the DNA that encode proteins) then all modern humans share greater than 99.5% similarity. If you look at total DNA (including insertions, deletions and duplications) then they are as much as 10% different. What is tricky here is that it is a statistical result, and we don't even know yet which 4-6% is shared, but the number is derived from whole-genome sequence comparisons. In a very simplified version, it went something like this - if you feed an African genome into a computer with the Neanderthal genome and tell it to look for every place where there is a difference between the sequences, and then you look at those sites in Eurasians, at 4-6% of the sites the Eurasian will match the Neanderthal sequence and be different from the African, while in the other 94-96%, the Eurasian will not match the Neanderthal - you can't even tell for certain that it is Neanderthal DNA in the Eurasian genome and not Eurasian DNA in the Neanderthal genome. This can't be compared to tho chimp estimates: if I recall correctly, the 95% figure comes from hybrid melting temperature experiments (where you mix DNA from the two together, melt the double-stranded DNA apart, and let them stick to each other. Then you see at what temperature the hybrid falls apart again - the more similar to humans, the closer the Tm (melting Temp) of the hybrid will be along the spectrum from the Tm of a mix between human and synthetic random DNA, vs the Tm for a human-human mix. That can give you a way to approximate similarity. The 99% comes from comparing coding sequence. It is meaningless to compare numbers derived from different subsets of the DNA, or evaluating similarity via different means (sequencing, Tm, SNP-chips). Agricolae (talk) 05:04, 2 August 2012 (UTC)
" If you look at total DNA (including insertions, deletions and duplications) then they are as much as 10% different."
Do you have a source for this? I find this highly implausible and divisive. Captchacatcher (talk) 06:28, 22 April 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for your very helpful comments. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:11, 9 August 2012 (UTC)

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