Re: Homo erectus: racial variants of Homo sapiens?
Philip Deitiker (pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu)
Sun, 12 Jan 1997 18:28:45 GMT
A Pagano <apagano@fast.net> wrote:
>The following is posted on behalf of David Buckna <dabuckna@awinc.com>:
>>From Maclean's magazine (Canada's weekly newsmagazine):
>***
>That would place him [Java Man] in the era of modern humans---and argue
>against an ancestral relationship."If these dates are right," said
>Philip
>Rightmire, an anthropologist at the State University of New York at
>Binghamton, "the multiregionalists will have to do some fast
>thinking.".
I.E. their theory is in deep trouble.
>..The new findings also challenge the rival Out of Africa
>theory. That view holds that modern humans emerged in Africa as recently
>as
>150,000 years ago and spread around the globe, driving Homo erectus into
>extinction---well before the era pointed to by the new
>finding.(Maclean's,
>science section,"The origins of man", Dec. 23, p. 69)
>***
How, what's the evidence. The only contridiction is the believe that
the asian HE might have migrated to africa 400 to 200 KYBP to form
sapiens. This new data adds to a number of additional possibilities.
1. Asian HE migrated to africa to form HS
2. Asian HE and african HE were 2 different species (subspecies)
3. Asian HE migrated to africa and also continued to evolve in asia
Only number three is added because of the data.
The basic problem with this argument is the following. The fossile
record and the lineage studies reconcile each other. That is that
anatomically modern humans (AMH) appeared to exit from africa in a
period from about 120 to 70 KYBP. The genetic record demonstrates
that a presumptive african derived population appears in melanesia and
australia between 50 and 42 KYA while dating studies indicate a HE
form in asia as late as 30KYA. Thus one has an overlap period of
15,000 years with absolutely no evidence for hybrid forms. There is no
significant 'form' evolution either in the immigrants or in the
presumptive population. BTW, if one looks at the java skulls it is
blatantly obvious that this skull shape is not within in the range of
shapes found in any human population (anywhere). Not even close.
There is no evidence that the asian population are hybrids (within the
last 30KY) of java erectus and homo. There is no evidence in the
fossile record that a fast hybridization occured between JAVA homo to
produce asian varients.
I would argue quite the opposite point. Not only are these
artifacts not representative of homo sapiens but they are probably not
representative of the erectus population which lead to sapiens, and
most probably, like neaderthals were a new species derived from the
anscestral multiforkated homo erectus population (like HS and HN)
The regional evolution hypothesis is all but dead, every new bit of
info seems to further support its demise. This is no exception.
Instead of trumpeting evidence which, in fact, supports the
out-of-africa, why don't all these multiregionalist go out and find
the evidences which would _actually_ support the theory.
1. Evidence for regional DNA contributions which unambiguously
demonstrates that the gene biforkated from the african population well
before 200 KYBP (preferably on the order of 400 to 800 KYBP).
2. Evidence of regional hybridizations which demonstrate the merging
of AMH and hominid body forms to produce regional variants.
So far, all the evidence presented by the multiregionalist require
strong biasing of both the artifactual and genetic evidence.
Philip
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