Re: Homo erectus: racial variants of Homo sapiens? (Getting Long)
Dan Barnes (dbarnes@liv.ac.uk)
Mon, 20 Jan 1997 18:04:24 GMT
In article <5bofmi$r0s@gazette.bcm.tmc.edu>, pdeitik@bcm.tmc.edu says...
>
>dbarnes@liv.ac.uk (Dan Barnes) wrote:
>
>>>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.
>
>>I've never heard this theory put forward anywhere. Do you have any refs for it?
>
>In popular magazines this idea has been put forth as speculation.
>Since some claim that peking man was more like archaic homo sapiens
>compared to toher finds. I don't know that this has ever been formally
>intertained though.
>
I know Rightmire (1996) doesn't seem to think so.
>
>>>2. Asian HE and african HE were 2 different species (subspecies)
>
>>The only one of these three that I'm aware of. H. ergaster evolved in Africa c
>.
>>1.9 Ma and migrated to Asia by 1.8 Ma. There is the possibility that some
H.h.
>>may have left c. 2 Ma.
>
>This new [java] data along with the genetic data would support this.
>
How?
>>> 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.
>
>>This is the whole point of the MRE theory as shown by Thorne and Wolpoff
and
>>SE Asia is one of the prime areas that the theory is based on. They have
done
>>numbers of studies showing links from the H.e. (at sites like Trinil, I think)
>to the
>>archaic H.s. (the Ngandong hominids we are discussing) to the modern
>>Australians. I know Lahr has done considerable work to disprove this link but
>>this work is criticised in turn. They may not be hybrids but the arguement is t
>hat
>>they are the ancestors of the modern SE Asians.
>
>This is true, but even if you double the pan/homo branch age the
>melanesians are no greater than 110KY distant from other eurasions,
>which are no greater than 180 to 240KY diverged from SSA population.
>It seems highly unlikely that java or peking man, whose finds date
>back well before these ages, can be a strong genetic contributor to
>the extant SEA populations.
>
A point I've brought up elsewhere. The work I mentioned (I'll dig out the ref for
you - its in Frayer et al, 1993) was based on H.e. leaving Africa c. 1 Ma - now
known not to be the case.
>>>2. Evidence of regional hybridizations which demonstrate the merging
>>>of AMH and hominid body forms to produce regional variants.
>
>>There is considerable evidence of continuity between hominids in areas like
SE
>>Asia - see Frayer et al., 1993 for this and for the DNA analysis that supports
>>MRE.
>
>How does the DNA evidence support the MRE?
I wasn't saying it did. I was saying the morphological data has been interpretted
to show this.
SNIP some very detailled and convincing genetics.
>
> Besides look at what happens in the asian region. We have both
>genetic and archeological evidence that AMH leave africa ~100 KYA,
>then H neaderthalensis dissappears (within 40KY). We have both genetic
>and archeological evidence that a new culture and population moves
>into the SAE region ~50KYA many islands are quickly colonized that
>were never colonized before and over the next 45KY all isolated
>regions are colonized. OTOH, java erectus persists unchanged in the
>region for 15KY and then, walla, dissappears.
>
I have never argued that they didn't all I was saying was that I'm aware of
evidence for the persistence of morphological traits in different regions.
However, what I'm arguing with Milford Wolpoff about on the Neanderthal
Message Board:
(http://www.dealsonline.com/origins/message/neanderthals/wwwboard.html)
is that this morphological basis for MRE has been criticised (by Lahr) and since
that is the basis of MRE then it starts to look very shaky. Some of the most
convincing genetics studies that I've found recently include Goldstein et al.,
1995; Horai et al., 1995; Nei, 1995; Penny et al., 1995; Tishkoff et al., 1996;
Richards et al., 1996.
In response to some of my recent comments he said (and you might be able to
guess that his remarks are in caps):
: The two ways that multiregionalists deal with genetic data are:
: 1. Dismiss it - esp. with concern to the Eve hypothesis (check out my
: postings somewhere low down on the other board for a full discussion of
: this).RUBBISH. GENETIC DATA SUPPORT MRE, WHY DISMISS IT. DON'T
YOU
READ ALAYA, TEMPLETON, HARPENDING, ETC. AS. NAUS.?
: 2. Utilise earlier dates for the seperation of us from chimps to argue that
: the data actually fits a million year exodus from Africa.
MORE RUBBISH. GENETIC "CLOCKS" ARE AN EXAMPLE OF A MEME,
BUT NOT
OF AS TIMING DEVICE. THIS CAN BE MOST EASILY SEEN BY THE FACT
THAT
DIFFERENT GENRTIC SYSTEMS DIVERGE AT VERY DIFFERENT DATES.
: See Frayer et al, 1993 for these arguments.
Any comments?
Dan
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