New Type of Ancient Human Found—Descendants Live Today?

I have more interest in than understanding of the multiregional vs. out of Africa debate. Could you explain why you see these results as supporting the multiregional hypothesis?To my untrained mental eye, it looks as though you could interpret the findings as evidence that H. sapiens migrating from Africa pushed Neanderthals and their Denisovan cousins to "the ends of the earth".I thought the multiregional explanation was the descent of modern Europeans from Neanderthals--perhaps I'm badly outdated, or simply wrong in that understanding?

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I know there's a balance, I see it when I swing past.
-J. Mellencamp

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Real things always push back.
-William James

Thanks, Coyote. The link you added was useful. I'm doing a bit of background reading now about the history of the dispute.Do you suppose migrations of H. sapiens into those areas were more likely to result in interbreeding rather than displacement of the older population because the earlier migrations were too well established to just push out of the way? I know the Neanderthal were physically robust, but I've somehow gathered the impression that their population sizes were not.I read through David Johanson's summary at Action Bioscience. It is a popular account, somewhat dated, I suppose, since it's copyrighted 2001, but it has been useful to me in understanding the history.He notes:

quote:

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Proponents of the Multiregional Model, such as Milford Wolpoff, cite evidence in Asia of regional continuity. They see an evolutionary link between ancient Homo erectus in Java right through to Australian aborigines. A possible problem with this view is that recent dating of late surviving Homo erectus in Indonesia suggests that they survived here until 50,000 years ago, which is potentially when fully modern humans may have arrived in the region from Africa.

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China may contain the best evidence for supporting the Multiregional Model. Here there are discoveries of a couple of skulls dated to roughly 100,000 years ago that seem to possess a mixture of classic Homo erectus and Homo sapiens traits. Better geological dating and more complete specimens are needed to more fully assess this possibility.

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Is the arrival of modern humans there at 50,000 y.a. really a problem for multiregional advocates? Their hypothesis explicitly describes interbreeding/gene flow, right?Have those Chinese skulls (or subsequent finds) panned out?

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I know there's a balance, I see it when I swing past.
-J. Mellencamp

​

Real things always push back.
-William James

I felt vindicated when more recent DNA studies contradicted the early mitochondrial results and suggested some interbreeding between modern and Neanderthal populations.I always found it difficult to believe that every H. sapiens male passed up every opportunity to mate with a Neanderthal, even if they were short, strong and chinless.I mean, I've been in Asian bars at closing time...

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I know there's a balance, I see it when I swing past.
-J. Mellencamp

​

Real things always push back.
-William James

Hi, Jon.I want to make sure I understand what formulation of the multiregional hypothesis you embrace and consider evidenced by this new data.Here's a summary of the debate by David Johanson:

quote:

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The Multiregional Continuity Model contends that after Homo erectus left Africa and dispersed into other portions of the Old World, regional populations slowly evolved into modern humans. This model contains the following components:

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* some level of gene flow between geographically separated populations prevented speciation after the dispersal;

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* all living humans derive from the species Homo erectus that left Africa nearly two million-years-ago;

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* natural selection in regional populations, ever since their original dispersal, is responsible for the regional variants (sometimes called races) we see today;

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* the emergence of Homo sapiens was not restricted to any one area, but was a phenomenon that occurred throughout the entire geographic range where humans lived.

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In contrast, the Out of Africa Model asserts that modern humans evolved relatively recently in Africa, migrated into Eurasia and replaced all populations which had descended from Homo erectus.

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Critical to this model are the following tenets:

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* homo sapiens arose in Africa and migrated to other parts of the world to replace other hominid species, including homo erectus;

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* after Homo erectus migrated out of Africa the different populations became reproductively isolated, evolving independently, and in some cases like the Neanderthals, into separate species;

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* Homo sapiens arose in one place, probably Africa (geographically this includes the Middle East);

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* Homo sapiens ultimately migrated out of Africa and replaced all other human populations, without interbreeding;

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* modern human variation is a relatively recent phenomenon.

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The multiregional view posits that genes from all human populations of the Old World flowed between different regions and by mixing together, contributed to what we see today as fully modern humans.

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The replacement hypothesis suggests that the genes in fully modern humans all came out of Africa. As these peoples migrated they replaced all other human populations with little or no interbreeding.

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Do you agree with his description of the competing hypotheses?

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I know there's a balance, I see it when I swing past.
-J. Mellencamp

​

Real things always push back.
-William James