New Type of Ancient Human Found—Descendants Live Today?

It seems to me that this is closer to a refinement of the Out-Of-Africa hypothesis than support for the multiregional hypothesis, we're still looking at a single main H. sapeins that emerged from Africa, just now with some slight admixture from other Homo species (or subspecies?).The multiregional hypothesis held that there were distinct mainlines in different regions; this remains clearly wrong.

The multiregional hypothesis supposes that each local population evolves in parallel, with gene flow between populations maintaining the various populations. That's radically different from the situation found by this (and other recent) research. see this pictureYes, but we're talking less than 10% of the genome. We're still talking about a species that evolves in Africa spreading through the world, and replacing existing populations. That there was a small degree of gene flow from those populations alters that details of that picture but it doesn't change the overall narrative.According to this research, H. sapiens evolved in Africa and spread to melanasia. Once there there was a small degree of interbreeding. That still Out of Africa.

I don't agree that it's clearly both. Even with the new evidence, the MR is still wrong. It's central notions are wrong on every front.The OoA is also wrong; but it's wrong in a way that means that a small refinement of the hypothesis explains the observed facts.

Rubbish, this changes nothing. Every argument we've made through the thread still holds.The multi-region hypothesis is still plain wrong. The Out of Africa hypothesis continues to be broadly correct, we just now know it's not the entire story.This doesn't make it wrong. The Central Dogma is not entirely correct, sometimes genes do from RNA to DNA, but that doesn't mean it's not a broadly correct description of how genes produce proteins. Pretty much every major, or minor, scientific theory isn't the whole story; this doesn't make them wrong, it makes them not the whole story.

Look at this (from Wikipedia). That is what the multi-regional hypothesis says! It claims that essentially parallel evolution occurred around the world, with a continuation of morphological features across tens of thousands of years. It's claim is not merely "that the material will not all be found to have come from the same place", but a much more complete claim of evolution occurring locally within human lineages.That isn't what happened. Modern humans evolved in Africa, and then spread across the world replacing the local populations. Recent finds show that there was some small degree of inbreeding during that process but that isn't the MRH, it's OoA with a small modification in light of new evidence.

Right, so Wolpoff et al have developed a new, and different, theory that they're still insisting on calling the multi-regional hypothesis. How wonderfully helpful.At least now we're still more or less on the same page.They don't do a lot of explaining in that paper of what it is they're actually claiming, or what the evidence for it is. But, from what I can gather - yeah, they're still wrong. The overwhelming story of the evolutionary history of Homo sapiens is that it evolved in Africa and then spread to the rest of the world replacing local populations of other Homo species along the way. To a good first approximation that's true; there's a little more to it than that, but that's the big picture.It's not a story of global evolution, but one of local evolution and spread. Wolpoff's bizarre claim that any reticulation renders OoA wrong is just the Bluejay Claim writ large.

If you prefer I can cite multiple textbooks on evolution, instead. But, frankly, Wiki is easier to link to and has almost precisely the same diagram.

The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of Human Evolution, Steve Jones et al (ed), Cambridge University Press, 1992. p. 390 (and others) The Human Past, Chris Scarre (ed), Thames and Hudson, 2005, p. 129 (and others) Human Evolution: A Very Short Introduction, Bernard Wood, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 104Do I need to pointlessly hunt out yet more references, or are you going to drop this silliness now? Wikipedia's depiction of the multiregional hypothesis is correct, and exactly as it is widely described in reputable sources. Using a different version of it, and then complaining that we're misrepresenting it is bullshit.Would you like to accurately describe, and then discuss, what it is you're talking about now?

Yes, that is what I understand as the (weak) multiregional hypothesis.