DISCLAIMER: I am trying to start a science discussion of a topic in paleoanthropology. I am not planning to discuss evolution per se. I refuse to answer any posts by evolution deniers and I strongly suggest that nobody else answer any of them either. All such discussions should be taken over to Not Quite Science, which is the proper forum for them.
Having said that: Pardon me if I get a bit long winded in the back ground of my post. I'm not sure just how much the regulars here at SAGG know about evolution and the spread of mankind.
There is a report in
Nature News about new tool findings from Dmanisi, Georgia (that's Eastern Europe just East of the Black Sea, not the USA). The findings seem to indicate that there were hominins living in that area around 1.85 million year ago (MYA). This is before the the time of the first Out-of-Africa (OoA) episode, as we understand it right now. It has long been believed that Homo Erectus was the first form of man to leave Africa for a bigger world. However, it has been believed that H. Erectus evolved in Africa between 1.78 and 1.65 MYA, so these findings apparently preclude any possibility of H. Erectus having been the tool maker at Dmanisi. The researchers suggest the possibility that H. Erectus did not evolve in Africa, but rather in the Dmanisi area, then spread from there to Asia, where the first H. Erectus fossils were found, and back to Africa. So that the first OoA spread would have been some predecessor of H. Erectus.
Now to my not extremely well informed comments on the story. I recall that a year or 2 back there was a story on PBS about the hobbit, Homo floresiensis. In that story they visited Dmanisi and told about some hominin fossils found there that weren't H. Erectus, and suggested that there may have been earlier OoA movements by other, and more primitive, hominins. They suggested that the hobbit may have been a remainder from this earlier OoA movement.
Wikipedia has an article about the hobbit. Any way I have other sources that suggest that H. Erectus may not have been an African development. Ian Tattersall in his 1995 book "The Fossil Trail" suggests that the African fossils attributed to H. Erectus were in fact not H. Erectus. He suggests that Asian H. Erectus evolved separately in Asia. So There might not be a good reason to suggest a back flow from Dmanisi to Africa.
Any good science comments?
Bill Gill
