Some people are complaining that no one has replied to anyman's long criticism of this posting.
Here goes:
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What began as the excavation of a medieval town has turned into a pivotal site for our understanding of human evolution
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Simply journalistic hyperbole. Journalists have to make money by selling their articles. There has actually been no overturning of ideas of human evolution for nearly forty years.
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Most probably, we are on the threshold of a profound transformation of our understanding of early hominin evolution
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see above.
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At the heart of the tale of this first transcontinental migration lies the assumption
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The assumption has very little relevance as to whether evolution is correct. Only as to the actual pattern of human migration. In fact the assumption referred to relies on the influence the Christian religion has had on our interpretation of the evidence. The assumption made is that humans are totally different and superior to the rest of nature.
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This idea has a powerful romantic appeal, suggesting that exploration and settlement are primordial and defining human instincts
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The out of africa story was touted as fact because of: see above.
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over the past century...timing of all this seemed to attest to...In the past decade, however, this sequence has begun to unravel
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You are again splitting hairs over the detail. I look forward to a detailed explanation of human migration from the Garden of Eden. I would bet there will be plenty of maybes, perhaps and so on.
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With these startlingly early dates
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The dating scenario was not actually very different. Again a journalist selling his article.
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It looks as though increased intelligence was not a prerequisite
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The assumption was made because even atheists have been influenced by biblical stories.
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Over millions of years, the global climate gradually cooled, but there were also times when conditions altered quite abruptly
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How gradual do things happen in geological terms. There is plenty of scope for fairly rapid change even under the theory of uniformitarianism.
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A still more radical challenge to the supposed role of superior cognitive abilities
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Again the original assumption was that our brain was our most important development. Let's not forget that most biologists are academics!
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He and Roebroeks suggest that we should re-imagine...
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Surprisingly enough we don't know all the facts. Yet.
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In a bold challenge to the conventional story, Dennell argues that hominins migrated out of Africa before H. erectus even evolved, and long before the dates of the oldest known hominin fossils in Asia. These first migrants were either australopithecines or H. habilis - he, like some prominent palaeoanthropologists, regards these two as much the same kind of creatures
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Again the problem arises from the Bible. Many people who should know better accept that just because we call things two different species they automatically cannot breed together and form hybrids. We know that many creatures that appear to be very different are able to breed together.
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Nor does H. erectus have any clearly identifiable immediate predecessors. "Not for nothing has it been described as a hominin 'without an ancestor, without a clear past'," observe Dennell and Roebroeks.
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This is actually the main point of the article. We can now be pretty sure H. erectus evolved in Asia, moved back into africa and hybridised with H. ergaster. The same process happens between different groups of humans to this day. Except between groups who consider themselves to be far superior to any other group.
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Dennell's solution to the problem is beguilingly simple: perhaps we have been looking in the wrong place. "Maybe the Rift Valley was a cul-de-sac," Dennell suggests. Tongue in cheek perhaps, but the remark conveys his strong conviction that the importance of Asia has been unfairly neglected
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Your comment: hey, no problem, the explanation is simple...we've just been looking in the wrong place(s) all this time
there, see...simple
Me: Ah, so you do understand evolution.
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In this perspective the Dmanisi hominins may represent a missing link in the evolution of H. erectus
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Dennell even goes so far as to suggest that the Dmanisi hominins might be ancestors of the later H. erectus in Africa
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Your comment: so it's pretty simple now...
australopithcenes/habilenes migrated out of africa into asia and europe...then later evolved into h erectus...but either before they evolved into h erectus, or some of the ones that didn't evolve, went back down into africa and evolved into h erectus there...and then of course later migrated back out of africa, back into asia and europe...as h erectus
Me: Sums it up nicely. I think you've got it.
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In other words, African H. erectus might have Asian roots. If this is the case, Out of Africa 1 is a crucial part of the story of our own evolution, since H. erectus is generally thought to be a direct ancestor of modern humans.
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Almost certainly correct.
I'm getting sick of this now. Look forward to more of your comments.
