Modern humans emerged more than 300,000 years ago new study suggests

EurekAlert! ^ | September 28, 2017 | Uppsala University

[WatchungEagle]

Most of these old bones are found in caves, under rock overhangs and other sheltered places that are unsuitable for agriculture or cities. That’s true in Africa and Europe.

[WatchungEagle]

You sure can. When genes that have evolved for tens of thousands of years in isolation enter a population, the results are not subtle. It does not take a large sample size to see this. One genome before and one after is enough to see it clearly.

[MUDDOG]

But it wasn’t until we got that 2% Neanderthal DNA that we got great.

[txnativegop]

Thanks

[SunkenCiv]

The team sequenced the genomes of seven individuals who lived in southern Africa 2300-300 years ago. The three oldest individuals dating to 2300-1800 years ago were genetically related to the descendants of the southern Khoe-San groups, and the four younger individuals who lived 500-300 years ago were genetically related to current-day South African Bantu-speaking groups...

IOW, unless there's some additional, coherent evidence, the conclusion makes no sense. It's nice to see the Khoe-San language speakers (the click languages) were in the south at one time. According to John McWhorter ("The Story of Language" lecture series), the isolated click language survivals in the north suggest that the Khoe-San groups came from there, then were displaced. Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.

[SunkenCiv]

The research adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that sexual rendezvous between different archaic human species may not have been unusual.

Heh, only a bunch of geeks would miss that one for so long. ;^) Thanks for that link!

[Duchess47]

Thank you. It’s great getting your pings again. Love the topics. I rarely reply but always read.

[gleeaikin]

Unless I am misreading something the conclusion does make sense. I thought the San groups were still in the Kalahari region of southern Africa, but have mostly been displaced elsewhere by Bantu speaking groups who pushed them out to the most marginal land when they spread from northern Africa down to the south. The fame of the Zulu warriors was partly a result of this particularly successful warrior tribe’s push into South Africa several centuries ago. Other small people were also pushed into more difficult areas like the pygmies into the deep jungle areas. I suspect that both San and pygmy were once much more wide spread until displaced by the BIG boys. It also seems there was a large gap between the two groups tested. 1800 years ago to 500 years ago. A lot of movement and displacing can take place in 1300 years.

[BroJoeK]

RJS1950: "Based on centuries of observed behavior it is apparent that modern man walked out of Africa...and left the stupid behind."

pepsionice: "In this case, you likely have one tribal unit of a dozen folks, led by ‘Larry’, who got peeved with living conditions, the heat, and continued warfare between other tribes (which is obvious even today)."

Oh, we can do better than that...

Our ancestors who left Africa were the losers, they got beat up by bigger, faster, smarter & meaner rivals and ran off with their "tails" between thier legs.
But then something happened -- in their long travels across the globe, those who weren't big enough, fast enough, smart enough, mean enough (and should I add: good looking enough?), they didn't make it and so, on average, the exiled tribes & clans slowly increased in those qualities.

Today of course everything is reversed, but that's a whole different story...

[BroJoeK]

Bryan92: "Assumptions based on assumptions, layered with assumptions and topped off with lots of assumptions."

Exactly, hypotheses & confirmed theories supported by innumerable data points, but still built on assumptions which cannot be proved and could be false.

In all of this, science does not require belief, but it does need at least a temporary suspension of disbelief.
So read it the same way you would a great work of fiction.
We can still admire what we don't accept as fact.

[ZULU]

Interesting stuff.