As I remember, you're a multiregional guy like myself (and Coon and Wolpoff). I STILL have a problem with the speed of change. That is, is it conceivable that we are able to get mongoloid-type people from African-type people in a mere 30K years? It doesn't make intuitive sense...
And, what about the shovel incisors in the Peking Homo erectus (shovel incisors being present in modern Asians)? More evidence will convince me, but I must admit I am still a bit skeptical...my only agenda is a desire to learn the real truth.
Yup, I'm a Wolpoff guy.
Oppenheimer, in his excellent books, Out Of Eden and Eden In The East, have me 'reeling'.
Also, he said that the oldest (undisputed) Mongoloid skeleton ever found is only 10k years old. (The disputed skeleton is 23k years old from the Lake Baikul(sp) area)
[multiregionalist secret handshake]
"the late Allan Wilson" made his infamous "village idiot" remark in a harangue in which he also claimed that language was A) unique to the OOA variety of human and B) made possible by mtDNA. That particular claim never really caught on; alas, the GIGO mtDNA studies have.
"That is, is it conceivable that we are able to get mongoloid-type people from African-type people in a mere 30K years? It doesn't make intuitive sense..."
That really is the question, and this latest research, if valid, makes the problem even harder because instead of multiple migrations of different racial prototypes from Africa, this implies one group only, which then split multiple times.
The cool thing though is this is being resolved so quickly now that we should have the whole story within the next five years.
Not a biologist but I did stay at a Holiday Inn Express. It does seem fast in evolutionary terms. Also, I'm not clear on exactly what the evolutionary pressures were on those blacks who left Africa long ago and went to Europe. Why did their skin lose pigmentation so quickly? Presumably, they wore clothing so skin color wasn't critical to successful hunting (like it would be for an animal).
One other thing, there's pretty good history covering 5000 years now. That's a significant fraction of the 30K years mentioned. How much have humans evolved in that time??? Does it compare in any way to rate of change long ago? I don't think so.