Why would lack of the “baboon marker” mean that man did not evolve in Africa? Couldn’t it also mean that we and baboons split from our common ancestor before the baboon marker existed, and could have occurred in Africa?
The idea there is, the split happened a while back, but the baboon virus arose much later. If our ancestors had been in contact with the baboon at the time the virus hit (and the same range is assigned to both the proto-baboon and all of them there Homos) then the viral marker would have made it through human DNA to the present. But it hasn’t. :’) Ergo, no African origin for our ancestors, and the Homo fossils are extinct lines. Since there are hardly any monkey ancestors in the fossil record, it’s not out of the question that the “Homo” fossils are really ancestral to the modern primates, rather than to us. (’:
Oh, and I should point out that Elaine Morgan regards the lack of the baboon viral marker in our chromosomes as supportive of her “aquatic ape” scenario, since she sez the ancestors of humans were isolated from other primates and whatall, east of the Great Rift.