All humans are just one species. All the humans that came before are still here in all of us (bits and pieces) around the world. Just look around.
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Interesting summation in the link of Wolpoff's theories. Do you agree with his five races theory?
"--- Wolpoff and his colleagues of the University of Michigan, because they believe the five main human races - Negroid, Caucasoids, Mongoloids, Australian aborigines and southern African bushmen -began their evolutionary divergence well before becoming anatomically modern Homo sapiens, totally reject the 'out of Africa' hypothesis, whereby all modern people owe their ancestry to Africa only -the Noah's Ark theory.
Wolpoff is supported by Alan Thorne of the Australian National University.
According to Shipman, Wolpoff and others are now - '? proposing nothing less than the complete abolition of Homo erectus on the grounds that the species is insufficiently distinct from Homo sapiens.
All fossil specimens of Homo erectus and archaic Homo sapiens (including Neanderthals), ? should be reclassified into a single species, Homo sapiens, that is, subdivided only into races.' (Emphasis added throughout.)
Under the Wolpoff/Thorne scheme the new definition of Homo sapiens would include all human ancestors with brain sizes from 850 - 2000+cc. Of course this would totally exclude the australopithecines and the phantom 'habilis' - a position which creationists would thoroughly endorse.
Wolpoff and Thorne argue (correctly) that H. habilis is too morphologically distinct from both erectus and sapiens and therefore should be excluded from the genus Homo.
John Reader has also outlined many of the problems facing 'habilis', and concludes - '? more than twenty years of accumulating evidence and discussion have left Homo habilis more insecure than it ever was.
Creationists again would agree because it seems obvious that 'habilis' is only an australopithecine ape.
Wolpoff and Thorne cannot find any consistent anatomical markers which separate erectus from sapiens. They point to the mix of sapiens and erectus features in the two recently discovered Chinese fossil skulls which virtually proves that erectus and sapiens are members of the same species and the taxon Homo erectus should be laid to rest.
Other authorities such as Rightmire disagree, claiming that the minor distinctions which Wolpoff et al. consider as merely racial variations, are sufficient to keep separate species classifications.
On these same pages, Shipman points out the difficulties in identifying meaningful points for measuring skull vault thickness for example. The variation, individual to individual, is considerable and this is exactly one of the points which I am attempting to make- 'evolution' has nothing to do with it. The differences between the various forms of archaic Homo sapiens relates, at least in part, to a combination of climatic, dietary, maturational and longevity-driven factors.
In a short article in 1990, Maslen cites Dr Thorne as saying - '? the fossil record reveals that the features possessed by the early hominids who lived in Europe, Asia and Africa, have exactly the same sort of range as those we see in modern people. ---"
"taxon Homo erectus should be laid to rest"
I believe some scientists already have laid it to rest.
Yes. Wolpoff has the most believeable ideas, multiregionalism.
Race And Human Evolution: A Fatal Attraction
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
There are two widely held scientific theories concerning the origin of the human species. One posits a single cradle, generally thought to be in Africa, in which Homo sapiens originated. This dominant theory is assisted by its charismatic spokesmodel Eve, a fictitious personification of a DNA strain that some scientists argue indicates a unique source for the Earth's human population.
The other, decidedly less popular theory is known as multiregionalism. Multiregionalists argue that populations may have originated in Africa, but these populations migrated to distant regions where the human species developed and took on different characteristics, known to scientists as biological diversity but more conventionally referred to as different races.
This divide is obviously controversial, and it is not always the steady eye of science that influences which model is deemed correct (or at least politically correct).
After all, one model promises a scientific verification of our common humanity, the other, interpreted too loosely, could result in a scientific rationale that hardens concepts of racial difference.
Anthropological researchers (and husband and wife) Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari have written Race and Human Evolution as an accessible introduction to the debates over the origins of the human species that makes a careful and detailed case for multiregionalism.
Much of the authors' effort is directed at separating their scientifically sound position from the racist legacy of earlier theories of polygenism, which argued that races were genetically isolated.
They also mount compelling arguments that the "single source of humanity" camp has succeeded thanks to good marketing rather than hard or conclusive data.
Their book proves not only an interesting introduction to anthropological debates, it also reflects the way a scientific thesis is formulated, developed, and defended in the media-savvy late 20th century.
From Publishers Weekly
This uneven volume from University of Michigan anthropologists Wolpoff and Caspari defends Wolpoff's theory that human evolution resulted from long-term "multiregional evolution" rather than via a relatively recent descent from a single "Eve" in Africa.
The authors largely base their case on the fossil record, which contains evidence that, they contend, doesn't jibe with the Eve theory, which was derived primarily through DNA analysis by molecular biologists.
Their argument is well-reasoned but some of the basic concepts, including that of multiregional evolution, could use a clearer explication. Technical material abounds, much of it likely to prove difficult for the general reader.
And, while Wolpoff receives top authorial billing, the text is presented mostly in the first-person singular from Caspari's perspective, an intrusive stylistic device. There's much to ponder here, though, and the middle chapters, which place paleoanthropology in a historical and political context, are sound and informative. Illustrations.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.