Replies

I'm not sure I understand what the article is really saying either. For instance, why could the Bushmen and the Ethopians not be the direct decendants of yet annother race which also gave rise to Europeans and Asians, among others.

If the European and Asian branches went through numerious genetic "bottlenecks", that is they were reduced to a very small population and had to regenerate again from that, while at the same time the Bushmen and the Ethiopeans maintained a constant mixing of the same broad gene pool, couldn't the results be the same as reported here? In that case the Bushmen and Ethopeans wouldn't be the oldest populations, just the most consistantly homogenious.

If this population group has the closest thing to the presumed original genetic makup of humans, which I gather is what the article is saying, would it not also be true that this population group is the closest to our pre-human ancestors? Or is that an unwarranted conclusion?

I would not say it is unwarranted.
By the same standard, I would NOT say it makes them inferior. After all, according to the article, this genotype basically expanded throughout Africa, and flourished for some 60,000 years using nothing but a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
Modern man, by comparison, would be hard set to survive without our technology and societal conventions to support us. ( agriculture, animal husbandry, trade/commerce, the city/state )
The present day human population carries the same basic chromosomal chains, but they have been altered over time, as the article suggests, by copying errors, and general mutations over millennia.
We are therefore, all bad copies. >sarcastic humor<

Actually, we are the new and improved versions, depending on what the current environment is, and what that environments survival requirements are.

I recall seeing pictures of african wall paintings/graffiti dated in the Sahara region dated as being some 20-30,000 years old, and the remarkable resemblance to the bushman genotype.
The Sahara was a "Savannah" at that time, a vast grassland, teeming with game.
These same early bushmen may have been the ancestors of what remains as our current topic of discussion.
They may also be the original "Egyptians", and responsible for the very first carvings on the great stone hill that eventually became the Sphynx. ( just a little wild hypothesizing. )

I find it interesting that this research helps date the land bridge theories concerning Australian aborigines, and may end the debate concerning origins of humanity.

The Asian migration into Europe sounds interesting as well.
I recall reading some articles concerning DNA testing of various groups around the world in order to help class various races and their connection / relations to other groups.
There are a remarkable spread of basic DNA ("codings"?) around the Eurasian / Australian contients, with some of the most clearly seperate gene groups existing within certain cultures in Asia, Eurasia Australia, India, and southeast asia.
A recent BBC article described the DNA tracing of an ancient skeletal remains to the present day and finding a schoolteacher that was descended from same.
How unusual is it to find a family line that has remained in the same confined geographical area for thousands of years? And in Britain, no less?
Now, we are seeing more ancient groups being discovered in Africa.
I find it all extremely fascinating.
This is the history of Humanity.