[blam]

I don't know they didn't mention that the 'super-Volcano Toba eruption 75,000 years ago was the culprit for the reduction in the human population.

Somewhere in Indonesia I read that human activity had been discovered just above the Toba ash level, I wonder what happened to these people?

[stanz]

ping for a later read.

[blam]

"Analysis revealed a close genetic kinship between two hunter-gatherer populations in sub-Saharan Africa - the Mbuti pygmies of the Congo Basin and the Khosian bushmen of Botswana. "

The Khosian Bushmen are physically unique among humans alive today. The females have a skin 'apron' over their genetial area and the men have a perpetual semi-erect penis. Their children are also born with Mongoloid spots.

[far sider]

Humans may have come close to extinction about 70,000 years ago, according to the latest genetic research....The study suggests that at one point there may have been only 2,000 individuals alive as our species teetered on the brink.

The actual number was 8 and it happened a lot more recently than that.

[Publius6961]

Still beating that "out of Africa" dead horse, I see...

[jdege]

70,000 years is getting pretty close to the sudden emergence of culture in humans. A lot of folks believe that occurred because of the evolution of language.

I don't think it's impossible that this marked such a fundamental change that all who didn't have it couldn't compete.

Remember, when you're reading these reports, what they don't say. They don't say (or shouldn't) that this group of 2000 were the only humans alive. Just that all humans alive are descendents of those 2000, and not of any others.

I don't find it impossible to believe that those groups who had developed language simply stopped breeding with those that had not, and over the 30,000 years between the genetic choke-point and the archeological record of ubiquitous culture, simply supplanted those proto-humans who did not have the genetic capability for language.

[blam]

"Somewhere in Indonesia I read that human activity had been discovered just above the Toba ash level, I wonder what happened to these people?"

Mungo Man may represent the dead-end line of humans that survived the Toba super-volcano explosion 75,000 years ago.

There is an on-going argument to reduce the age of Mungo Man so that he fits into the 'Out-Of-Africa' theory. His DNA is unlike any human alive today, yet he has the body of 'modern humans.' (They're pulling their hair out over this one)

[LiteKeeper]

read later

[ClearCase_guy]

Is it reasonable to assume that in 70,000 years, a group of 2000 Africans could mutate and provide the world with White people, Asian people, blondes, red-heads, Watutsis, pygmies, and Eskimoes? Evolution can perform such wonders in such a short time-frame?

I second the earlier poster who said the size of the human population after the cataclysm was only 8 and the date of the cataclysm was not long ago at all.

[Mike Darancette]

Somewhere in Indonesia I read that human activity had been discovered just above the Toba ash level, I wonder what happened to these people?

Aside from having a headache from the noise they may have died out from the environmental degradation the followed the eruption.

[alloysteel]

And you have been comfortable all this time, in the belief that the rise of Homo sapiens sapiens was an inevitability of history. Still don't believe in Divine intervention?

Just wait until the next time human populations get culled back.

[Mamzelle]

re: It is thought we spilt from a common ancestor with chimps 5-6 million years ago)))

Where would junk science be without the passive voice to hide behind...

[r9etb]

IF this is true, then I think it pretty much invalidates those Cro Magnon/Neanderthal genetic studies.

[Paradox]

That settles it then, the origin of mankind. Seems to me then that it was about 70,000 years ago that the Nommos came to earth, and hand selected these 2000 individuals to breed.

How do I know this? Well, because the Dogon say so! Hey, they've been right before....

[onedoug]

Not necessarily inconsistent with Torah.

[RightWhale]

This is the first time I have seen the mention that the human race was so close to extinction aside from your own posts. So, it appears that we all emerged ancestrally from Africa, but not long ago and only because human life was extinguished everywhere else. I know some Chinese are not going to buy this hypothesis. They are taught in school that they evolved in China and that they were the earliest humans to evolve, and so are evolutionarily the most advanced.

[nightdriver]

"The small genetic diversity of modern humans indicates that at some stage during the last 100,000 years, the human population dwindled to a very low level."

In fact, it's interesting that the Bible gives a tantalizing glimpse into the past where a prophet says that man was completely eliminated long before Adam but the Earth was left intact.

[MEGoody]

One theory for the 'virtually identical DNA' among all humans is that, at one point, we were almost extinct.

Another theory that also fits is that we all came from Adam and Eve.

It all boils down to what one wishes to believe.

[JimSEA]

An interesting counter to this can be found in the special edition of Scientific American on human evolution -- Alan G. Thome and Milford H. Wolpoff "The Multiregional Evolution of Humans". The fossil record does not necessarily fit with the "out of Africa 70,000 years ago" senario. Perhaps this is an arguement withour end for the immediate future at least.

[Centurion2000]

bump

[Springman]

Bump fo later.