[blam]

"If we were genetically modern hundrends of thousands of years ago, we would have at least neolithic culture emerge pretty quick."

Various catastrophies kept knocking human advancement back. For example, many say that as few as 2,000 humans worldwide survived the explosion and aftermath of Toba 75,000 years ago.

[Ahban]

I have heard that a lot, but I don't see why, of all primates, only HUMANS get driven to near extinction by TOBA, which after all is in the S. Pacific. Why do chimps and all other primates retain tremendous genetic diversity? Toba didn't get them?

If this find really is 77K ago it really makes things hard to fit togehter. Genetically it is hard to avoid the conlusion that humans are very new arrivals.