Discovery Supports Theory Of A Single Species Of Human Ancestor

I could accept this. It does not conflict with my favorite theory of 'multiregionalism.' (Wolpoff)

FYI.

Sure glad that this version of the report doesn't drift into the ignorant hyperbole of anything being "proven" by this new discovery.

Bump.

So...what went wrong later?

Fossil Skull Fuels Debate Over Human Origins

The subject material is very intriguing to me. By my way of thinking, the author is syntactically dancing around the unspoken issue of "what happened to the neanderthal?" Surely, this is the other "species" that is being referred to when the topic of homo sapiens' single species of ancestor is brought up. The author seems to conclude that the Neanderthal, a proto-human with brain capacity that was, I believe, the equal or superior of our own, was not a linear evolutionary ancestor of Homo sapiens. So what does that have to do with the price of eggs? You may ask. If one is skeptical about the accepted view of human evolution (I am), it might be significant. The traditional view requires that one conclude that two completely genetically-distinct primate strands arose that had all the principal characteristics of humans, including the use of tools and the development of art and cosmology. One of them disappeared without a trace. The other evolved into Homo sapiens. Now, to me this seems highly improbable. It suggests that the evolutionary process of becoming human is relatively commonplace in nature. Heck, it happened twice simultaneously in different parts of Europe, Asia and Africa. And, these simultaneous processes were quite brief, requiring only a few hundred thousand years. It seems to me, that if this evolutionary process was as simple as this one would have observed the development of other species of primates with critical human characteristics in the last hundred thousand years or so. But we haven't. Only Homo sapiens have language, art, true self reflection and cognition. How can this be? Could it be part of some intelligent design? Prey, tell.

You noticed that also, I see.

I thought there had been recent evidence that Neanderthals interbred with Homo Sapiens (essentially, we assimilated them)?

"The traditional view requires that one conclude that two completely genetically-distinct primate strands arose that had all the principal characteristics of humans, including the use of tools and the development of art and cosmology. One of them disappeared without a trace. "

Nonsense. Both the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens have a comnmon rootstock in Homo erectus. The debate among scientists is wether or not there was some interbreeding between the populations. The Neanderthals left plenty of traces, and new fossils and artifacts are discovered every year.

Couldn't be, there's genetic evidence that the neanderthals were the biological cousins of homo sapians, it would be like a horse breeding with a donkey, there would be any reproductive offspring. No we wiped out the neaderthals though a old fashion resource war.

At some point, some say, there is a single ancestor. I never thought this was necessary. The Adam allegory makes vague sense on the literal level until you get to the part where Cain went to live with the people in the next valley over. People got feet, they can go anywhere, mingle, trade pottery and throwing sticks.

Links to Neanderthal-Cro-Magnon Hybrid

Interesting links....but I've yet to see any DNA testing proving that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens interbred. As it stands now....evidence points to our last common ancestor with Neanderthals being some 500,000 years ago.

Adam was an Aussie not an African, Australian researchers say

SYDNEY, 9 January 2001 (AFP) -

Adam and Eve were Australians, not Africans as most experts on human evolution now believe, according to recently completed Australian research.

The research, soon to be published by an American scientific journal, presents a new genetic tree showing anatomically modern humanity emerged from a common ancestor who lived in Australia 60,000 years ago.

A team led by anthropologist Alan Thorne of Canberra's Australian National University, also shows Australia was once home to a group of Aboriginal people whose genetic line has vanished from the planet.

The discoveries are based on new analysis of the oldest DNA recovered from human remains; genetic material from a 60,000-year-old skeleton found near Lake Mungo in the eastern Australian state of New South Wales in 1974.

Mungo Man, as he has been dubbed, is creating a stir in the scientific community by casting serious doubt on the Out of Africa model of human evolution which has been backed by most international experts.

It holds that all living people are descended from a group of homo sapiens that left Africa around 100,000 to 150,000 years ago.

DNA from a Croatian Neanderthal who lived about 28,000 years ago was previously the oldest.

Thorne said most primitive forms of DNA known in living humans until now had been found in sub-Saharan Africa, leading to the theory that mankind originated in Africa and left it as modern Homo Sapiens before spreading around the world.

"And so what we have now found is a lineage that is older than any of those," Thorne told ABC radio.

"It's earlier than the putative most recent common ancestor, the so-called Eve point in mitochondrial evolution.

"So under a strict out of Africa hypothesise I have to say well they were wrong, obviously Eve was an Australian."

Thorne also believes modern Aboriginal Australians descended from two groups of distinctly different people.

"What I have always argued is that there is a distinct difference anatomically between these two groups of people," he said.

He believes one group entered Australia about 40,000 years before the others, a new group of "robust" people, who became visible in Australia about 20,000 years ago and appear to have arrived with edge-ground tools.

"I suspect that these new robust people enter Australia with a new tool kit and then mix together with other people who are already here to produce the extraordinary mix of people that we now call Aboriginal Australians," he said.

(It gets messy)

My God! I am so proud of all of you! There is finally something resembling intelligent, respectful, informed debate on this godforsaken website! Not one fat joke about Rosie, not one hateful tirade about homosexuals and their future in Hell, no wacko comparisons of the Clintons and mass murderers. Also missing are the hundreds of replies arguing about the level of Anne Coulter's "hotness". Today you have accomplished what I had thought impossible for the Freepers: You have taken some honest opinions, and you have stated them with no trace of that bigoted egotism masking deep-rooted insecurities! How refreshing! I salute you all.

The Clinton's are low life trailer trash and should be in prison!!

Look, you just don't go into a steakhouse and ask for the veggie menu!

Go back to DU and eat your tofu and granola bars with the rest of the homosexual communist clintonista bolshevik un-American aids-ridden welfare parasites. That better, tinybooger?