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- Fossil homo sapiens skull in Greece puts paid to the single Out of Africa theory
- Hominid genetics get more complex
- Bread from 14,400 years ago suggests a long transition to the Neolithic
- Aboriginals stagnated for 50,000 years as hunter-gatherers and missed the agricultural revolution
- The single Out-of-Africa theory is dying
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Category Archives: AMH
Hominid genetics get more complex
The human genetic story now goes back to times from which there is little or no archaeological record. It seems that some Neanderthals may well have had speech even if not any well developed language. The control of fire goes back some 400,000+ years ago. Stone tools were around from around 1.8 million years ago. Perhaps the beginnings of modern humans does not have to start so far back, but it does look like the story of homo sapiens now needs to be pushed backwards into time to at least the common hominin ancestor from around a million years ago. Continue reading
The single Out-of-Africa theory is dying
The single Out-of-Africa theory is dying if not completely dead. Certainly some of the earlier excursions out of Africa may not have survived. I am still sticking to my narrative of the peopling of the world being mainly due to (at least) two waves of expansion from AfricArabia; one before the Toba eruption (74,000 years ago) and one after. Continue reading
Rope making more than 40,000 years old
If they had rope and twine, they had thread. If they had thread, they probably had some form of garments. If they had twine, they had the “technology” for bows and arrows. If they had rope they would also have had the capability to drag heavy weights across primitive rollers. Continue reading
Harappan civilisation started earlier, lasted longer
What is striking is how the two great rivers, the Indus and the Saraswati (Ghaggar or Hakra), totally dominated the landscape. It is not surprising that an advanced water management “technology” developed. The growth of managed agriculture and trade followed. The period of intensified monsoon from 7,000 BCE to about 5,000 BCE could have been a time of plenty which promoted growth and settlement. Continue reading
80,000-120,000 year old modern humans in S China confirm many and older Out of Africa events
The single Out of Africa event for modern humans is clearly far too simplistic. It is also clear that there were many back to Africa movements as well. Humans expanded sometimes because their old habitats were no longer viable. But, it seems, humans also explored and expanded into new territories from regions of plenty and where they maintained some contact with where they had come from. Probably, just because they could. Continue reading
Earliest common ancestors could not have been mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam
African AMH is thought to have first come into being around 200,000 years ago in Africa. But it is thought that the ancestors of the Neanderthals and the Denisovans left Africa about 500,000 years ago. This immediately means that mitochondrial Eve and Y-chromosomal Adam could not have been our earliest common ancestors. Continue reading
Our Neanderthal genes may have come mainly from their females
So I imagine the decline of the Neanderthals taking some 20-30,000 years as AMH expanded westwards and the decline of the Denisovans probably starting a little later but taking somewhat less time. The encounters and admixing probably only occurred with the tribes and bands at the frontiers. Continue reading
Posted in AMH, Ancestors, Denisovans, Neanderthals, Peopling the world
Tagged AMH expansion, Genetics, Neanderthal genes
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Scavenging came long before hunting
So the timeline I envisage for the development of human activity takes us from foraging to scavenging to hunting to herding to transient agriculture and finally to settled agriculture. Continue reading
Once upon a story …….
It is not important to my narrative that any or all of these assumptions are proven – only that they are feasible. What is important though is that none of the assumptions be demonstrably false Continue reading
Further indications of multiple Out of Africa(rabia) events
That indicates that these windows for movement were available at regular 23,000 year intervals from about 200,000 years ago. This study provides further indications that AMH moved into Arabia over 100,000 years ago and that there may well have been multiple expansions out of Arabia as well. Continue reading
