Hope this isn’t too far off the wall:::
Bones and teeth show a north south division:
North, Europeans, Mongoloids (East Asians) and native Americans
South Africans and Australians
Geneticists proposed and east/west division
West: Africa and Europe
East: Far East.
1974:Protein and enzyme links Europeans and Mongoloids.
Differences found for Black Africans much greater indicating had a longer evolutionary history. This camp suggested a split date for Africans and the rest at 100,000 years ago 40,000 for European/Mongoloid split.
1987 study at Berkeley seemed to reinforce the above view.
For mtDNA in the 70’s at Berkeley by Cann & Wilson suggest a 3 percent per million year rate of change: this suggests only small mutational changes had time to build up between major geographical populations or “races” so a common origin is not to far back. They guess the common ancestors of all people lived about 400,000 years ago (the time of the last Homo erectus). This lead Stringer and Gamble give more weight to evolution of modern people was probably a worldwide, multiregional process.
Later research has halved the above estimate. And that Eve came from Africa. Africa showed more diverse mtDNA than any other population.
So this gives the out of Africa 2 a date of 200,000 and dispersal at 100,000 but does not match well with fossil evidence. “The date of the earliest known modern humans in Africa still appears too early to match the mtDNA estimate (since the oldest fossil remains probably date to 130,000 years);” but there is evidence for early modern people in western Asia around 100,000 so “there is evidence of a genetic migration from the African center”.
RESERVATIONS ON THE ABOVE BY Stringer and Gamble:
1. Genetic mutation dating could be off and has been attacked. “Different parts of mtDNA molecule evolve at different rates.”
2. Using chimp data for human projections questioned. When taking into account iffy data gives out of Africa dates from 1million years ago to 100,000. Very shaky.
3. Computer techniques used by Cann and Wilson questioned as non-conclusive.
ON THE OTHER SIDE:
1. New mtDNA from chimps & human mtDNA suggest 140,00-130,000 years ago with the widest estimates from this data method at a whapping 400,000 to 60,000 although 140,000-130,000 agrees better with the fossil record.
For Nuclear DNA off 5,000 humans Sforza gets the chart below with an out of Africa date of about 100,000.
Can’t draw this well but here goes:
Rootstock feed is Africans I and a second overall grouping which are all others;
Second group has GROUP 1: Caucasoids II and a double group of Northeast Asians III and Amerindians IV
And GROUP II: Southeast Asians V & Pacific Islanders VI and another (single no less) group of Australians VI and New Guineans VII.
The above comes close to the earlier above-mentioned 1974 estimate for an out of Africa of 100,000.
SUMMARY:
“Genetic data provide an independent source of information and largely favor an Out of Africa 2 interpretation; the calibration is critical in differentiating between the original dispersal out of Africa of Homo erectus and much later exodus of early modern people. The larger genetic diversity between Africans is certainly suggestive of a relatively greater antiquity for African differentiation, while the overall low level globally of genetic diversity in humans (in both mtDNA and nuclear DNA ) favors a recent origin, most probably within the last 150,000 years.” Current favor goes to out of Africa 2.
Personally I think there is a lot of holes for lack of data for the Far East, Australia, China & etc.
Jois
May be one of the MB doc’s can fill this one in. I’ve always wondered if this was a quick end to Neanderthal.
Mipsman
For everyone just about except poor Neanderthal. He had it but its use was sporadic. He probably did not have the mental horsepower even with his big brain to do much creative with it - like fixed hearths and heating.
