Ancient Asian primate fossils, missing pieces of a major evolutionary puzzle?

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: TerryDon79

originally posted by: Harte
a reply to: TerryDon79
Thank God you replied.

For a minute there I was afraid I'd have to sit up and pay attention to something.

Harte

Can't be having people pay attention to things. Could you imagine what would happen to the world if that happened?

Absolutely! It starts with the dissatisfaction that results from a marked lessening of torpor.

Harte

A marked lessening of torpor?

I'm not sure I understand completely as a lessening of torpor would mean the opposite of what torpor is. Wouldn't it?

originally posted by: MysterX
a reply to: SLAYER69

These inconvenient finds do seem to keep cropping up don't they...the Human remains found in a Middle-Eastern cave complex that are dated to up to 400,000 years old being just one.

Didn't they turn out to be Neanderthal ?

originally posted by: MysterX
It could be that Humanity began in several places and developed independently, exchanging genetics periodically on an ad-hoc basis through happenstance and through conflict based 'trophies'. Stealing Children and Women from defeated foes or adopting orphans and those disposessed following catastrophy and diseases etc, would also be another possibility for traces of genetic material being found in the 'African' gene pool...it doesn't necessarily follow that those genes originated in Africa, only that at some point there were present there and interbred with the indiginous populations and so on.

I suggest you read up on Genetics, it doesn't work like that

a reply to: SLAYER69

The theory that the primate lineage that produced us evolved partly in Asia has been orthodoxy amongst evolutionary biologists for well over a decade. Richard Dawkins mentions it in The Ancestor's Tale, published in 2004.

You've got your primates and your hominids mixed up. Or, worse yet, you haven't, and you posted this deliberately, to confuse MisterX.

originally posted by: SLAYER69
Out of Africa eh? Well, Sorta...

These ancient Asian primate fossils might be the missing pieces of a major evolutionary puzzle

By Sarah Kaplan / The Washington Post

For decades, scientists thought that the story of human evolution was fairly straightforward: We and our primate ancestors evolved in Africa over millions of years, then started crossing continents and traversing seas to reach all the places we’re found today.

But then, in the 1990s, researchers in China made a surprising discovery: The fossil of a tiny monkeylike creature that was some 10 million years older than anything that had been found in Africa. The ancestors of apes, and ultimately us, seemed to have come from Asia. But they hadn’t stayed there.

“There were a lot of questions,” said K. Christopher Beard, a paleontologist at the University of Kansas. “What caused it was the biggest kind of cosmic question, because we always want to answer ‘why?‘ But even things like ‘when?’ and ‘how?’ were a mystery.”

Decades later, “the full story is only now emerging,” Mr. Beard said. And a new discovery could help fill in the gaps.

This is interesting. Chinese and Eurasian history have hidden pasts that we are now just unraveling. The Out of Africa model still holds but where from and how our ancient pre homo ancestors got there is becoming clearer and it's an interesting story. One that may tell us that Africa may not be the whole story.

Seems reasonable to assume that the Eurasian land mass would have had a MUCH larger part in the human history. 40 Million years ago the Earth was a much different place than it is today. Lots have changed and it should be of no surprise that wildlife habitats changed as well and that the wildlife would have adapted, migrated and resettled.

That is where our African family branch begins...

Enjoy

as always my friend, great thread. The one thing I would take note of and that seems to be lost in the WP source article is that while just recently published, this information is over 20 years old and it's pretty widely known, at least in Paleontology, that Anthropoids first appeared in Asia. What IS new however, is that Dr. Beard believes that he and his team have answered the 'Why?' in regards to why these anthropoids left Asia and made their way into Africa in the first place as well as the 'when'.

The short answer is a rapid climatic cooling r]trend globally as the Earth transitioned from the Eocene into the Oligocene. As the continents moved closer to their current positions, the new locations for these landmasses caused quite a drastic cooling period shifting both ocean currents as well as air currents similar to todays jet stream. As we know from current Apes and Monkeys, they prefer a warmer more humid climate compared to the colder drier climate that was encroaching on them in what is now China. When all of this was going on in China, all primates in Europe and the Americas went extinct and their Asian brethren nearly so.

It is very analogous to the changes that allowed Apes to diversify and move into Europe and then slowly killed off most European Apes while some, who, as the plot thickens, many have been the common ancestors of Gorillas, Chimpanzees and yes… us. Which brings me back to our Asian Anthropoids…


These Anthropoids weren't even monkeys yet. They are however the common ancestors of all apes, old world monkeys and consequently, new world monkeys so as you have already noted, this find has no bearing at all on OOA aside from the fact that these anthropoids made their way to Africa where they diversified immensely before future generations many millions of years later began spreading throughout the continent and north into Europe. An interesting note is that one of the smallest species found during this research has teeth( the anthropoid remains are almost exclusively jaw and tooth fragments) that are identical to modern Tarsiers. We know from fossils that Tarsiers were as far north as northern China but today they are relegated to some islands off of the coast of Philippines, Thailand and Indonesia i believe. There is a distinct possibility that modern Tarsiers are direct descendants of some of these anthropoids.

I hope its not too far off topic but since I already broached it and you touch on this as well when you mention the amount of change over the last 40MA in regards to ecological niches and adaptation and it does tie in somewhat with OOA as well…


A lot of people aren't aware that there were apes in Europe until about 7 MA with the first, Griphopithecus (found in Germany and Turkey) and Austriacopithecus (found in Austria) being appearing in the fossil record around 17 MA. During this period of time, there were several land bridges occasionally spanning the Mediterranean as it was intermittently landlocked and during these periods, the levels dropped due to evaporation. This allowed both entry and egress to Europe for early apes. By 12.5 MA, European Apes like Dryopithecus began to resemble the Great Apes of our modern era. This postdates the split in lineage with Orangutan in Asia. The timing of this is important because physiological characteristics exhibited in Orangutan do not appear in African Apes that DO appear in European Apes some 2 MA BEFORE they appear in African Apes. One of the most prominent of these are frontal sinuses another is that their arms are built for swinging like we see in Chimpanzee and Bonobo(who along with Gorillas and us, also have a frontal sinus cavity). Another European Ape that lived ~ 10MA was Rudapithecus. In addition to the frontal sinus, they also possessed a brow ridge, sagital crest and a downward bent face common to African Apes. Around 9.5 MA, the Himalayas altered weather patterns again making Europe colder, more uniform and changing the type of vegetation available for food sources to these apes as deciduous woodlands took the place of subtropical forests. What is very clear is that shortly after this, around 9 MA, European Apes were no more. What is less certain and purely hypothetical at this point is that it is possible that Rudapithecus or Dryopithecus managed to back migrate into Africa( we have seen this with humans as recently as a few thousand years ago) where they produced a lineage that gave rise to the modern Great Apes. Yes, the evidence is circumstantial but it is hard to argue with morphologies that are today, specific to African hominids and managed to appear in European Apes 2 MA prior to the appearance if these traits in Africa. Just a little food for thought since so many people in this thread appear to be way too hung up on OOA and why it should be considered anachronistic.

originally posted by: TerryDon79

originally posted by: Harte

originally posted by: TerryDon79

originally posted by: Harte
a reply to: TerryDon79
Thank God you replied.

For a minute there I was afraid I'd have to sit up and pay attention to something.

Harte

Can't be having people pay attention to things. Could you imagine what would happen to the world if that happened?

Absolutely! It starts with the dissatisfaction that results from a marked lessening of torpor.

Harte

A marked lessening of torpor?

I'm not sure I understand completely as a lessening of torpor would mean the opposite of what torpor is. Wouldn't it?

The lazy man enjoys his torpor. A lessening of torpor results in dissatisfaction.

Okay, it's not as funny if I have to explain it.

Harte.

a reply to: Harte

You know what? I never actually made the connection that the lessening could be dissatisfying.

I'm guessing you REALLY enjoy your torpor lol.

originally posted by: TerryDon79
a reply to: Harte

You know what? I never actually made the connection that the lessening could be dissatisfying.

I'm guessing you REALLY enjoy your torpor lol.

I'm also big on lethargy, especially when I don't have to spend possible torpid, lethargic time on hunting down some claim on the internet.

Harte

originally posted by: MysterX
a reply to: SLAYER69

These inconvenient finds do seem to keep cropping up don't they...the Human remains found in a Middle-Eastern cave complex that are dated to up to 400,000 years old being just one.

Since this is an ongoing misconception of how various terms are applied, let me try to clarify this for you. In Anthropology, when we talk about "humans" it is typically used to reference the entirety of our genus, Homo. This means that it can apply to any number of our ancestors going all the way back to H. Habilis at approximately 2.8 MA. As you're tossing around a date of 400KA without further reference or citation(which means you don't really know much about the site in question), I'm going to assume you are referencing Qesem Cave where the oldest remains are roughly 380 KA and an occupation of nearly 200 KA.

I've stated many times that the evidence points to something much more complex than a simple 'out of Africa' scenario for our ancient migrations, becasue the evidence points to immigrations TO Africa and then mirgrations out again.

Except that you haven't actually posted any evidence of this. You system it was so, nothing more. And if you actually say down and read up on what OOA actually entails, you would know that back migrations do nothing to muddy the waters here. What OOA postulates based on the fossil and genetic records, is that our genus, Homo, originated in Africa and those ancestors spread out across the world. Some of those ancestors went to Europe and gave rise to several different species within our genus including H. Antecesor and H. Heidelbergensis. Other made their way into Asia and as far south as Indonesia. Still others remained in Africa. The first wave out was comprised of H. Erectus and we see some of them showing up in the Georgia Caucuses 1.8 MA From there, they spread North, East and West while others remained in Africa. From Erectus we get H. Heidelbergensis. The Heidelbergensis in Europe gave rise to Neamderthal in Western Eurasia. Others a little farther East gave rise to the H. Altaiensis that were recently discovered during random genetic sequencing of teeth and phalanges found in Denisova Cave. The ones who stayed in Africa gave rise to H. Sapiens nearly 200 KA in E. Africa.

It wouldn't be too difficult to think that there have been numerous periods where our ancestors, for one reason or another, travelled into and out of Africa as circumstances required.

And it would have no bearing whatsoever on OOA. OOA states that our genus originated in Africa and then spread across most of the globe. And as I mentioned above, those who didn't leave Africa in the initial waves of migration evolved into Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Those who left adapted to their various ecological niches and continued to evolve there into HN, HA and HF. There were certainly several waves of migration OUT, but there was much less back migration. It's great to imagine thst there was a lot of back and forth but the genetics tell a different story

It could be that Humanity began in several places and developed independently, exchanging genetics periodically on an ad-hoc basis through happenstance and through conflict based 'trophies'.

Multi-regionalism died a decade ago when the HGP deciphered and published the human genetic code and Svante Paabo hammered the nail thst sealed the coffin a few years later when he published the Neanderthal genome and filled the grave in the rest of the way when they accidentally found Denisovans.

Stealing Children and Women from defeated foes or adopting orphans and those disposessed following catastrophy and diseases etc, would also be another possibility for traces of genetic material being found in the 'African' gene pool...it doesn't necessarily follow that those genes originated in Africa, only that at some point there were present there and interbred with the indiginous populations and so on.

Except thst there aren't "traces" of DNA in the African gene pool. Genetics is at the point now where molecular clocks can be established and dates can be discerned for the emergence of various Haplogroups in addition to a rough geographic locus. In other words, we know where and when each of these Haplogroups emerged and can trace the movements of people and the associated Haplogroups. This all corroborates the story told by the fossil record and archaeological record. There is absolutely no question that our genus originated in East and South Africa and there is no question that it is so highly improbable that all of the corroborating data is wrong and that there were instances of convergent evolution thet it is more likely we all evolved on the moon and then swam to Earth.

Hell, the genetic evidence is so copious currently that we have determined that there is another hominid species as closely related as Neanderthal and Altaiensis that lived in Central Africa and that we as yet, have no physical remains for.

In the 21st century, the majority of Humanity are literally citizens of the world..I don't personally think it's the first time.

Oh absolutely, it's a totally valid comparison to equate 21st century technology and modes of transportation with a Pleistocene global community. So what if a trip that takes half a day of sitting in airports today took years when the fasted mode of transportation was unknown seafaring craft and the only other alternative was trekking on foot through places where literally, no human had ever been before and the closest thing to roadways were game trails! It's great to be open minded and keep all possibilities open. You just need to remember to temper all various hypothetical scenarios with actual evidence and data that supports it. Otherwise all you have is hyperbolic conjecture and broad supposition.

originally posted by: Marduk

originally posted by: MysterX
a reply to: SLAYER69

These inconvenient finds do seem to keep cropping up don't they...the Human remains found in a Middle-Eastern cave complex that are dated to up to 400,000 years old being just one.

Didn't they turn out to be Neanderthal ?

At 380 KA and in the Levant, I would hesitate to call them Neanderthal. What would be considered "classic" Neanderthal didn't emerge fully until 250, maybe 200 KA. If I remember correctly, the teeth were transitional between Heidelbergensis and the "classic" Neanderthal image that most people are familiar with. Technically, Meamderthal began emerging from Heidelbergensis populations ~300-350 KA BP with transitional morphologies going back as far as 600-650KA. The older remains exhibiting HN or transitional features are found in Eurasia but there isn't really a set time frame and you see overlapping time frames/morphologies across various parts of Europe. There was a recent find in 2014 I believe from northern France that was dated to 200 KA but still showed "pre"Neanderthal morphologies at a time that Italian and Iberian sites have contemporaneous remains that lack any archaic features so it can be kind of a crap shoot. Qesem cave is lacking in human remains with the entirety of the remains consisting of teeth which makes definitive ID difficult but based on the molars I saw they have far more in common with HN than HSS. Add in the lithic assemblages which are Acheulo-Yabrudian which predates Mousterian so it all but rules out HSS and HN.

a reply to: peter vlar

Didn't anthropoids originate in asia and North America? Not nit picking just and adding to the complexity of migrations over millions of years.

I know for me personally I have more trouble with name OOA as a describing factor of the evolutionary process of man. Man may have come out of Africa but we learned what we consider to be humanity by travelling globally and surviving in diverse climates and exchanging information. The unique survival trait we have makes considering biological evolution not really a complete understanding of the survival traits we have used to continue our survival.

I think intillegence evolves with biology but not at the same rate. Some times it putters along and other times it jumps.

For instance Qaesem cave. Just the fact that humans of some kind had that set up is fascinating. Meaning some survival traits (or technical information) was being passed for probably a million years from overlapping human species. That is fascinating. Humans can communicate by teaching how to do something learned at an excelerated rate compaired to other animals.

I think if your talking to the general public about how we are what we are ooa isn't a very good picture of what was going on when used as a casual descriptor. It makes people think we just came out of Africa and bam we populated the earth. You really need to take physcial anthro, paleo, evolutionary biology, etc to understand what the theory actually means.

a reply to: Barcs

What is inconvenient about this find? The fact that it expands our knowledge?

Expanding knowledge is a great thing, i'm all for it...even at the expense of deeply cherished, long standing hypothesis falling by the wayside, along with the careers and misplaced respect of those individuals that were built upon incorrect assumptions and propositions.

The inconvenience arises, if these finds are to ultimately prove OOA to be incorrect and too simplistic of course, not for knowledge in and of itself, but rather for those who held, esposed and maintained such hypothesis.

It's funny how you post all this without even knowing what the article is about. It's not about a human or even member of the homo genus, it predates the homo genus and is a small monkey. Funny the conclusions people make. And no, the 400,000 year old human is NOT a problem for "Out of Africa" either.

I wasn't trying to be funny, if you found something amusing, good for you..the world could do with a little more humour..some people more than others it seems.

In point of fact, the article IS effectively about the Human species...inasmuch as the find could represent a common ancestor that could possibly mark the point of divergence and separation of species, creating what would go on to become Homo sapien sapiens and other primate families....so yes, it has rather a lot to do with Humanities evolution in that respect. To imagine otherwise, would be akin to thinking a sperm and an ovum have little to do with Humanity, as neither resemble the finished article, but of course, you don't get the Human without both, nor do you get the Human species without a progenitor species.

I'm also a little curious how you think that a 400,000 year old find, from the Human ancestoral tree found outside of Africa can denote anything but a problems for the 'out of Africa' theory, when that theory assume isolated development followed by migration around 100,000 to 150,000 years ago?

Unless you want to introduce time travel into the mix, a 400,000 year old Human ancestor cannot develop in seclusion in more than one place.

Just ignore me. I get confused as my dragon is having a mood swing.

originally posted by: luthier
I think if your talking to the general public about how we are what we are ooa isn't a very good picture of what was going on when used as a casual descriptor. It makes people think we just came out of Africa and bam we populated the earth. You really need to take physcial anthro, paleo, evolutionary biology, etc to understand what the theory actually means.

The general public are ignorant of pretty much everything to do with real history, Hell, half the posters on this forum are ignorant of real history. Maybe they should read a book.

originally posted by: luthier
It's not racist to think the term out of Africa is out of date. As people mingled in different environments and mixed with even some archaic humans the emperical knowledge was shared, these things have every bit to do with what people think of as human traits and evolution.

I think the difficult part is when considering mental and cultural evolution. Like who was using fire in that 300k old Qasem cave? Archaic man. But what else? What else did they teach the h.erectus. Having to create different solutions to new enviornemntal challenges and then trading information as trade and barter, marriages etc over 100k's of thousands of years created the knowledge pool humanity has used to survive.

It's hard to judge a human by just biology because our evolutionary strength is the mind and thought. So I think people confuse types of evolution. As far as human beings being the survivors as species we are, it is worth considering interacting observers like humans with global experiences being shared is a huge survival advantage for humans as a species.

Obviously primates are an evolutionary step in complexity of nervous system and observational intelligence. It is certainly interesting and makes one wonder how many migrations have actually happened. Animal, plant, human, etc. Natural disasters weather patterns, population all causing migrations. Stirring the pot.

It's not crazy to think we have no idea what really happened.

But we do know a large amount about what happened. Nothing you said counters anything related to "out of africa". I'll say it again. The earliest hominid fossils based on several dating methods have been found in Africa. That is empirical evidence right there. Out of Africa is not outdated, it is the only scenario that the evidence supports.

I'm not saying that folks that migrated out of africa didn't interact with others or learn things based on different survival scenarios. I'm not saying that folks couldn't have left and come back. But to suggest there are problems with OOA or OOA2 when all the evidence shows it, is a bit silly in my book. To disprove it you'd need to find a fossil for homo sapiens or for earlier hominids that predates the fossils found in Africa. It's that simple.

originally posted by: MysterX
Expanding knowledge is a great thing, i'm all for it...even at the expense of deeply cherished, long standing hypothesis falling by the wayside, along with the careers and misplaced respect of those individuals that were built upon incorrect assumptions and propositions.

The inconvenience arises, if these finds are to ultimately prove OOA to be incorrect and too simplistic of course, not for knowledge in and of itself, but rather for those who held, esposed and maintained such hypothesis.

OOA is about the origin of the homo genus and homo sapiens. A monkey from Asia doesn't change that. OOA doesn't state that all life on earth came from Africa or that all primates came from Africa. Just that our genus emerged there. Thus far there is no evidence to contradict this, and plenty to support it.

In point of fact, the article IS effectively about the Human species...inasmuch as the find could represent a common ancestor that could possibly mark the point of divergence and separation of species, creating what would go on to become Homo sapien sapiens and other primate families....so yes, it has rather a lot to do with Humanities evolution in that respect. To imagine otherwise, would be akin to thinking a sperm and an ovum have little to do with Humanity, as neither resemble the finished article, but of course, you don't get the Human without both, nor do you get the Human species without a progenitor species.

The article is about primates. OOA is about the homo genus and also homo sapiens.

I'm also a little curious how you think that a 400,000 year old find, from the Human ancestoral tree found outside of Africa can denote anything but a problems for the 'out of Africa' theory, when that theory assume isolated development followed by migration around 100,000 to 150,000 years ago?

Unless you want to introduce time travel into the mix, a 400,000 year old Human ancestor cannot develop in seclusion in more than one place.

Go back and read Peter's posts, he is an expert on this topic and explained it in much better detail than I could. There were multiple migrations out of africa, and you do not seem to understand what is meant by human since you offer no citation to your claim. Human can refer to any species of the homo genus. It's a loose term to describe hominids although some use it to mean strictly homo sapiens. Anyway Peter already addressed the 400,000 year old "human" ancestor quite thoroughly and the fact remains that the oldest hominid fossils were found in Africa. A monkey that predates the entire genus does not change this unless you are claiming the monkey is human.

originally posted by: MysterX

Expanding knowledge is a great thing, i'm all for it...even at the expense of deeply cherished, long standing hypothesis falling by the wayside, along with the careers and misplaced respect of those individuals that were built upon incorrect assumptions and propositions.

OOA isn't a hypothesis, hasn't fallen to the wayside, no respect was misplaced nor were any careers waylaid, let alone any assumptions been made. You should get yourself a library card and due some basic research and get a more firm grasp on the subject matter if you plan on being so easily dismissive of it.

The inconvenience arises, if these finds are to ultimately prove OOA to be incorrect and too simplistic of course, not for knowledge in and of itself, but rather for those who held, esposed and maintained such hypothesis.

The only inconvenience with OOA is for people who don't understand that the foundation is rock solid and that recent genetic data supports and corroborates the fossil record. All of which indicates an African origin for our genus.

In point of fact, the article IS effectively about the Human species...inasmuch as the find could represent a common ancestor that could possibly mark the point of divergence and separation of species, creating what would go on to become Homo sapien sapiens and other primate families....so yes, it has rather a lot to do with Humanities evolution in that respect. To imagine otherwise, would be akin to thinking a sperm and an ovum have little to do with Humanity, as neither resemble the finished article, but of course, you don't get the Human without both, nor do you get the Human species without a progenitor species.

It's only "effectively about the human species" if you want to stretch the bounds of reality and the space time continuum since the site in China involves 34 million year old anthropoids which predate our genus by more than 30 MA. Yes, these anthropoids are the foundation of the family tree for all simians but it's a massive stretch to make this about HSS

I'm also a little curious how you think that a 400,000 year old find, from the Human ancestoral tree found outside of Africa can denote anything but a problems for the 'out of Africa' theory, when that theory assume isolated development followed by migration around 100,000 to 150,000 years ago?

Have you actually done any due diligence on Qesem cave? Or is your opinion based on non scientific click bait headlines from 6 years ago? The remains belonged to either Neamderthal or, more likely, a proto-Neamderthal showing features typical of both HN and their predecessor, H. Heidelbergensis. Again, the problem here lies not with OOA but with a poster who hasn't done much in the way of due diligence and relies on anachronistic information, primarily derived from click bait from 2010. Kk

Unless you want to introduce time travel into the mix, a 400,000 year old Human ancestor cannot develop in seclusion in more than one place.

I guess it's a good thing that they weren't actually ancestors of ours then.

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: peter vlar

Didn't anthropoids originate in asia and North America? Not nit picking just and adding to the complexity of migrations over millions of years.

Asia, yes. North America, no.

I know for me personally I have more trouble with name OOA as a describing factor of the evolutionary process of man.

I think you're reading too much into the name. It's pretty basic, our genus originated in Africa, the first bipedal apes preceding us originated in Africa, H. Erectus was the first to leave Africa mind colonized most of Africa, Asia and Europe. HE continued to evolve and adapt to its various new ecological niches. A million and a quarter years after leaving Africa, the world was home to a whole host of new members of our genus. The HE who didn't leave Africa continued on a similar path as those who left 1.8 MA BP and evolved and adapted to their own unique ecological niche which resulted in anatomically modern Homo sapiens in E. Africa 200 KA. 60 KA,80 KA, maybe a little earlier, WE started to branch out and explore the rest of the world. We met up with several other types of people. Sometimes we made friends, sometimes we made war, sometimes we had a party and sent the funny looking girl down the valley back home with a surprise 9 months later. Today, we are the sum total of several different types of humans who existed contemporaneously for tens of thousands of years. It's not that complicated and OOA works just fine for me. I think you're just overanalyzing it and over philosophizing it.

Man may have come out of Africa but we learned what we consider to be humanity by travelling globally and surviving in diverse climates and exchanging information. The unique survival trait we have makes considering biological evolution not really a complete understanding of the survival traits we have used to continue our survival.

To am extent sure. But if you look at the example of Blombos Cave that I discuss a little bit below, it's pretty evident that we had found our humanity at least 100 KA all the way down at the southern tip of Africa in complete isolation from the Erectus and Heidelbergensis and Meamderthalensis and Altaiensis' of the world. There's no arguing that our encounters with other members of our genus helped shape and enrich our species as a whole but we had already developed an identity and found our humanity long before it ever occurred to us thst we weren't alone on the world, living on the edge of nowhere.

I think intillegence evolves with biology but not at the same rate. Some times it putters along and other times it jumps.

Cool, I'm a fan of PE too.

For instance Qaesem cave. Just the fact that humans of some kind had that set up is fascinating. Meaning some survival traits (or technical information) was being passed for probably a million years from overlapping human species. That is fascinating. Humans can communicate by teaching how to do something learned at an excelerated rate compaired to other animals.

Qesem is hardly unique in this regard. In fact, though the period of habitation was much shorter, Blombos Cave in S. Africa is much more impressive in terms of "modern" human behaviors and specialized knowledge and skill sets being practiced at the site on a long term basis. In addition to a wide array of Both terrestrial and marine fauna they had quality artwork in the form of bone and ochre engravings, ochre processing kits, marine shell beads for jewelry and refined bone and stone tools. All of this is indicative of complex social and behavioral adaptations because they had to come up with complex and diverse procurement and subsistence strategies, the adoption of multistep manufacturing technology and stylistic elaboration which was dependent greatly increased social and economic organization as well as greater use and appreciation of symbolism. These are all complex and modern behaviors that are typically associated with more recent European sites like Chauvet Cave for example.

Different groups of humans have been sharing knowledge with each other for countless millennia. There was a site in the Levant that was already occupied by HN when some of the first HS made their way out of Africa and hugged the Mediterranean coast. The HN at the time of this meeting had superior lithic technology to the HS. At least part of the new group ended up staying and taking up residence with the HN's who taught their new found cousins how to make lithics like they were making. Eventually, the HS began to improve on this technology. These people,and take it with a grain of salt because this is where it gets into my own opinion of the site, but in my opinion, these people ceased to be 2 separate groups amd the JS were no longer outsiders. They lived in the same place, they both buried their dead, they buried them with similar grave goods and they buried both groups together. I believe this is so because they had formed familial ties and bonds after living together, working together and helping each other succeed. What cements this opinion in my mind is that you wouldn't bury strangers or people you weren't fond of next to people you cared about. Whatever bonds these people forged in life was meant to continue on in death.

Could I be wrong? Absolutely. There is no way to prove that my opinion is the truth. It makes perfect sense to me and I think I am correct, but were talking about science here and with science we have to stick with what we know and can ascertain with a reasonable degree of veracity and present evidence for. My gut feeling and belief that this is the logical answer doesn't really carry any weight beyond a cool anecdotal story to share.

I think if your talking to the general public about how we are what we are ooa isn't a very good picture of what was going on when used as a casual descriptor. It makes people think we just came out of Africa and bam we populated the earth. You really need to take physcial anthro, paleo, evolutionary biology, etc to understand what the theory actually means.

I've got to disagree. I had a pretty firm grasp on What OOA entails after taking 10th grade regents biology. It didn't require 3 years into my bachelors program to understand what OOA was driving at. And honestly, at least in America, the general public doesn't give 2 $#'s about anything unless there's a award ashcan involved.

a reply to: peter vlar

I was referring to this.
Evolutionary history of the primates can be traced back 65 million years.[1] One of the oldest known primate-like mammal species, the Plesiadapis, came from North America;[2] another, Archicebus, came from China.[3]

From Wikipedia (I know not the best source but I am on a cell)

Did you mean EP(PE?) as in Pinker? Yeah a fan. Also of Chomsky in this area. Innatism and Nativism. Very interested in these subjects.

I don't think you get what I am saying. I think the average person when hearing out of Africa as a theory does not understand it included the complexity of the situation and that our traits as they are today were not in place until tens or hundreds of thousands of years after the major migrations mingled with new environments and other human species already outside of Africa.

When I was in school the multi regional folks were still saying hey it seems archaic humans have passed traits that appear to be physically similar to their regional modern humans and many ooa theories said it wasn't so. Until genetics were able to tell another aspect of the story as well as more recent discoveries. Not saying ooa isn't and hasn't always been a sound theory or model just that we are discovering more and wrapping it into the ooa theory. Even a few prediction made by multiregionalists made the cut. Depending in when peoe read the models it could impact their understanding of the entire detail of ooa.



As far as school ooa is quite a bit different in terms of migrations and genetics since I went to high school. Not only that we barely touched the subject first as part of biology and also as part of earth science. Neither went into specifics enough to create a picture of human evolution in terms of the process as a whole. Maybe I went to a bad school but I don't think so. It was in the North East in an academic area.

I think maybe you were interested in the subject and it stuck with you. Kind if like the first time I read Plato I was in high school or middle but I continued reading about philosophy after the brief introduction.

I personally believe and this is a personal belief like people hold of God. I have no real proof of this observation. I think the the process of evolution seems to be working towards more complex observers with more complex neural systems. When I look at the scale from single cell to humans it seems intelligence and observational intelligence are evolving across time with biology also getting more complex. It's interesting to wonder why.

The fact the early tree of primates can be found in China and N. America is interesting. It doesn't change ooa but it goes to show how this span of time is enourmous and the earth and species have migrates and changed so much over the history of species.

Also the two caves in question are separated by perhaps 200k years. So the newer cave being more impressive is kind of moot. 200k years is a lot of information and technology to invent and share.

Did you see the new discovery of Indonesia cave art? Very cool. It is basically the same time line as French and Spanish caves. Very cool.

originally posted by: luthier
a reply to: peter vlar

I don't think you get what I am saying. I think the average person when hearing out of Africa as a theory does not understand it included the complexity of the situation and that our traits as they are today were not in place until tens or hundreds of thousands of years after the major migrations mingled with new environments and other human species already outside of Africa.

"Out of Africa" refers to the genus Homo, and only the genus Homo.

See Wikipedia entry that confirms this statement

a reply to: Byrd

Thats true what are you getting at?

Are you saying ooa does not include the admixtures and study the entire genus of "homo'?

All I am saying is its pretty complex to have migrations starting a million plus years ago and it's interesting as well to study the growth of intelligence and the evolution of the thought processes over that coarse.


What I am saying is the journey and path humans took is every bit as responsible for what we are as where they originated.