Rethinking "Out of Africa"

By Dilip -
I'm thinking a lot about species concepts as applied to humans, about the "Out of Africa" model, and also looking back into Africa itself. I think the idea that modern humans originated in Africa is still a sound concept. Behaviorally and physically, we began our story there, but I've come around to thinking that it wasn't a simple origin. Twenty years ago, I would have argued that our species evolved in one place, maybe in East Africa or South Africa. There was a period of time in just one place where a small population of humans became modern, physically and behaviourally. Isolated and perhaps stressed by climate change, this drove a rapid and punctuational origin for our species. Now I don’t think it was that simple, either within or outside of Africa. 


CHRISTOPHER STRINGER is one of the world's foremost paleoanthropologists. He is a founder and most powerful advocate of the leading theory concerning our evolution: Recent African Origin or "Out of Africa". He has worked at The Natural History Museum, London since 1973, collaborating with scientists across all the disciplines of paleoanthropology, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society, with over 200 papers and books to his name. He currently leads the large and successful Ancient Human Occupation of Britain project (AHOB), and is also involved in the RESET project, seeking to map the spread of modern humans and the disappearance of the Neanderthals in Europe. His books include African Exodus: The Origins of Modern Humanity (with Robin Mckie); The Complete World of Human Evolution (with Peter Andrews), Homo britannicus, and The Origin of Our Species (titled Lone Survivors in the USA).


http://edge.org/conversation/rethinking-out-of-africa

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