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"Our species is 200,000 years old"—many have heard the memes, but do we know?
We review DNA and fossil records and argue that no birthplace & time is known, and may not be the right model.
With A. Bergström, @ChrisStringer65 @MatejaHajdi @DrEleanorScerri https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03244-5
We review DNA and fossil records and argue that no birthplace & time is known, and may not be the right model.
With A. Bergström, @ChrisStringer65 @MatejaHajdi @DrEleanorScerri https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03244-5
We start from the present and follow the family tree of people today back in time. Can ancestors can be located in geography, or connected to the fossil record?
Three phases of the deep past have central questions surrounding them:
Three phases of the deep past have central questions surrounding them:
The expansion outside of Africa and contacts with Eurasian 'archaic' human groups such as Neanderthals.
-Archaeology studies have suggested earlier expansions, but it seems that all later ancestry arrived <60,000 years ago.
-Archaeology studies have suggested earlier expansions, but it seems that all later ancestry arrived <60,000 years ago.
Africa & vicinity: fossil H. sapiens and modern human ancestry are traced here, but not to a specific region.
While we can exclude a recent near-complete replacement expansion across Africa, the remaining range of scenarios is large, including pan-African connectivity.
While we can exclude a recent near-complete replacement expansion across Africa, the remaining range of scenarios is large, including pan-African connectivity.
Finally, the time of common ancestry with other identified fossil species and archaic human genomes, 0.5-1 million years ago.
Unlikely a sudden isolation between groups, the emerging model requires contacts between Eurasia and Africa.
Unlikely a sudden isolation between groups, the emerging model requires contacts between Eurasia and Africa.
