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Did modern humans come from Africa? I've been reading Milford Wolpoff's book, "Race and Human Evolution, a Fatal Attraction". He points out that 100,000 years ago there were all kinds of humans all over the Old World. Some of these looked more primitive, some looked more modern. Many of these people were NOT neandertals. They were SOME kind of human, but not altogether like people today. Actually, around 160,000 years ago some people in Africa DID develop the modern skull morphology, and were the first true modern Homo Sapiens, at least that's what the Out of Africa theory teaches. These first true Homo Sapiens had somewhat longer faces than the faces of people today, and perhaps their brow ridges were a bit larger than the brow ridges of people today. But about 10,000 years later, at 150,000 years ago, their faces became totally modern in appearence. This group of early modern Homo Sapiens had modern behaviors that included polishing the bones of dead people, but it's not completely clear to me when modern people became good at thinking way ahead, and planning for the future. For instance, at some point in time, modern Homo Sapiens in Africa bore holes in ostrich egg shells, filled the shells up with water, and plugged up the holes with grass or something, and buried the ostrich egg shells containing water. These buried eggs containg water were now ready for future use, just in case a drought might occur. A new tantalizing discovery: Homo Sapiens in africa made beads for both symbolic and decorative purposes about 75,000 years ago. All these things hint at the early Homo Sapiens mind at work, a long time ago. So most of the modern people came from Africa. The name of this new species was called Homo Sapiens Idaltu (meaning grandparent). There are no significant differences in the genes of any of today's human races. The Out of Africa theory teaches that we all came from Homo Sapiens Idaltu. We are all a single subspecies, Homo Sapiens Sapiens. Wolpoff claims that today's Australian Aboriginies have TWO ancestors, not related to Africa. One is Mungo Man, an ancient fossil coming from Australia, dated back to 60,000 years ago. Recent DNA tests reveal that although Mungo Man had a skull exactly like modern human skulls, the DNA does not match modern human DNA! What are we to make of this? Is this an example of parallel evolution? I simply don't know! The other ancestor of today's Australian Aboriginies, Wolpoff thinks, is Solo Man. Solo Man has both features of Homo Erectus, and Archaic Homo sapiens. Solo Man also had a large brain, close to modern sizes. Wolpoff believes, I think, that Solo Man evolved independently into its' own version of modern homo sapiens. Ancient skulls found in Australia, such as WLH 50, at Kow Swamp, Wolpoff claims, has some of the features of the Solo Man. But their overall morphology is clearly that of modern Homo Sapiens. This might be convincing enough to show that in some places on the earth modern Homo Sapiens were evolving independently of the people coming Out of Africa. I do believe personally, that most people living today have an African ancestor, Homo Sapiens Idaltu. But this does not rule out Multiregionalism altogether, and it is really important to remember this.
Milford Wolpoff is a very skilled paleoanthropologist, and is the world's leading authority on bone structure of both modern and ancient humans. His camp believes in the Multiregional model of human evolution, also called Multiregionalism. It teaches that instead of modern humans first deleloping in one place(Out of Africa) and spreading their genes all over the world, early modern Homo Sapiens were developing all over the place, and kept interbreeding, until everybody became a single subspecies(Homo Sapiens Sapiens) worldwide. The point is, whether you believe in the Out of Africa theory, or the Multiregional theory of modern human evolution, or a theory somewhere in between, like I kind of do, by about 100,000 years ago, people were becoming increasingly modern, until about 40,000 years ago nearly everyone had the modern behavior. Except for the neandertals. Who were they? They were a short, stocky, built for the extremly cold ice age, heavily muscled, big-boned race of people with heavy brow ridges, low sloping foreheads, and an AVERAGE brain size of 1490cc, a HUGE average brain size. Homo Sapiens (us) has a smaller average brain size 1350cc. With such a large AVERAGE brain size they would be smarter than us. Superintelligents, if you will. But because they are basically an advanced race of heidelburg man, they are still quite primitive, and not quite behaviorally modern(though almost). The cro-magnons had somewhat better brains, though their average brain size was probably somewhat smaller. But it was their advanced hunting and gathering TECHNOLOGY that did the neandertals in, I'm quite certain of that. Scientists now know that neandertals could talk. And they could plan ahead. (I don't know if that story about the neandertal flute is true; I don't know if they played any neandertal flutes. Probably not. But if they could talk, they could hum a tune, also) One scientist claimed that neandertals didn't have tear ducts, but his evidence is in doubt. I think it was based on an endocast, or something, and not a real neandertal skull. Furthermore, a leading expert in skull morphology, who should know, says without a doubt neandertals DEFINITELY had tear ducts. That means neandertals could cry. In short, neandertals were just as human as you and I. But they were, from my point of view, a different species of human.
