Homo sapiens: 'Out of Africa' three distinct times, new analysis shows
Posted on 02/10/2006 2:54:05 AM PST by PatrickHenry
A new, more robust analysis of recently derived human gene trees by Alan R. Templeton, Ph.D, of Washington University in St Louis, shows three distinct major waves of human migration out of Africa instead of just two, and statistically refutes — strongly — the 'Out of Africa' replacement theory.
That theory holds that populations of Homo sapiens left Africa 100,000 years ago and wiped out existing populations of humans. Templeton has shown that the African populations interbred with the Eurasian populations — thus, making love, not war.
"The 'Out of Africa' replacement theory has always been a big controversy," Templeton said. "I set up a null hypothesis and the program rejected that hypothesis using the new data with a probability level of 10 to the minus 17th. In science, you don't get any more conclusive than that. It says that the hypothesis of no interbreeding is so grossly incompatible with the data, that you can reject it."
Templeton's analysis is considered to be the only definitive statistical test to refute the theory, dominant in human evolution science for more than two decades.
"Not only does the new analysis reject the theory, it demolishes it," Templeton said.
Templeton published his results in the Yearbook of Physical Anthropology, 2005.
A trellis, not a tree
He used a computer program called GEODIS, which he created in 1995 and later modified with the help of David Posada, Ph.D., and Keith Crandall, Ph.D. at Brigham Young University, to determine genetic relationships among and within populations based on an examination of specific haplotypes, clusters of genes that are inherited as a unit.
In 2002, Templeton analyzed ten different haplotype trees and performed phylogeographic analyses that reconstructed the history of the species through space and time.
Three years later, he had 25 regions to analyze and the data provided molecular evidence of a third migration, this one the oldest, back to 1.9 million years ago.
"This time frame corresponds extremely well with the fossil record, which shows Homo erectus expanding out of Africa then," Templeton said.
Another novel find is that populations of Homo erectus in Eurasia had recurrent genetic interchange with African populations 1.5 million years ago, much earlier than previously thought, and that these populations persisted instead of going extinct, which some human evolution researchers thought had occurred.
The new data confirm an expansion out of Africa to 700,000 years ago that was detected in the 2002 analysis.
"Both (the 1.9 million and 700,000 year) expansions coincide with recent paleoclimatic data that indicate periods of very high rainfall in eastern Africa, making what is now the Sahara Desert a savannah," Templeton said. "That makes the timing very amenable for movements of large populations through the area."
Templeton said that the fossil record indicates a significant change in brain size for modern humans at 700,000 years ago as well as the adaptation and expansion of a new stone tool culture first found in Africa and later at 700,000 years expanded throughout Eurasia.
"By the time you're done with this phase you can be 99 percent confident that there was recurrent genetic interchange between African and Eurasian populations," he said. "So the idea of pure, distinct races in humans does not exist. We humans don't have a tree relationship, rather a trellis. We're intertwined."
Having watched both sides of this argument for years, I find it fascinating not just for the science, bur also for the way the scientists on both sides of the issue have behaved. I know enough not to stand between the two sides at times...you might get hit with a stray missle!
The science will be what the science is - but the passion both sides have displayed is interesting in its own right.
Someone, someewhere is working or will be working to tell us why this researcher is wrong, I am sure.
What needs explaining are how tiny the differences are; there's more genetic diversity in the average Chimpanzee troupe of a couple dozen Chimpanzees than in the entire human race.,br>
One critique -
"Stanford University geneticist Peter A. Underhill is more critical of Templeton's approach. The number of people whose nuclear DNA sequences were analyzed in the new report was too small to provide convincing evidence, Underhill says.
No ancient gene sequences have been identified in living people that reflect their ancestors' interbreeding with Neandertals or any other extinct Homo species, the Stanford researcher says."
That's the problem with the Multiregional hypothesis, there's no evidence for it.
Point taken, and gladly so! Much of the British press has reported your recent court case (in Pensylvania?) as a move by American 'conservatives' to introduce Biblical concepts into science teaching--but that makes no sense at all, least of all as a 'conservative' program. Here (UK) it is the socialists who are the culprits when it comes to politicising education; I have always assumed (without previously given it much thought, I admit) that the problem was the same in the US.
O.K., everybody, send your dead to the Indian tribes in North America for proper burial of their "ancestors" and quit that archeological diggin', WE'RE ALL RELATED. No more special entitlements please...
Science is like the weather, if you don't like what it says now, just wait a few minutes.
fyi
Maybe during glacial periods, ancient Asians and Europians moved back to Africa. When you mix all the different colors of people together, what do you get? Black!
LOL. On this side of the pond, it seems, everyone politicizes everything.
Read a thread about Britney Spears driving with her baby in her front seat, and someone will point out her political affiliation.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/1574201/posts
see #6
I just love following these: The darwinists claim the creationists have a "lack of education" . . . someone posts multiple links to scientific pro-creation websites . . . macro-evolutionists fire back with the claim that those scientists are whackjobs despite all their academic accolades . . . creationists claim the dawinist posters don't have anywhere near as many letters after their names . . . darwinists claim the creationists ARE the missing links they've been looking for . . . the discussion DEVOLVES into a shouting match . . .
All the while I continue to read periodically while trying to accomplish real work on the other PC. It's a hoot. Entertainment at its best.
It is exactly the same here.
Another problem is that the MSM twists everything around to support its agenda for change, ie, Socialism, so that you would believe that everything is the fault of conservatives.
So, you had nothing to actually add to this discussion? :)
I do wonder about his using his own computer program to validate his own research, but hey, perhaps thats just me remembering the GIGO theory.
From what I've read elsewhere, modern human DNA split from Neanderthal DNA about 700,000 years ago and about 300,000 years ago Neanderthals arrived in Europe replacing (or assimilating) an earlier hominid from whom we have no DNA samples. The great human/Neanderthal question has always been whether or not the modern humans who began moving into Eurasia after a great ice age a little more that 50,000 years ago interbred or simply wiped out the few Neanderthals who survived that ice age. I don't see where anything in this article changes what is all ready known about that.
:'D :'D :'D :'D
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So predictable.
Please continue the thread . . . : )
Let's note that wiping out a population does not exclude the possibility of interbreeding with it. There's no reason to assume that our habit of enslaving women from the population on the losing side of a war started only recently.
I wonder if they accounted for this? I'm sure the magnitude of the genetic contributions of each population could tell the difference between peaceful coexistence and subjugation.
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