New analysis shows three human migrations out of Africa, Replacement theory 'demolished'

Washington University in St. Louis ^ | 02 February 2006 | Tony Fitzpatrick

[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."

Homo sapiens: 'Out of Africa' three distinct times, new analysis shows

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."

[CobaltBlue]

Well, notice that the guy is at Brigham Young university, which is run by the Mormons, who are way in the forefront on population genetics. I think this is for religious reasons, they believe in post-mortem baptism, so are looking for ancestors to baptize.

I have a freebie genetics kit fom a Mormon group asking me to give them a DNA sample and my family tree -- several branches of which I can trace back ten, eleven, twelve generations, and pretty much every branch back to one country or another in Europe. But I wonder what else they'll do with it? Makes me just a tiny bit paranoid. If I give them a sample, who owns my DNA?

http://www.smgf.org

[CobaltBlue]

Correction, the main author is at Washington U. at St. Louis, it's the genetics computer program guys who helped him who are at Brigham Young.

[martin_fierro]

Yeah, I had those same concerns -- but threw caution to the winds and submitted a sample anyway.

[spinestein]

["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."]


Provided ALL your assumptions are correct.

[CobaltBlue]

Huh, just noticed that if you give them the freebie test they will give you a coupon for a discounted for-pay test.
http://smgf.org/coupon_request.html

Now that's an incentive. Course if they are going to do something funky with my DNA, I am selling my birthright for a mess of pottage or something. ;^)

[Junior]

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February 10, 2006

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CrevoSci Threads for the Past Week

1. 02/10/2006 New analysis shows three human migrations out of Africa, Replacement theory 'demolished'
2. 02/10/2006 Professor challenges evolution (Pittsburgh Professor's article in The New Anatomist)
3. 02/10/2006 Science losing war over evolution? Harvard Screening airs evolution versus ID debate
4. 02/09/2006 Anticreationism legislation in Wisconsin
5. 02/09/2006 Scientists celebrate Darwin's birthday
6. 02/09/2006 Shining light on the evolution of photosynthesis
7. 02/09/2006 SNAKE FANGS FROM THE LOWER MIOCENE OF GERMANY: EVOLUTIONARY STABILITY OF PERFECT WEAPONS
8. 02/08/2006 A scientific leap, but without the faith
9. 02/08/2006 Cold And Deep: Antarctica's Lake Vostok Has Two Big Neighbors
10. 02/08/2006 'Do We Want to Destroy the Creation?' Science and Religion in a New Alliance on Global Warming
11. 02/08/2006 Early Version of T. Rex Is Discovered
12. 02/08/2006 False Fear Epidemic over Critical Analysis of Evolution Spreads to Wisconsin
13. 02/08/2006 George Deutsch, Up and Coming PAO Politico
14. 02/08/2006 Keeping Saturn’s Moons Old
15. 02/08/2006 The Threat From Intelligent Design
16. 02/08/2006 Young Bush Appointee Resigns His Post at NASA
17. 02/07/2006 Comparative analysis of cancer genes in the human and chimpanzee genomes
18. 02/07/2006 Confirmation of Rapid Metamorphism of Rocks (Creation vs. Evolution)
19. 02/07/2006 Dark matter warms up: Unseen mass more 'tepid' than thought.
20. 02/07/2006 New Species Discovered in Indonesia Jungle
21. 02/06/2006 Eden and Evolution
22. 02/06/2006 Evolution Measure Splits State Legislators in Utah
23. 02/06/2006 His Subject: Highly Evolved and Exquisitely Thirsty
24. 02/06/2006 Reinventing Humanity
25. 02/06/2006 Researcher Seeks Secrets Of Kennewick Man
26. 02/06/2006 Taft adds to evolution debate [Ohio' Republican governor gets it]
27. 02/06/2006 UF scientists trace origin of shark’s electric sense
28. 02/05/2006 Cave Drawings Reportedly 25,000 Years Old
29. 02/05/2006 Intelligent Design: is it intelligent, is it Christian?
30. 02/05/2006 The Many Directions of Time
31. 02/04/2006 Galileo Groupies [The unlikely rock star of intelligent design]
32. 02/04/2006 On the Origins of Life
33. 02/04/2006 The 'Meister Print': An Alleged Human Sandal Print from Utah

This week in CrevoSci History

1. 02/10/2005 Fact, Fable, and Darwin, Part 1
2. 02/10/2005 NYT columnist gets Dowd and dirty
3. 02/10/2005 Politics and religion enter into evolution debate (71% of Bush voters support teaching ID
4. 02/10/2005 We are the final frontier
5. 02/09/2005 Design for Living: The Basis for a Design Theory of Origins
6. 02/09/2005 Evolution in the Blackboard Jungle: An intelligent design for a solution to the debate
7. 02/09/2005 Newly Found (Human) Species Goes Missing Again (Floresiensis)
8. 02/09/2005 Spotting Evolution on the Wing
9. 02/08/2005 A Theory of Biblical Creation
10. 02/08/2005 Scientists find missing link between whale and its closest relative, the hippo
11. 02/08/2005 Survival of the prettiest (Evolution rules rush at Duke U.)
12. 02/08/2005 The case for Judeo-Christian values, part 4: Prager skewers belief in human-animal equivalence
13. 02/07/2005 Church needs better evolution education, says bishops' official
14. 02/07/2005 Giardia Bares All: Parasite genes reveal long sexual history
15. 02/07/2005 Irrefutable Design
16. 02/07/2005 Religious right fights science for the heart of America [Evolution vs. Creationism]
17. 02/06/2005 After marriage victory, evolution an issue for some clergy
18. 02/06/2005 Erasmus Darwin (The real source of 'Frankenstein' as well as Evolution)
19. 02/06/2005 Female crickets choosey with their mates [Hawaiian cricket is world's fastest-evolving invertebrate]
20. 02/06/2005 Intelligent Origin
21. 02/06/2005 Salt of the Early Earth
22. 02/06/2005 The evolutionary origin of complex features
23. 02/05/2005 Fact is, this theory is under attack (Evolution Revolution Alert)
24. 02/05/2005 Hallucinatory Neurophysics [the mathematics of visual hallucinations and NDE's]
25. 02/04/2005 Acclaimed Evolutionary Biologist Ernst Mayr Dies
26. 02/03/2005 Church needs better evolution education, says bishops' official
27. 02/03/2005 Double, Double, Life’s Little Bubbles
28. 02/03/2005 Evolution Takes a Back Seat in U.S. Classes
29. 02/03/2005 'Man the Hunter' theory is debunked in new book
30. 02/03/2005 Organisms Found in Deepest Part of Ocean
31. 02/03/2005 The Darwinian Interlude
32. 02/10/2004 E-word brings out the e-mail [Evolution in Georgia schools]
33. 02/10/2004 Grand Blanc considers adding Bible, creationism to curriculum
34. 02/10/2004 The Computer at Nature's Core
35. 02/09/2004 Race only skin deep - S.J. STUDENTS DISCOVER GENETIC LINK
36. 02/07/2004 Compatability test: How 5 religions do and don't open their doors to Darwin's theory
37. 02/07/2004 Creation focus of seminars at school
38. 02/07/2004 Kennewick Man Speaks
39. 02/07/2004 THE WORLD’S GREATEST CREATION SCIENTISTS (VON BRAUN)
40. 02/06/2004 Footprints Of Paleolithic Man Found On Cheju Island (Korea - 50k yo)
41. 02/05/2004 University of Florida Botanists Help Create 'Supertree' of Evolution for Flowering Plants
42. 02/04/2004 Kennewick man renains not protected
43. 02/03/2004 Assault on Science Spreads
44. 02/03/2004 Modern alchemists make two new elements
45. 02/03/2004 Scientists Discover Where Snakes Lived When They Evolved into Limbless Creatures
46. 02/03/2004 Stacking the Deck Against Science (Liberal's Moan about Bush Science 'Litmis Test')
47. 02/10/2003 Science - Reuters Stonehenge 'King' Came from Central Europe
48. 02/10/2003 Scientists Flood The Flagellum Engine
49. 02/10/2003 THE 'BABY DOCTOR,' BENJAMIN SPOCK, ON DARWIN AND MORALITY
50. 02/09/2003 Early Water on Earth
51. 02/09/2003 Scientists Get Close Look at Evolution
52. 02/08/2003 So You Think You Are a Darwinian?
53. 02/08/2003 The Case for Physics First
54. 02/08/2003 The end of the universe is cancelled
55. 02/07/2003 Darwinism's Dilemma (part I: Cave Man)
56. 02/07/2003 Darwinism's Dilemma (part II: Hard Man)
57. 02/07/2003 Genes of history's greatest lover found?
58. 02/06/2003 New findings put Noah's epic story to the test
59. 02/06/2003 Paul Nelson Chat Transcript
60. 02/06/2003 Tadpoles take blame for human hiccups
61. 02/05/2003 A Few Pointers on Investigation
62. 02/04/2003 Mutant Bacteria Become Microscopic Motors
63. 02/03/2003 [VANITY]Breaking the news to a Creationist church and family members
64. 02/03/2003 A Chat with Paul Nelson on the Cambrian Explosion
65. 02/03/2003 Evolutionary Logic
66. 02/03/2003 Neanderthal DNA Sequencing
67. 02/03/2003 Professor's Snub of Creationists Prompts U.S. Inquiry
68. 02/10/2002 Survival and Genetic Disorders
69. 02/09/2002 County of the Scopes Trial Is Told To Halt Bible Classes in Schools
70. 02/08/2002 First genetic evidence for early animal evolution
71. 02/08/2002 The Ultimate Creation vs. Evolution Resource [15th Revision]
72. 02/07/2002 Study Hints at How Genetic Mutations Led to Macroevolutionary Change
73. 02/07/2002 The Methuselah Gene: Who Wants To Live Forever?
74. 02/06/2002 Now it's Ohio, debating Darwinism
75. 02/06/2002 U.C. San Diego Darwinists Exaggerate Research Results to Promote Theory, Says Discovery Institute
76. 02/05/2002 A Question for Creationists
77. 02/05/2002 Why do you debate about evolution?
78. 02/03/2002 A Question for Evolutionists
79. 02/07/2001 Evidence of Dinosaurs in the Twentieth Century
80. 02/07/2001 Evolution vs. Creation (Thread 13)
81. 02/03/2001 Evolution vs. Creation (Thread 12)
82. 02/10/2000 Beware Evolutionists!
83. 02/09/2000 What is the Connection Between Homosexuality and Evolution?
84. 02/08/2000 Pitfalls of Evolutionary Anthropology
85. 02/05/2000 Is Quantum Evolution The New Science Of Life?
86. 02/04/2000 High Priest of Evolution Reveals His Religion

Deleted, Locked, or Pulled Threads

1. 01/07/2006 Did Jesus Exist? Italian Court to Decide [Locked]
2. 11/15/2005 'Perception' gene tracked humanity's evolution, scientists say [Locked]
3. 04/27/2004 Stop Teaching Our Kids this Evolution Claptrap! [Pulled]
4. 10/29/2003 The Mystery of the Missing Links (Intelligent Design vs. Evolution) [Pulled]
5. 10/27/2003 Physics Nobelist Takes Stand on Evolution [Pulled]
6. 10/23/2003 Gene Found for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder [Pulled]
7. 10/21/2003 Artificial Proteins Assembled from Scratch [Pulled]
8. 09/23/2003 Solar System Formation Questions [Pulled]
9. 09/17/2003 Agreement of the Willing - Free Republic Science Threads [Pulled]
10. 08/20/2003 Lice offer clues to origin of clothing [Locked]
11. 07/19/2003 Darwin in a Box [Pulled]
12. 07/18/2003 Unlikely Group May Revive Darwin Debate [Evolution v. Creationism] [Pulled]
13. 07/02/2003 Unlocking the Mystery of 'Unlocking the Mystery of Life' [Pulled]
14. 06/26/2003 Darwin Faces a New Rival [Pulled]
15. 06/06/2003 Amazing Creatures [Pulled]
16. 05/30/2003 NUCLEAR DECAY: EVIDENCE FOR A YOUNG WORLD [Pulled]
17. 09/14/2002 Geological Theory Explains Origin of Ocean, Continents [Pulled]
18. 09/13/2002 Oldest Known Penis Is 100 Million Years Old [Pulled]
19. 04/13/2002 To Creationists: Is There a Global Conspiracy to Promote Evolution? [Pulled]
20. 04/10/2002 (Creationists) CRSC Correction [Pulled]
21. 04/04/2002 Evolution: What is it? (long article) [Locked]
22. 03/22/2002 Evolution is designed for science classes [Pulled]
23. 03/05/2002 Life found 'on margin of existence' [Pulled]
24. 11/10/2001 Alabama to continue biology textbook warning sticker [Pulled]
25. 11/06/2001 Warming makes mosquito evolve, University of Oregon scientists find [Pulled]
26. 09/18/2001 CHEERED BY BIGOTS, SCIENTIFIC INDIA TAKES 'GIANT LEAP BACKWARDS' [Pulled]
27. 08/29/2001 How Not to Defend Evolution [Deleted]
28. 08/28/2001 The Ultimate Creation vs. Evolution Resource [6th Revision] [Deleted]
29. 08/27/2001 Top Ten Problems with the Big Bang [Deleted]
30. 08/26/2001 A Scientific Account of the Origin of Life on Earth [Thread I] [Deleted]
31. 08/24/2001 Satellites Search for Noah’s Ark [Deleted]
32. 07/19/2001 Evolution is Religion — Not Science [Deleted]
33. 07/19/2001 The Scientific Case Against Evolution: A Summary Part I [Deleted]
34. 07/19/2001 The Scientific Case Against Evolution: A Summary Part II [Deleted]
35. 07/19/2001 The Effect of Darwinism on Morality and Christianity [Deleted]
36. 07/07/2001 Evolution Fraud in Current Biology Textbooks [Deleted]
37. 03/31/2001 Enlisting Science to Find the Fingerprints of a Creator [No Such File]
38. 01/13/2001 A Christian Understanding of Intelligent Design [Deleted]
39. 11/15/2000 Evolutionism Receives Another Hard Blow [Deleted]
40. 10/10/2000 Another Lost Generation? [Deleted]
41. 10/02/2000 God and the Academy [Deleted]
42. 09/18/2000 The World of Design [Deleted]
43. 08/30/2000 Evil-Ution [Deleted]
44. 11/14/1999 Creationism's Success Past 5 Years: (Gallup: 1 in 10 hold secular evolutionist perspective) [No Such File]

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[BJClinton]

She gives you the eye, you give her the eye, next thing you know you got three kids and the in laws living in your cave.

LOL. I don't know why but that sounded especially funny comng from someone named "IrishCatholic".

BTW, thanks for the summary.

[bill1952]

I'm pretty sure that the point being made by various posters is that the concept of evolution, ie, biological progress of lower to higher orders of life, is not generally in doubt here.

The "theories" comes in when one tries to research the various ways or modalities in which evolution plays out, as in survival of the fittest, et al.

[Stultis]

Does this article make some kind of pro or anti evolution statement?

Neither. It assumes evolution. It's about a longstanding controversy within evolutionary theory: the result of a new study that favors one side of the debate.

Can someone please explain the significance in layman's terms?

You need to understand some background first. The earliest "ape-men" are all found only in the continent of Africa. Following these you have creatures that are classified in our genus, "Homo". One of the first, Homo habilis, is still very ape-like and also found only in Africa. Then, however, you get a form called Homo erectus. It has a smaller brain than modern humans (although not by much) and it's skull, especially the face, still looks pretty "apeish," but it's lower body is very similar to that of modern humans.

Homo erectus does something no previous human ancestor did. It migrates beyond Africa. It's found in Africa, Asia (all the way to China and Southeast Asia) and some parts of Europe.

After Home erectus the next universally recognized species is Homo sapiens (i.e. us, modern humans) although in between you have a variety of "archaic sapients" (including Neanderthals but others as well) as distinguished from "anatomically modern" humans.

Now, here's the thing: The first "anatomically modern" humans appear in Africa. Both sides of the debate we're considering agree on this point. So you have modern humans appearing in Africa, but at the same time you already have those Homo erectus, and various "archaic sapients", spread around the world outside of Africa. This was the situation around 700 thousand years ago.

So the question is how did we arrive at the current state of affairs, with modern humans everywhere and everything else extinct. At the extremes there are two possible answers:

The "Out of Africa" hypothesis says that the modern humans migrated from Africa and simply replaced all the archaic forms (killed them, out-competed them, whatever). It denies that the various "archaic" forms in Asia and elsewhere contributed in any significant way to modern populations. Anatomically modern humans only evolved once, and in one place (Africa).

The other extreme position is the "Regional Development" hypothesis. It claims that populations of Homo erecuts and/or archaic sapients in Asia and other places each evolved independently into modern humans.

The "Regional Development" hypothesis was rather quickly moderated to something that might be called "Regional Development with Gene Flow". This position admitted that the migration of modern humans from Africa was significant, but only because the moderns interbred with local populations and thereby introduced modern traits. It's still the local populations that evolved, albeit with some outside help, into the modern form.

Of course various other intermediate views are possible. Then it becomes a matter of emphasis, whether on migrants replacing or local populations evolving.

When this debate first began -- back in the late 80's or early 90's IIRC -- both sides claimed evidence from the fossil record, but generally speaking the DNA evidence was considered to favor "Out of Africa". Advocates of "Regional Development" initially based their case almost completely on details of morphology which they interpreted to link modern populations with archaic or erectus fossils from the same regions.

"Regional Development" advocates also critiqued the DNA evidence for the "Out of Africa" view in various ways, but the significance of the present study is the claim that DNA evidence now provides positive support for Regional Development (with gene flow).

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[lepton]

Because a conquering warrior might kill as many menfolk as he can git his hands on, but what's the POINT of conquest if you don't get to keep the women? And it's the women wot makes the the babies...who then end up being not Vikings or Saxons, but half Irish and half Saxon. Etc.

Even more dramatic is the Norse(ish) conquest of China(ish), the descendants of whom looked wholly Asian when they came back west.

[wildbill]

The global changes of 1,500,000 and 700,000 years ago were Bush's fault.

[Quark2005]

...what's the POINT of conquest if you don't get to keep the women?

A precept apparently held since early Biblical times:

Numbers 31:13-18
13 Moses, Eleazar the priest and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp.
14 Moses was angry with the officers of the army—the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds—who returned from the battle.
15 "Have you allowed all the women to live?" he asked them.
16 "They were the ones who followed Balaam's advice and were the means of turning the Israelites away from the LORD in what happened at Peor, so that a plague struck the LORD's people.
17 Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man,
18 but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man.

[escapefromboston]

Homo erectus


bwahahahhaha.

[shuckmaster]

Great summary!

[Coyoteman]

Homo erectus

bwahahahhaha.

No. Homo erectus. Like this:

---

Fossil: KNM-ER 3733 Site: Koobi Fora (Upper KBS tuff, area 104), Lake Turkana, Kenya (4, 1)

Discovered By: B. Ngeneo, 1975 (1)

Estimated Age of Fossil: 1.75 mya * determined by Stratigraphic, faunal, paleomagnetic & radiometric data (1, 4)

Species Name: Homo ergaster (1, 7, 8), Homo erectus (3, 4, 7), Homo erectus ergaster (25)

Gender: Female (species presumed to be sexually dimorphic) (1, 8)

Cranial Capacity: 850 cc (1, 3, 4)

Information: Tools found in same layer (8, 9). Found with KNM-ER 406- A. boisei (effectively eliminating single species hypothesis) (1)

Interpretation: Adult (based on cranial sutures, molar eruption and dental wear) (1)

See original source for notes:
Source: http://www.mos.org/evolution/fossils/fossilview.php?fid=33

[JimSEA]

As the fossil record and the 'Out of Africa' replacement theory are in such conflict, this makes sense. Rocks can't lie.

[JCEccles]

More smoke and tapdancing.

Darwinism is more deeply in chaos than it has ever been. Darwins' grand mullahs of materialism keep trying to bury Gould's "hopeful monsters," recognizing as they do, that to recognize them is to admit evolution is bankrupt and wholly unable to explain anything but small variations in species.

[thomaswest]

Gravity: Just a Theory

One website that has this neat essay is at
http://www.re-discovery.org/gravity_1.html

There was a site where IDers tried to answer this, but I can't find it now. Anyone know? I understand the author provided his answers explaining the spoof, but I can't find it (probably a pdf file on my hard drive, but lost).

[Coyoteman]

Darwinism is more deeply in chaos than it has ever been.

Don't bet the rent money on it.