Human origins

Terry M. Gray (grayt@Calvin.EDU)
Fri, 26 May 1995 17:45:44 -0400

Jim Bell wrote:

>This is also supported by Davis and Kenyon in "Of Pandas and People," in their
>section on mitochondrial Eve (p. 112), wherein they state the thesis "would
>eliminate Neanderthal as a candidate for ancestry to European peoples...It
>would eliminate the vast majority of Homo erectus populations across Europe
>and Asia as ancestral to man, leaving open only the possibility that some tiny
>Homo erectus population in Africa gave rise to modern Homo sapiens, if the two
>are related at all."

So what's wrong with this? This is the standard alternative (and widely
held) to the multi-regional hypothesis. The genetic data seem to confirm
this at every turn first starting with the mitochondrial data and as
analysis extends to more genes (including those found on the y-chromosome).
The hypothesis is that modern human arose once (probably in Africa, but
that remains to be sorted out for certain) and overran all the other
hominid populations including neanderthal and the scattered homo erectus
populations.

Nothing really new here, nor does it present any problems for evolutionists.

Terry G.

_____________________________________________________________
Terry M. Gray, Ph.D. Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Calvin College 3201 Burton SE Grand Rapids, MI 40546
Office: (616) 957-7187 FAX: (616) 957-6501
Email: grayt@calvin.edu http://www.calvin.edu/~grayt