Glenn,
I am not ready to give up on the single origins model.
You neglected to point out the following from the URL
(http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,1590695%255E11011,00.html )
you mention in your post:
"...John Mitchell, a human geneticist at La Trobe University.
Like Groves, he disagrees with Thorne's assertion that LM3 puts Regional
Continuity ahead in the theoretical race to explain our origins. Instead,
the findings suggest to Mitchell that fully modern people began trickling
out of Africa earlier than previously believed. That trickle peaked about
100,000 to 150,000 BP.
According to Mitchell, Mungo Man's ancestors probably left early,
travelled east, and eventually reached Australia ... where they met their
end.
"I would not find it strange that humans who left Africa (after
LM3's ancestors) did replace -- by interbreeding or killing --
anatomically modern humans, or any other prior forms," Mitchell says.
We do it today. I don't see it strange that we did it 100,000
years ago." If so, this must be the oldest crime ever solved by DNA"
The speed with which H. erectus spread across the globe from his home in
Africa was phenomenonal. There is no reason anatomically modern humans
could not have spread out of Africa at an equally astonishing rate.
As for quotations from Relethford, consider the following, from the
National Geographic New Service report on the Mungo Man report:
Despite this new evidence, the debate about the origins of modern
humans is likely to continue, said Relethford. I dont think any one
single study is going to do it.
A lot of people argue for an intermediate ground, he added,
[that] the change to modern humans did take place first in Africa and
then spread out, but did not completely replace archaic human
populations.
I can assure you that Relethford does not adhere to the position that
Thorne and Wolpoff advocate. He is one of those who argues for the
intermediate position- a "recent wave out of Africa combined with some
interbreeding along the way, leading to replacement.
My opposition to the multi-regional position has nothing to do with
"embarrassment" over the concept that we might be directly ancestral to
some of these primitive types. It is based on what I believe are studies
that undermined the foundation on which the MRE model is founded -
regional continuity. A number of studies have been done indicating that
the so called regional traits initially put forward by Weidenreich, and
further developed Wolpoff and Thorne do not really exist. (see, among
others, The Evolution of Modern Human Diversity, by Marta Mirazon Lahr.)
I'll take a wait and see attitude about the Mungo mtDNA study.
Even the alleged Lagar Velho hybrid is soon to be challenged. Take note
of the fact that it is a CHILD. I will send you a personal message
regarding this.
I have about as much respect for Wolpoff/Mann as you have for
Tattersall/Schwartz. Wolpoff was obstinately dogmatic about the single
species theory once before. Wolpoff assured us all, quite vigorously I
remember, that australopithecines of all sizes and shapes, as well as any
and all early Homo were all merely part of one big happy species - Us.
This concept , as you well know, was blown out of the water by the
findings at East Turkana, etc.
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