Discuss The Regional Continuity Theory And Elaborating On The Out Of Africa Theory Essay

In the Article “Redrawing Humanity’s Family Tree” by John Noble Wilford, describes how two different skulls challenge the theories of human origins and migrations. The Central African skull, that dates back to nearly 7 million years ago, was assigned to a whole new genus and species because of its apelike and evolved hominid species. The 1.75-million-year-old Georgian skull shows evidence that the first hominids may have been intercontinental travelers who set motion the migrations that occupied the whole planet. Finally a third skull was found that is the same age and shares a resemblance but, the size of the skull suggests that the brain was smaller than expected for H. erectus.

This article shows how Paleoanthropologist David Lordkipanidze and his group of archeologist discovered a 1.8 million-year-old skull fossil that could lead to knowing more about the earliest known ancestors of humans that ventured outside of Africa. Lordkipanidze’s excavation in the Georgia site known as Dmanisi. With this archeology find, it has been concluded that all early fossil humans belong to the same species known as Homo erectus. The article explains that the Dmanisi hominins had brains less than half the size of a modern human’s, and are key to understand the evolution and expansion these ancestors experienced from Africa to Eurasia. Genetic studies indicate that their expansion began from Africa about 1.9 million years ago. The article also mentions that with these new findings there can be a better ground from where to start to understand these ancestors as how they lived and socialized. Lordkipanidze does mention that the Dmanisi “were very primitive, we think there were social groups that connected with each other and learned from each other”.

Humans developed in Africa. “…, indicates that the earliest stages of human evolution were also played out in Africa.” (Page 36)

Chris stringer is the author of Lone Survivor How We Came to Be the Only Humans on Earth. Stringer covers a wide variety of topics in his book. He talks about the modern technology we have now that makes it easier to identify fossils, bones, dates, etc. He also mentions how the human gene became what it is today, the Homo sapien. Stringer argues that Homo sapiens did not originate in a single region of Africa. Instead, different populations coexisted across the continent with other species like Homo erectus, and they exchanged genes, tools and behavioral and survival traits before they migrated to Europe.

Some researchers believe the Out Of Africa expansion took a southern route, following the Indian Ocean coastal boundary down in to Indonesia and finally into Sahul (Bar-Yosef and Belfer-Cohen, 2013; Derricourt, 2005; Field and Lahr, 2005). However, genetic testing of aboriginal inhabitants of Sahul favors a combination of southern and northern routes. The northerly migration path traversed through the Altai Mountains, and shows a consistency with Denisovan genetics (Cooper and Stringer, 2013:321; Davidson, 2013:3). Modern human gene flow with Denisovans is believed to have occurred in the mainland area of Asia, before migration to Sahul (Cooper and Stringer, 2013:322; Reich et al.,

There has been a great deal of heated debate for the last few decades about where modern Homo sapiens originated. From the battle grounds, two main theories emerged. One theory, labeled “Out-of-Africa” or “population replacement” explains that all modern Homo sapiens evolved from a common Homo erectus ancestor in Africa 100,000 years ago. The species began to spread and replace all other archaic human-like populations around 35,000 to 89,000 years ago. The rivaling opinion, entitled the “regional continuity” theory or “multiregional evolution” model refutes this theory and states modern humans evolved from various species of Homo erectus who interbred with others that lived in

Evidence indicates Neanderthals and Modern humans shared a common African ancestor and split on the evolutionary tree between 500,000 to 200,000 years ago. Neanderthals developed in the cold and harsh environment of Europe and western Asia. With a lot of water locked up in the polar ice caps, Africa was experiencing a severe drought. This arid and dry environment is where modern human’s direct ancestor was living. These people’s bodies were a lot taller and weaker (to allow heat to escape) in comparison to the Neanderthals. This severe drought placed modern humans on the brink of extinction. However, when a species is dying out only the most inventive and resourceful survive, this causes the fitness of the remaining population to increase. In Europe the Neanderthals toughness allowed them to be very successful. In Africa the modern humans developed something the Neanderthals did not have, imagination. In Africa to survive it was necessary to think ahead and this allowed them to make the final step in becoming modern humans. Every previous human ancestor had been limited to the confines of their environment, but these ancestors eventually made their way out of Africa, and their imaginative behavior is illustrated in the drawings they left behind for others to find. After they left Africa they could have very well come into contact with the Neanderthals. Neanderthals became

One conceivable clarification is that a huge number of years prior, present day and bygone people in focal Africa interbred, adding to known cases of interbreeding – with Neanderthals in the Middle East, and with the cryptic Denisovans some place in southeast Asia.

Evolution is the process of change of living organisms over a long period of time due to difference of environment or circumstances that was not prevalent before. These evolutionary mutations occur due to things such as a change of environment where what may have been shallow water has gradually gotten deeper and thus the organisms that inhabited that land had to change in order to remain living in that area without risk. This also relates to things such as storms that may alter the habitat of the previous land where what something may have eaten has changed and the organism was altered to match that environment. This then has an affect on the history of human evolution, humans and apes relate to a similar origin and were very similar many years ago and this is known as primate phylogeny. This Extended research task will go in depth with the origins of man and the relation between man and apes through primate

Although it is largely accepted today that primates and humans had a common ancestor, the exact lineage of modern humans is still intensely debated and may never be fully completed. Throughout the history of origin theories, the idea that humans and apes are somehow related has been almost always a constant. Ever since humans noticed morphological similarities with apes, people have been determined to figure out their most or first distinguishable trait, and the species that bridged the gap between humans and apes. While trying to fit the growing amount of information gathered over the years into a clear, linear lineage, humans have also been hesitant to place the two too closely together. This hesitancy and misconception of human ancestry

The Multiregional Continuity Model states that after Homo erectus left Africa and spread into other parts of the Old World, regional populations gradually evolved into modern humans. In contrast, the Out of Africa Model states that modern humans evolved fairly recently in Africa, migrated into Eurasia and replaced all

The theory exists with the belief that humans evolved in East Africa and then later

As human beings, we have our own general understanding of how our world came to be. Whether we are in church, the synagogue, or the temple humans have established ideologies. Humans use the creation myths to bring about some understanding as to how humans magically or purposely inhabited the earth. However, even though myths satisfy this yearning for how and why, the scientific world revolted with the idea that creation myths are no longer satisfactory. In unison paleoanthropologists and archeologists along with many other historians said that we as humans need a scientific, concrete, and factual basis for our existence. As a result of many years of research and discovery the scientific world came to two conclusions. Either “Homo erectus evolved into Homo sapiens in each region of migration (Spodek 16)” most notably known as Candelabra. Or the “Homo erectus evolved into Homo sapiens only once- in Africa (Spodek 16)” most notably known as the Noah’s Ark model. Through my journey of understanding both schools of thought I began to rethink the basic sugar coated origins of humanity that teachers spoon feed in high school. Spodek along with the associate authors shined a little light on the fact that Homo sapiens most likely stemmed directly from Africa and migrated to other places in the world. Which leads me to my thesis: Homo erectus evolved into Homo sapiens only once in Africa, and then emigrated to the rest of the world.

Human origins, evolution, and diffusion are important for understanding the history of Africa. African historians take pride in the fact that Africa is most certainly the birthplace of humanity. There is evidence showing that humanity began in Africa by remains left behind by human groups and societies. They have retrieved fossils of living organisms, and even written records, like cave drawings. Dating back millions of years ago Africa provides the best time line of human development because other parts of the world do not have evidence dating back as far as in Africa. Where did humanity and human history begin? There are theories supporting both that, humans evolved from various parts of the world, and that humans rose in Africa then migrated to other parts of the world and continued to develop. The theory that has the most support is that humanity rose in Africa then moved to other regions of the world. Africa is indeed the home of humanity but because Africa is where humanity began they were not able to be at the top of the evolutionary ladder because their global location did not allow them to develop faster. Human history in general is difficult to understand but we can look at the past to learn more about where we came from and how our societies have developed.

The Out of Africa Theory is a widely renown theory describing the origin of the human race and their early dispersal throughout the world. According to this theory, humans have a monogensis, or a single and common origin; Africa. The concept was first introduced in 1871 by Charles Darwin but was deliberated for years until further studies of mitochondrial DNA and evidence ”based on physical anthropology of archaic specimens” was added.