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Rethinking "Out of Africa" (Origins of humanity) (edge.org)
4 points by sillysaurus on June 3, 2012 | hide | past | favorite | 1 comment



Truly fascinating read.

One might conclude, though the evidence put forth here indicates otherwise, most of this intermixing probably occurred within Africa before spreading outward.

I suggest this because traces of earlier, middle, and later stage evolutionary branches are all found in African fossils of modern humans (apparently through various stages of history). So though the evidence of mixing with Denisovans exists in Asia, with the Neanderthals in Europe, and with Homo floresiensis in the islands, in modern human fossil records (which seem to originate from Africa) apparently traces of each still exist.

Thus, one might conclude that either recent mixing has reintroduced these genes back into our most common ancestors, or that the distant mixing occurred in a period that we no longer have evidence of (but might in the future).




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