early Homo from Indian Ocean shores?
- From: "Marc Verhaegen" <fa204466@xxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 25 Dec 2005 02:44:31 +0100
An Asian perspective on early human dispersal from Africa
Robin Dennell1 & Wil Roebroeks
Nature
The past decade has seen the Pliocene and Pleistocene fossil hominin record
enriched by the addition of at least ten new taxa, including the Early
Pleistocene, small-brained hominins from Dmanisi, Georgia, and the
diminutive Late Pleistocene Homo floresiensis from Flores, Indonesia. At the
same time, Asia's earliest hominin presence has been extended up to 1.8 Myr
ago, hundreds of thousands of years earlier than previously envisaged.
Nevertheless, the preferred explanation for the first appearance of hominins
outside Africa has remained virtually unchanged. We show here that it is
time to develop alternatives to one of palaeoanthropology's most basic
paradigms: 'Out of Africa 1'.
Akey assumption in accounts of early hominin evolution is that the genus
Homo originated in Africa, and an early form, classified either as Homo
ergaster or H. erectus sensu lato (see Box 1), was the first to leave about
1.7-1.9Myr ago (depending upon one's choice of dates and specimens), and
then colonized southern Asia as far as 408 N. The identification of east
Africa as the 'core' area for the genus Homo (including H. ergaster) as well
as tool-making seems secure to most palaeoanthropologists, and the most
recent attempts at modelling early hominin dispersals start implicitly from
the assumption that H. ergaster originated in east Africa and then dispersed
across Asia1,2. In fact, the evidence that H. ergaster originated in east
Africa is less convincing than it seems. H. ergaster marks such a radical
departure from previous forms of Homo (such as H. habilis) in its height,
reduced sexual dimorphism, long limbs and modern body proportions3 that it
is hard at present to identify its immediate ancestry in east Africa4. Not
for nothing has it been described as a hominin "without an ancestor, without
a clear past"5.
Finally some PAs are realising that Homo must have come from somewhere they
don't know.
:-)
AAT (shoreline adaptations of the genus Homo) is based on the
behavior-anatomy-physiology-DNA of living humans vs. chimps & other animals.
Ancestors collecting sea/lake-side foods (coconuts, fruits, bird eggs,
turtles, shell-, crayfish, algae etc.) explain unique Homo traits (not seen
in apes or australopiths) better than plains- or forest-dwelling : our brain
size, diving skills, breath control, vocality, small mouth & chewing
muscles, tongue bone descent, longer airway, projecting nose, poor sense of
smell, handiness, tool use, late puberty, long legs, aligned body, poor
climbing, fur loss, fatness, high needs of water, sodium, iodine &
poly-unsaturated fatty acids etc.
Homo & Pan split ~6-4 Ma. Most likely, early Homo populations dispersed
along Indian Ocean & Afr.coasts : Mojokerto, Dungo V Baia Farta, Terra
Amata, Table Bay, Eritrea etc. (18 km sea crossing to reach Flores
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/outthere.htm
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Symposium.html
http://allserv.rug.ac.be/~mvaneech/Verhaegen.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/AAT
.
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