Ancient Homo Sapiens - From Israel?

[WarDude]

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/1...21446/abstract
Sorry I couldn't find the whole article, but even from this part we can understand that they have found 8 homo sapiens teeth who are 400,000 years old, twice as old as the specimen that can be found in Africa (200,000).
If it was claimed that Homo Sapiens came from Africa because the most ancient specimen were there, can't we claim that they were in Israel first, since this specimen is far older.

[Helm]

Ancient homo sapiens aren't quite the same thing as modern homo sapiens, neanderthals were ancient homo sapiens for instance. They're very close to being modern humans just not quite.

[John I Tzimisces]

Ancient homo sapiens aren't quite the same thing as modern homo sapiens, neanderthals were ancient homo sapiens for instance. T

And who told you that?

[Elfdude]

Sorry but unless you can find the full article I'm going to take this with a grain of salt:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skhul_and_Qafzeh_hominids Although IIRC the caves they're talking about were inhabited by homo erectus not homo sapien.

[Tuor]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101227/..._ancient_teeth
I came on the Athenaeum to see if there was a thread on here about this, and voila!
If these bones turn out to be the real deal, and not just earlier Homo of a different species, then that will really change a lot of the out-of-Africa migration theories.

[Blau&Gruen]

No, it will not because 'Out of Africa' is related to the Genus Homo, not necessarily to the individual species while most of them probably originate in Africa.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo

[Viking Prince]

All change: Theories of human ancestry get an overhaul

A few big points to the article.

First, we are all probably one species.
Second, clusters of groups.
Third, Neanderthal gene bottleneck was the result in extinction rather than competition with other groups

I do not think that any of this invalidates the theory that the successful genetic diversity we see today is a result of human migration out of Africa.

[John I Tzimisces]

All change: Theories of human ancestry get an overhaul

A few big points to the article.

First, we are all probably one species.
Second, clusters of groups.
Third, Neanderthal gene bottleneck was the result in extinction rather than competition with other groups

I do not think that any of this invalidates the theory that the successful genetic diversity we see today is a result of human migration out of Africa.

I read this article. The BBC's are pretty lacking. (or at least this one and a spat of other palaeoanthropology ones that were released recently)

I guess I can address some of these points later (my mouse needs a new battery and it's driving me nuts) but I can say now that your third point that is either categorically wrong or (more likely more accurately said) at least a very narrow view of neanderthal extinction. Something which happened over the course of at least 10K years in Europe.

The authors conclusion that neanderthal populations were in decline are silly to the point of being completely impossible to corroborate with evidence given the paucity of neanderthal remains actually discovered: as the climate changed (prior to 10 KYA the climate seemed to vary a great deal more) Neanderthal populations expanded and contracted with the availability of food. That's why neanderthals found in Siberia are quite similar to those found in the Netherlands.

[B5C]

Yet, I can find a place where Creationists are going to use this as an example for their IT craziness.

[Viking Prince]

I never meant to suggest the BBC artcile was a peer reviewed journal article. All they mentioned was a brief summary of some of the changes in thinking coming from recent academic articles. And the Neanderthal gene bottleneck is indeed a part of the recent journal articles. I do not have the reference at hand though.