At https://www.livescience.com/archaeology/human-evolution/an-extreme-end-of-human-genetic-variation-ancient-humans-were-isolated-in-southern-africa-for nearly-100-000-years-and-their-genetics-are-stunningly-different …. ancient genomes from southern Africa are not conforming with the mainstream song book it would seem. It has revealed that humans in southern Africa evolved in isolation over a period of about one hundred thousand years. That is a very long time. Why was there no genetic admixture from elsewhere in Africa at this point in time is unclear. No doubt a new study will put some flesh on the uncertainty. What might have caused such a lengthy isolation?
Can this be bracketed as another study that would support the Chinese version of multiple evolution of humans over a long period of time, contrary to the Out of Africa hypothesis as favoured in the West. The concluding remarks at the end of the link would seem to think this is now being contemplated. In the accepted mainstream version of human evolution all modern humans evolved after a migration Out of Africa around 50 to 60 thousand years ago. Actually replacing all other forms of human – such as the Neanderthals and Denisovans. Last week we had a post that showed that the Jomon people of Japan seemed to contradict this idea, and now we have the ancient people of southern Africa also. Think in terms of the Hottentot.
The study is published in the journal Nature and involved skeletons from a region south of the Limpopo River. This skeletal DNA was then compared to those of ancient and modern day Africans, those living prior to AD550. This is of course the watershed made famous by David Keys, ‘Catastrophe: an investigation into the origins of the Modern World‘. Actual migration into southern Africa by the Bantu tribes took place a few hundred years later. Dates are variable on this. Hence, the genome of modern Africans, Europeans and Asians, even Americans and the people of Oceania, are quite different and conform to what is regarded as modern human DNA. Hybridised genetics as a result of ongoing migration around the world. The isolation, in other words, lasted until fairly recent times. The researchers also suggest some kind of barrier was responsible for the isolation, in the region of what is now the valley of the Zambezi river. A desert might fit the bill – but whatever it was it was enough to keep invaders at bay. Might the Bushmen, who had a wider habitat, have been dominant in that zone, until the advent of the Bantu. It is unclear if Bushmen are regarded as part of the ancient genome, or not.
There is another interesting fact that also emerges. The population of southern Africa was probably quite large until around 200,000 years ago. There was also a dramatic fall in population numbers in the region around 50,000 years ago. This approximates to the Laschamp event, considering the uncertainty on precise dating at this point in time as a result of a massive injection of solar or cosmic radiation. The inhabitants of southern Africa went into decline at the point in time that Neanderthals and Denisovans did elsewhere in the world. In addition, we are told the prehistoric population of southern Africa contains half of all genetic variation in the world, as currently understood. The rest of the variation occurs in the much bigger portion of the rest of the globe. Further, the analysis reveals that ancient genomes in other indigenous peoples elsewhere in the world, at the moment unassessed, may add to more information involving human evolution but cannot yet be added to the brew. The lead author makes the point it is certainly possible that humans evolved in multiple locations around the globe. As the Chinese become more dominant in science, as they most certainly will, the collapse of the Out of Africa hypothesis, it would seem, is inevitable.