John Hawks on the Misliya jawbone

Below I quote John Hawks on the importance of the Misliya cave jawbone. His opinion is very interesting. Read his full post here.

(See my Previous post on this jawbone, which places modern humans outside of Africa some 177,000 to 194,000 years ago, far earlier than previously thought).

Hawks wrote:

"...There is a major change underway in how we understand “out of Africa”. I don’t think the traditional framing of “out of Africa” is very effective anymore, as leaving Africa is a tiny event, repeated many times over the last several hundred thousand years.
In the context of other discoveries, I think that “modern human” has lost much of the meaning it may once have had.
The big questions concern what was happening inside Africa, where many genetically diverse populations existed and interacted. How many ancestral populations gave rise to the growing population of modern humans after 100,000 years ago? How many African-derived people were involved in mixture with Neandertals 250,000 years ago, or 120,000 years ago? Did African-derived humans make it to China, or to Java, before 100,000 years ago?
Those are open questions, with some evidence pointing toward faster, more widespread dispersal, more mixture, and repeated genetic replacements."

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2018 by Austin Whittall © 

The earliest modern humans outside Africa: more older than expected

For the last year, more papers have been published suggesting an earlier age for Homo sapiens and an earlier Out of Africa migration. Today I read a paper in Science that pushes our "Out of Africa" event even further back in time (not that I believe in the OOA event) in other words Humans were in Asia long before the date currently accepted for that event (did we originate in Asia and move into Africa?).

This is the paper: The earliest modern humans outside Africa, Israel Hershkovitz et al. Science 26 Jan 2018:Vol. 359, Issue 6374, pp. 456-459 DOI: 10.1126/science.aap8369

And this is the free info (the rest is behind Science magazine's paywall:

Earliest modern humans out of Africa
Recent paleoanthropological studies have suggested that modern humans migrated from Africa as early as the beginning of the Late Pleistocene, 120,000 years ago. Hershkovitz et al. now suggest that early modern humans were already present outside of Africa more than 55,000 years earlier (see the Perspective by Stringer and Galway-Witham). During excavations of sediments at Mount Carmel, Israel, they found a fossil of a mouth part, a left hemimaxilla, with almost complete dentition.
The sediments contain a series of well-defined hearths and a rich stone-based industry, as well as abundant animal remains. Analysis of the human remains, and dating of the site and the fossil itself, indicate a likely age of at least 177,000 years for the fossil—making it the oldest member of the Homo sapiens clade found outside Africa.
Science, this issue p. 456; see also p. 389

Abstract
To date, the earliest modern human fossils found outside of Africa are dated to around 90,000 to 120,000 years ago at the Levantine sites of Skhul and Qafzeh. A maxilla and associated dentition recently discovered at Misliya Cave, Israel, was dated to 177,000 to 194,000 years ago, suggesting that members of the Homo sapiens clade left Africa earlier than previously thought. This finding changes our view on modern human dispersal and is consistent with recent genetic studies, which have posited the possibility of an earlier dispersal of Homo sapiens around 220,000 years ago. The Misliya maxilla is associated with full-fledged Levallois technology in the Levant, suggesting that the emergence of this technology is linked to the appearance of Homo sapiens in the region, as has been documented in Africa.

End of Science info.

So now we have a date of 177 to 194,000 years BP for humans in the Middle East. Meaning they got there even earlier -or did by chance did the teeth belong to the first arrival?. Now I ask why suppose that the H. sapiens went "OUT" of Africa instead of reaching Israel from some place in Asia and then going "INTO" Africa.

As usual, more discoveries will force change on closed minds

By the way, Happy New Year and a great 2018 for all of you.

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Patagonian Monsters - Cryptozoology, Myths & legends in Patagonia Copyright 2009-2014 by Austin Whittall ©