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New evidence challenges "Out-of-Africa" hypothesis of modern human origins
...so Chinese sayChinese archaeologists said newly found evidence proves that a valley of Qingjiang River, a tributary on the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, might be one of the regions where Homo sapiens, or modern man, originated. The finding challenges the "Out-of-Africa" hypothesis of modern human origins, according to which about 100,000 years ago modern humans originated in Africa, migrated to other continents, and replaced populations of archaic humans across the globe. The finding comes from a large-scale excavation launched in the Qingjiang River Valley in 1980s when construction began on a range of hydropower stations on the Qingjiang River, a fellow researcher with the Hubei Provincial Institute of Cultural Relics and Archaeology. Archaeologists discovered three human tooth fossils in one mountain cave in Mazhaping Village, in the Gaoping Township of Jianshi County, western Hubei Province, and found pieces of lithic technology and evidence of fire usage in Minor Cave in Banxia. There were similar findings in Nianyu Mountain and in Zhadong Cave in Banxia, all in Changyang Prefecture of the Qiangjiang River Valley. A special research panel named the Jianshi Man research team has been set up to analyze the findings. Zheng Shaohua, a member of the Jianshi man research team from the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, confirmed the tooth fossils belonged to humans dating back between 2.15 and 1.95 million years ago. The archaeologists also found fossils of bone implements in the cultural strata at the ruins where the human tooth fossils were discovered. The fossilized bone implements bear traces of human beating, testifying that humans, not apes, lived inside the mountain cave, said Qiu Zhanxiang, another member on the Jianshi Man research team. The pieces of lithic technology and traces of human fire usage found in Minor Cave in Banxia were said to date back 130,000 years, the ruins of human fire usage in Nianyu Mountain were dated as 120, 000 years or 90,000 years old, while pieces of lithic technology and traces of fire usage found in Zhadong Cave in Banxia, were dated as 27,000 years old, said Professor Zheng. Before these latest archaeological findings, Chinese archaeologists had found fossils of what is now known as Changyang Man in 1957 under the leadership of renowned Chinese paleoanthropologist Jia Lanpo. Changyang Man represents early Homo sapiens dating back 200,000 years. The latest archaeological findings together with the earlier discovery of Changyang Man all prove there was continuity in Homo sapiens' development in China, said Liu Qingzhu, head of the Archaeology Institute of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences. "They are also of great significance to research on Paleolithic era in China and East Asia, and theories regarding multiple origins of mankind," said Liu. Dating is the key here. It presumes that certain techniques are based on values that do not change with time. Miscellaneous techniques can yield some sort of agreement, but it is still a guess, although it may be a good guess. It is often corroborated by geologic stratification, but even that has some problems. For instance, under Table Top Mountain, AZ, several modern human skeletons were discovered in mid 1800's under a layer of lava that is normally considered to be a part of later miocene--to this day, I have to stipulate. No traces of introduction into layer have been found at the time of discovery. It would have been interesting to actually date these skeletons, but unfortunately, Smithsonian lost them about 1900. Ales Hrdlicka, at the time the boss there, did not like them anyway, heh. Not saying that the skeletons were really from miocene, but rather that there seem to be some glitches in stratification calibration and assumptions about erosion rates. Thusly, dating must be always considered only tentative and subject to revisions by default. Even when we have C14 RCD method available for finds belonging to the holocene, sometimes the results may be skewed a bit by mineralization or other processes. Posted by: Sobiesky 2005-04-28 |
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