A hypothesis that has been around for a long time that Homo sapiens originated in East Africa before spreading to other parts of the world and replacing Eurasian Homo species like Neandertals has come under growing fire in the recent decade. H. sapiens may have spread across enormous swaths of land, first in Africa and then outside of it, according to new research.
The following is how the procedure would have gone: In the Middle Pleistocene period of around 789,000 to 130,000 years ago, there were numerous Homo groupings that were too closely related to have been different species. While traveling across Africa, Asia, and Europe, these groups would have interbred with each other. Various skeletal modifications based on the human form appeared in various places. According to proponents of this theory, the human body and DNA still contain vestiges of that once-infinite web of interconnections.
It is unclear how often or when groups intermingled and mingled throughout this time period. This paradigm, on the other hand, does not clearly distinguish between Neandertals, Denisovans, and other archaic Homo groups from the modern humans of the Middle Pleistocene.
According to paleoanthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin–Madison, “Middle Pleistocene Homo groups were humans.” A “remix” of our ancient forebears is what we are now.
Israel has provided new fossil evidence in support of that theory. Some fragments of the braincase, as well as an entire lower jaw, were discovered at Nesher Ramla, which is about 140,000-120,000 years old, and contained a molar tooth. An Israeli team lead by paleoanthropologist Israel Hershkovitz has found evidence of a previously undiscovered Eurasian Homo population at the site. Fossils were uncovered using stone tools that resemble those made by Middle Easterners who are normally classified as H. sapiens, suggesting that the two groups interbred and perhaps interbred.
Because of interactions such as this, Hershkovitz theorized that the Nesher Ramla population and other Eurasian tribes did not separate into separate species as a result of their isolation.
However, a separate paper reminded us that our understanding of the evolution of Homo in the Middle Pleistocene remains a matter of debate. An whole new species of human has been named after scientists who examined a 146,000-year-old Chinese skull and found a unique combination of traits. In the meanwhile, though, another researcher grouped the skull, which has been dubbed “Dragon Man,” with a number of other fossils from the Middle Pleistocene period in China.
Nesher Ramla Homo (like Dragon Man) may be one of several Homo lineages that interbred with one other as some groups migrated through Asia, Africa, and Europe. During periods of isolation, Middle Pleistocene Homo populations developed distinct traits and shared features as a result of interbreeding and crossing routes.
Skulls from China dating back to at least 146,000 years ago have been used as evidence in arguments regarding how Stone Age hominid populations spread across Africa, Asia, and Europe and how they impacted human evolution.
In Chinese, Kai Geng is the name of the person who Homo groups began migrating back and forth between Africa and Asia 400,000 years ago, according to evidence found in Saudi Arabia. Archaeologist Huw Groucutt of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, and colleagues revealed that monsoon rains occasionally transformed the desert into a verdant corridor covered by lakes, wetlands, and rivers. Five ancient lake beds have been discovered in Saudi Arabia, all of which were inhabited by hunter-gatherers who left stone implements behind.
Between 400,000 and 55,000 years ago, there were sporadic occupations. Stone tools unearthed at a lakebed around 200,000 years ago mirror those created by humans in northeastern Africa at the same time. Groucutt speculates that some of those Africans may have paused in a green Arabia before continuing on to southwestern Asia.
Stone artifacts found from the newest lake bed belong to either H. sapiens or Neanderthals. Around 70,000 years ago, Neandertals lived in portions of the Middle East and could have reached a well-watered Arabia as early as 55,000 years ago, according to archaeologists. According to Groucutt, it is possible that Neandertals mated with H. sapiens that were already present in the area.
Although no evidence of Arabian mating has been found in ancient DNA, other researchers have found that European Neandertals and Homo sapiens married fairly frequently around 45,000 years ago. Fossilized H. sapiens from Bulgaria and the Czech Republic have been shown to contain between 2 and 4 percent Neandertal DNA, a significant quantity considering that H. sapiens migrants to Europe had only recently arrived.
As a result, networking across early Homo communities may have contributed to our current state of evolution even beyond the Middle Pleistocene.
