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The out of Africa theory is overwhelmingly supported by genetic evidence. A multi-origin hypothesis is basically impossible to support at this point. What is n
by twblalock 8y ago
The out of Africa theory is overwhelmingly supported by genetic evidence. A multi-origin hypothesis is basically impossible to support at this point.
What is now happening is that the out of Africa theory is absorbing new facts:
- How many different migrations of homo sapiens out of Africa have there been? (probably several)
- Did any groups who spent time in Europe migrate back to Africa and contribute new genes to the African gene pool (likely)
- Did homo sapiens who left Africa encounter and breed with other hominin species? (definitely, and those other species also originated in Africa)
David Reich's book from last year, "Who We Are and How We Got Here", covers a lot of the recent discoveries.
- flukus 8y agoI don't think everyone here is using the same definition of "out of Africa" here. There pretty much no doubt the hominids in general and modern humans came from Africa. But subspecies like denisova and neanderthal evolved outside of Africa (probably). Most modern humans are from Africa with multi-regional mixins, those mixins themselves were African origin if you go back far enough. It's all a game of how far you want to go back.
- coldacid 8y agoThere have almost certainly been multiple migrations out of Africa, per the Sahara pump theory.