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> some Chinese anthropologists question the common human origin "Out of Africa" and instead suggest Chinese or East Asians had their own separate origin Where

> some Chinese anthropologists question the common human origin "Out of Africa" and instead suggest Chinese or East Asians had their own separate origin Where are those claims? Do you have some examples of such claims.

michaelmrose 5y ago
The idea that the modern Chinese are descendanded from Peking man from 770k years feeds the common myth that many people hold that their particular ethnic group is inherently different/superior. I found this article on the topic very interesting. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/is-peking-man-still-our-ancestorgenetics-anthropology-and-the-politics-of-racial-nationalism-in-china/F7D479FC994A854400A53E0E1B987236 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-stu...
AlotOfReading 5y ago
Quite a large number of leading Chinese paleoanthropologists have been in this camp. Take Jia Lanpo or Wu Liu as examples.
- justicezyx 5y ago
  > Quite a large number of leading Chinese paleoanthropologists have been in this camp. Take Jia Lanpo or Wu Liu as examples. Which of Jia Lanpo's work claimed this? I couldn't google one. Citations to Wu Liu's work would be great as well.
  - AlotOfReading 5y ago
    The issue you probably ran into is that Chinese academics don't always publish in English. Often what you get are press statements like [1] espousing a particular position. For Jia Lanpo the situation is a little easier. He was notorious for his position that Chinese humans originated in China. See [2] if you want a direct citation or [3] for context. For Wu's work, [4]. I doubt it'll be clear to anyone unfamiliar with the literature how this differs from modern models so I'll attempt to explain it: Way back in the 90s, we didn't have ancient DNA techniques and the idea of AMH-Neanderthal admixture in modern populations was still a bit fringe. The consensus model at the time was that Out-Of-Africa meant population replacement of archaic humans without admixture. A few months before this paper was sent for review, Green et al. [5] published the first Neanderthal draft sequence, which clearly pointed to admixture in Out-Of-Africa model. The consensus model went down in flames and everyone accepted admixture on some level. We're still fully working out the details though. Liu's paper takes things a step further. Instead of just attacking the now-dead OoA replacement model, they point to Green et al. to say "AMH could have evolved from archaic humans in Asia and we have modern morphology that predates out-of-africa, even with admixture", thus remaining within assimilation theory without really remaining inside it. They also take a neat sideswipe at (modern) consensus with the phrase "imprecise inferences from extant genetic diversity". [1] https://www.deseret.com/1995/8/15/19187840/chinese-scientists-say-simians-originated-in-asia https://www.deseret.com/1995/8/15/19187840/chinese-scientist... [2] Chia, L. P., & Jia, L. (1980). Early man in China. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. [3] https://doi.org/10.2307/2659506 https://doi.org/10.2307/2659506 [4] https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1014386107 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1014386107 [5] https://dx.doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.1188021 https://dx.doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.1188021
redis_mlc 5y ago
Rulers always do this. In the case of Western European nobility, they fill their castles with ancestral portraits to justify their reign as a continuation from back in time. In China, rulers seek "the mandate of heaven", supernatural signs, to legitimize their rule. What's interesting is that Xi has had multiple natural signs against him during the 2020 floods, including water reaching the big buddha and an ancient bridge failing. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-mandate-of-heaven-195113 https://www.thoughtco.com/the-mandate-of-heaven-195113 In Nazi Germany, they emphasized racial purity to such an extent that maidens had to prove their lineage before marriage - some women said it was the hardest thing they ever did. Because Turkey was an ally of Germany, it was decreed they were Aryan. Ironically, Taiwan maintains traditional Chinese culture, no longer the mainland, so Taiwan must be destroyed.

michaelmrose 5y ago

The idea that the modern Chinese are descendanded from Peking man from 770k years feeds the common myth that many people hold that their particular ethnic group is inherently different/superior. I found this article on the topic very interesting. https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-studies/article/is-peking-man-still-our-ancestorgenetics-anthropology-and-the-politics-of-racial-nationalism-in-china/F7D479FC994A854400A53E0E1B987236 https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/journal-of-asian-stu...

AlotOfReading 5y ago

Quite a large number of leading Chinese paleoanthropologists have been in this camp. Take Jia Lanpo or Wu Liu as examples.

justicezyx 5y ago
> Quite a large number of leading Chinese paleoanthropologists have been in this camp. Take Jia Lanpo or Wu Liu as examples. Which of Jia Lanpo's work claimed this? I couldn't google one. Citations to Wu Liu's work would be great as well.
- AlotOfReading 5y ago
  The issue you probably ran into is that Chinese academics don't always publish in English. Often what you get are press statements like [1] espousing a particular position. For Jia Lanpo the situation is a little easier. He was notorious for his position that Chinese humans originated in China. See [2] if you want a direct citation or [3] for context. For Wu's work, [4]. I doubt it'll be clear to anyone unfamiliar with the literature how this differs from modern models so I'll attempt to explain it: Way back in the 90s, we didn't have ancient DNA techniques and the idea of AMH-Neanderthal admixture in modern populations was still a bit fringe. The consensus model at the time was that Out-Of-Africa meant population replacement of archaic humans without admixture. A few months before this paper was sent for review, Green et al. [5] published the first Neanderthal draft sequence, which clearly pointed to admixture in Out-Of-Africa model. The consensus model went down in flames and everyone accepted admixture on some level. We're still fully working out the details though. Liu's paper takes things a step further. Instead of just attacking the now-dead OoA replacement model, they point to Green et al. to say "AMH could have evolved from archaic humans in Asia and we have modern morphology that predates out-of-africa, even with admixture", thus remaining within assimilation theory without really remaining inside it. They also take a neat sideswipe at (modern) consensus with the phrase "imprecise inferences from extant genetic diversity". [1] https://www.deseret.com/1995/8/15/19187840/chinese-scientists-say-simians-originated-in-asia https://www.deseret.com/1995/8/15/19187840/chinese-scientist... [2] Chia, L. P., & Jia, L. (1980). Early man in China. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press. [3] https://doi.org/10.2307/2659506 https://doi.org/10.2307/2659506 [4] https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1014386107 https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1014386107 [5] https://dx.doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.1188021 https://dx.doi.org/10.1126%2Fscience.1188021

redis_mlc 5y ago

Rulers always do this. In the case of Western European nobility, they fill their castles with ancestral portraits to justify their reign as a continuation from back in time. In China, rulers seek "the mandate of heaven", supernatural signs, to legitimize their rule. What's interesting is that Xi has had multiple natural signs against him during the 2020 floods, including water reaching the big buddha and an ancient bridge failing. https://www.thoughtco.com/the-mandate-of-heaven-195113 https://www.thoughtco.com/the-mandate-of-heaven-195113 In Nazi Germany, they emphasized racial purity to such an extent that maidens had to prove their lineage before marriage - some women said it was the hardest thing they ever did. Because Turkey was an ally of Germany, it was decreed they were Aryan. Ironically, Taiwan maintains traditional Chinese culture, no longer the mainland, so Taiwan must be destroyed.