Does everyone agree that we evolved from Africa?

wow, very interesting. Ya know, bfore this is ""settled science" Ive gotta see the dating techniques(I assume it was paleomagnetismm). The only thing i wonder about is whther these proto Hominins were even able to us fire.
This date is when The entire MEditerranean was a desert allowing back and forth walking right across the basin.

COOL STUFF, whatever comes out.


The farthest north(in Africa) a pre hominid was found was Australopithicus bahrelghazali,(dated around 6+ MY)(from Chad) and Homo ergaster ,which was found inLibya and Morocco but these date to about 1.7 MY.
Could it be that this was more a "Coming To Africa"??

we wait and continue reading, its outta my field

OK lets say the dating techniques are accurately in their measurement, and since this is during a time that saw the dry up of the MEd, why couldnt this skull be an ape that migrated to Africa to begin the long evolution process from Graeco pithecus through the fossils of Sahelanthropus and Ardipithecus. Then the split (or uncertainty) if the derivative lines qe have the later appearance of Kenyanthropus,Australopithecus, and paranthropus and someone of those three became the common ancestor of the various early strains of Homo.

All of these,(starting with Sahelanthropus and Ardi) were only found in Africa.
Europe and whats now the Levant were all awash with ape species maxing out in the 12 to 10 MY period and then gradually dying out. (or moving on).
It coulda been a two way street
1Head south and become Australopithecized

2Then head back north as H Heidelbergensis or "handy man"

That seems to make some sense.
As Ive read in the cited lit in PLOS, this is a wildly debated item similar to that which occurred before Continental Drift was fully evidenced (Im sure enough beer is involved if theyre anything like my guys).
One thing may have to be dicarded though, and thats the "down from the trees " hypothesis. Walking upright may hav just become an adaptation for trekking longer distances by foot. monkeys and ap[es arent long term trekkers. Bonobos and chimps (ancestors f whom also were found in urope in the 12 to 10 MY ago period) seemed to be most adapted for longer walking with short upright stances.

Could be fun working this out.
So many monkeys so little a fossil record

I'm a traditionalist on this subject . . .

Just illustrates that the fossil record isn’t all that reliable indicator of what happened.

you seem to think that a fossil record is a complete document and thats all we will ever have. Grasshopper, you must learn that such things as evidence never really cease to show up in our "in boxes", and when more complete fossils and fossil lists are available the "history " you seem to have given up on, will be much better understood. Dont try to make every finding a "See, I told you that ID is the way to go" This finding doesnt do anything but clarify the "missing pages" about European great apes.

If you think about this you can see that "out of Africa", the drying of the MEd, and climate pressures of the Pliocene fit together by finding some early proto-human great apes in Europe. The "Fossil record" that no one often talks about is that its loaded with tree hopping great apes in Europe from the Miocene down to about 12 million years ago when they all just jumped ship and apparently went elsewhere. The dry-up of the MEd may have been a path because Europe had been mostly separaate from Africa since Pangea broke up (and this was when mammals didnt even include placentals yet)

THATS just a hypothesis,(and it is mine and that it is too) it may not be right but at least its based upon an attempt to sew available vidence rather than assert failure. Its based on many pieces of specimens and measurements that weve alredy had in our bag of data.

Heres a good , highly readable piece from Sci Am back in 2006. We had this discussion either here or in one of my past clsses, I forget. But the fossil record, rather than conflicting with stories, merely adds some new chapters to chew on.


GREAT APES ON THE GRAND CANAL

For sure. The fossil record is open to interpretation.
And that people who conclude half monkey man creatures are interpreting the evidence wrong.

Im sure your expertise will be taken into consideration.

Youve immediately got the concept all wrong because your religious beliefs force you to ignore actual data and common sense.

A statement like that needs to be made in ALL CAPS to even begin to do it justice.

I got hollered at for serial flaming a couple years ago. There was a time my cap locks ran my puter. I still have that laptop, its as big as a toaster oven.

Quite the opposite.

This snippet from the article sums it up nicely. The Darwin fans are reluctant to let go of it but as is clear from this and many other sources, there is plenty of reason for many not to agree that we necessarily evolved from Africa.

Not exactly. Just to set the record straight, Convergent evolution is two (or more) unrelated species evolving the same evolutionary feature, like the oft quoted example of the eye.

What I was suggesting is that these various scenarios for human origins might well require multiple instances of apes evolving into Homo sap., or at least having similar fossil features. Not that this is what I believe, but it might be a reasonable explaination for Darwinists who see such incredible power in evolution.

you say the same thing as I. Im sorta glad you finally looked up "convergent evolution" A topic that you "had no use for earlier" See, ?? it didnt hurt.

As far as your second paragraph, please read about the existence of several genera of great apes that existed in Europe after the mid- Miocene. Its a really evidence rich timeline suggesting that great apes could have arisen in europe , migrated TO Africa (via a now dry Mediterranean sea bed) then began the rise of Ardipithecenes, Australopithecenes , and Paranthropocenes ( a series of clades of which the Graeco anthropus is NOT a member), from which was derived Homo (sp) and then resulted in A Migration FROM Africa. Ie alwys found that most satisfying to fit certain rules

1The area with the most and "diversest" species is probably most likely the "cradle"

2skeletal fetures of Australo pithecenes fit most closely the early Hominims (we know NOTHING except the apey dentition of Graeco)

3Weve had great geology and paleo about the early apes of Europe and W Asia as well as the consequences of Ice barriers during the early Pleicone on AND, most excellently, the drying up of the entire Mediterranean Basin (We have evidence of deserts and forests in the Med beds. (The Med dried up several times and most fortuitously in the 12 my to about 5 my period) . We make big deals about "land bridges" and weve had probably one of the neatest one between Africa and Europe.
Look at paleo maps and see where ELEPHANT fossils lie

As far as what many others may or may not believe, this science writer apparently hasnt attended any symposia on "Out of Europe" as a source term for great apes and Africa a source for mostly other primates . I think what you are confusing is the rise of HOMO, not apes. We knew of Jva man etc etc. Its no surprise. But Im still really skeptical as to how the rise of humans was in Europe when Homo fossils ARE ONLY SEEN in Africa.
Now , had we had soe really early Homo ergaster or heidelbergensis not developed in Africa, ed hve a good hypothesis.
As I said before, Magazines , like many of us, love to jump to"this is what it may mean" conclusions even without any substantive evidence.

It sells mags

Hey, it was your source, I was just quoting it.

PS, Begun's PhD advisor was a guy named Pfefferkorn who was a dyed in the wool bliever in European man . I was sota wrong about Begun in any symposia, actually he wasnt, but Pfefferkorn was. It wasnt my field but I was interested and I took a coupla students to the show.

Its interesting how Begun blamed the OOA folks for doing the "Absense of evidence"... aphoism but totally enying the same when actual fossils of MAN-like apes didnt appear in urope or Asia. e had many other great ape species in Asia like :Giganto pithecus and Graeco in the Pensinsula, but no fossil proto-humans.

Monkeys headed south, monkeys became upright walkers in Africa, big monkeys were probably the common ancestor of other big moneys and a unique series of species that became more and more human.


BTW, the evidencedoes seem to support a helter skelter adaptive and opportunistic pathway of evolution (NO MATTER WHICH SIDE IS RIGHT) all controlled by continental drift building of the Alps, a series of resultant ice sheets , and dropping of the ocean levels in cyclic responses to these ice sheets. Sound like good planning ??

and Im glad you read it. The argumenst rage and thats the way science goes. But we dont jump up and double down ( Ihate that phrase) on one event. There are at least three ways out of the Big Monkey in Europe evidence for the evolution of Humanity.

In fact, there was only a brief window of opportunity both for the European great apes to reach Africa, and for that migratory route to be cut off. The basin of the Mediterranean sea was cut off (probably by tectonic activity) after which the basin dried out, and it was then re-filled (definitely by tectonic activity) less than a half million years later. The re-filling of the basin would not have prevented apes from migrating to Africa, but it would have cut off the easy route, and the spectacular nature of the basin flooding may have seriously spooked whatever apes were left in Europe. You can read about the recent history of the Mediterranean basin and sea by clicking here.

It is also worth noting that all the evidence suggests that there were never very many Australopithecenes nor Hominins at any time. A study at Harvard about a decade ago came to the conclusion that 30,000 ybp, there were no more than 10,000 homo sapiens world-wide, and may have been as few as 1,000. There is plenty of evidence of homo dancing along the cliff edge of extinction on other occasions as well.