tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post1109067538706760776..comments2024-01-04T04:11:55.717+02:00Comments on Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog: “Copernican” Reassessment of the Human Mitochondrial DNA TreeDienekeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comBlogger36125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-673120797089456682012-05-09T11:07:47.323+03:002012-05-09T11:07:47.323+03:00how to definite haplogroups with their logiciel, p...how to definite haplogroups with their logiciel, please.manelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01519352025616016358noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-91691639997581345162012-05-06T00:36:28.203+03:002012-05-06T00:36:28.203+03:00@Terry
"But it still looks very much as thou...@Terry<br /><br />"But it still looks very much as though modern human haplogroups all derive from an African source."<br /><br />A spurious effect of some evolutionary process such as selection or mutation runup or archaic admixture. See more here http://anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org/2012/05/the-pygmy-enigma-biology-population-genetics-and-linguistics/German Dziebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10703679732205862495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-61312926239630500882012-05-05T05:03:24.465+03:002012-05-05T05:03:24.465+03:00'I thought you believed that Australian megafa...'I thought you believed that Australian megafauna was eliminated by modern humans". <br /><br />Correct. And I believe that Australian Aborigines are 'behaviorally modern'. What I see as a problem is that the megafauna extinction in Australia is dated at 46,000 years ago. That is considerably ealier than your 'secure signs of modern human behavior only at 40,000 globally'. <br /><br />"On the other hand, in Africa megafauna was largely spared: only 14% (or 7 out of 49 genera) of African megafauna went extinct in the Late Pleistocene. This must mean, if we take your anthropogenic argument seriously, that behaviorally modern humans came to Africa rather late and/or in small numbers". <br /><br />I see no problem with that. But it still looks very much as though modern human haplogroups all derive from an African source. That could mean that the carriers of these early African haplogroups were not technically 'behaviorally modern', but other explanations are possible.terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-8807316921562245912012-05-04T14:59:10.134+03:002012-05-04T14:59:10.134+03:00@Terry
I thought you believed that Australian meg...@Terry<br /><br />I thought you believed that Australian megafauna was eliminated by modern humans. This makes them behaviorally modern, doesn't it? On the other hand, in Africa megafauna was largely spared: only 14% (or 7 out of 49 genera) of African megafauna went extinct in the Late Pleistocene. This must mean, if we take your anthropogenic argument seriously, that behaviorally modern humans came to Africa rather late and/or in small numbers.German Dziebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10703679732205862495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-85084036003700059392012-05-04T08:10:04.952+03:002012-05-04T08:10:04.952+03:00"archaeologically, we see secure signs of mod..."archaeologically, we see secure signs of modern human behavior only at 40,000 globally". <br /><br />So Australian Aborigines are not behaviourally modern?terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-25044144742373721112012-05-03T17:58:56.956+03:002012-05-03T17:58:56.956+03:00@ Eurologist
Sorry, I must have overlooked your l...@ Eurologist<br /><br />Sorry, I must have overlooked your last sentence.<br /><br />See, if Africans share specific sites with Neandertals (and non-Africans share a subset of those sites) and we construct a tree that's rooted in those specific sites, then these sites should be synapomorphic between humans and Neandertals, or, in other words, they need to be a product of unique evolution in the Neandertal lineage. They can't be symplesiomorphic, or in other words, retentions from a pre-Neandertal population in Africa. You can't root a tree in symplesiomorphic sites; this is not how you do phylogeny. <br /><br />If those shared sites are symplesiomorphic, then there shouldn't be any difference between Africans and non-Africans in the presence or absence of those sites. Africans can't be closer than non-Africans to a pre-Neandertal African population.<br /><br />The only way to ascertain an African origin of modern humans is to have enough sequence data from African AMH and African archaics to show that modern humans inherited a subset of unique African hominin mutations, post the Neandertal split, and that modern Africans have preserved them better than non-Africans.<br /><br />Rooting a human tree in a Neandertal sequence and simultaneously showing Africans (and not non-Africans) as being closer to Neandertals is trying to have the cake and eat it, too. <br /><br />It seems quite possible, in view of the above, that the matches between Neandertals and African mtDNA sequences are due to convergent evolution. mtDNA is highly mutable, so, with the haplotype assignment methodology, you may not have enough shared mutations to assign a non-African sequence to a Neandertal lineage (although they may still be related by descent), but randomly Africans showed a bunch of shared mutations with Neandertals, which don't form a haplotype based on identity-by-descent.<br /><br />This brings me to another point regarding dates: with the dates for African mtDNA divergence approaching 200,000 and with Khoisan-frequent mtDNA and Y-DNA lineages budding off very early on, it makes it rather unlikely that we're dealing here with real facts because we can't reasonably argue that Khoisans invented language and culture independently of other humans. Linguistic diversity, as measured by the number of unique stocks, is much higher outside of Africa; archaeologically, we see secure signs of modern human behavior only at 40,000 globally. There's a major discrepancy between the molecular dates and the genetic phylogenies, on the one hand, and the dates and distributions of cultural and linguistic traits, on the other.German Dziebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10703679732205862495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-47252660206584868462012-04-18T09:52:49.163+03:002012-04-18T09:52:49.163+03:00German,
All you need is that sufficient diffusion...German,<br /><br />All you need is that sufficient diffusion is maintained over time at the autosomal level (and/or perhaps a number of more major migration events), and one might expect that to be predominantly carried by men. Further, there is quite some evidence that mtDNA is regionally adaptive, and that selection plays a significant role in (the lack of) mtDNA variation.<br /><br />You other argument I don't really understand, perhaps you can rephrase.eurologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03440019181278830033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-44261220084521446392012-04-18T06:39:24.622+03:002012-04-18T06:39:24.622+03:00"It's possible that M is in fact a subset..."It's possible that M is in fact a subset of N, as hg D5 doesn't have M-specific restriction sites and is effectively an N lineage with some incipient M features such as C10400T". <br /><br />Interesting idea. I await developments.terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-2649533953483392472012-04-17T18:41:00.062+03:002012-04-17T18:41:00.062+03:00@Terry
"I've long thought that the evide...@Terry<br /><br />"I've long thought that the evidence suggests that N is much older than M in the east, especially in Australia."<br /><br />It's possible that M is in fact a subset of N, as hg D5 doesn't have M-specific restriction sites and is effectively an N lineage with some incipient M features such as C10400T. <br /><br />See www.anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org/2012/04/more-on-amerindian-haplogroups-x2-b2-and-c4-evidence-from-siberian-tubalars-tuvans-evens-and-ulchi/<br /><br />"The Munda language is probably an early Austro-Asiatic language and so may have entered India from further east. Although M74 is 'only' 35,000 years old its ancestor must have separated from M42 at least 47,000 years ago, and M74 is South Chinese."<br /><br />Makes sense.<br /><br />@Eurologist<br /><br />"And of course these are symplesiomorphic..."<br /><br />If modern humans show variation at "symplesiomorphic" sites, then those sites are not symplesiomorphic but synapomorphic. But they can't be synapomorphic for other reasons, as Africans don't share a clade with Neandertals.<br /><br />"I don't see how that causes any problems."<br /><br />Huge problems. Modern human behavior is not attested globally until 40,000, linguistic diversity, a key measure for a key modern human behavioral attribute, is the greatest outside of Africa. You don't want to argue that Khoisans that are high at L0 invented language and modern human behavior independently from other humans, do you?German Dziebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10703679732205862495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-33443915305971846272012-04-17T08:38:49.199+03:002012-04-17T08:38:49.199+03:00"Secondly, you are looking at the relation of..."Secondly, you are looking at the relation of L0 and L1-6 with respect to the progenitor of humans and Neanderthals - not to Neanderthals directly."<br /><br />German,what I mean by that is that the 150 mutations between RNRS and RSRS clearly are not just away from either humans or Neanderthals, but a (very roughly equally) shared number of mutations away from their common progenitor. What proportion exactly could probably be determined by comparing to Chimp mtDNA. And whether RSRS is either 70 or 80 mutations away from that progenitor - either way that number is about an order of magnitude larger than the 8 vs. 10 retained retained ancestral positions in the L0 vs. L1-6 branches (and the latter are three orders of magnitude <i>smaller</i> than the ~16,000 <i>other</i> shared ancestral positions between humans and Neanderthals). And once they split, <i>of course</i> their differentiation is overwhelmingly with respect to ancestral positions, and we would expect some such before each line splits again. And of course these are symplesiomorphic - but they are not and cannot be used to claim closer relationship of either branch to Neanderthals, because both branches share a total of 150 mutations that already show that they far and foremost share a long history of mutating away from Neanderthals. You can't seriously claim that L0 and L1 split from the RNRS and RSRS progenitor very early on, and the large number of subsequent shared mutations are simply happenstance?<br /><br />Sure, here or there is one or the other rare back-mutation - but those are extremely rare (this can easily be verified) outside the HVRs and a couple of other sites - and you can build a very good tree (except some last bottom branches) excluding such sites.<br /><br /><i>Plus I don't understand if you're saying that L0 and L1..6 split so long ago as to predate the African hominin ancestor of modern humans</i><br />I did not state that, and I don't know how it matters here, but yes, I do believe that if you mean AMHs. If anything, age estimates <i>underestimate</i> true times, so yes, the split occurred before what most people would consider AMHs, and clearly predates culturally MHs by a long shot. I don't see how that causes any problems.eurologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03440019181278830033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-56045092635607225532012-04-16T17:44:27.911+03:002012-04-16T17:44:27.911+03:00@Eurologist
"the number of mutations in two ...@Eurologist<br /><br />"the number of mutations in two branches (10 vs. 8) before they branch again is really not that telling."<br /><br />I agree this doesn't matter much. What matters, though, is that the current phylogeny in which L0 is exclusively African and L1...L6 is shared between Africa and the rest, Africans in total have more genetic matches with Neandertals than non-Africans. Granted the number of matches is low, but, similarly, the number of autosomal matches between Neandertals and non-Africans (or between Denisovans and Papuans/Asians/South Amerindians) is small, too. You are talking about "branches" and I'm talking about the populations that carry those branches.<br /><br />"outside of HVR mutations are clearly very rare"<br /><br />Rare, doesn't mean non-existent. It's from studies like this that we can determine whether they are homoplastic or evidence common descent. But the common descent is usually assumed but not proven.<br /><br />"Secondly, you are looking at the relation of L0 and L1-6 with respect to the progenitor of humans and Neanderthals - not to Neanderthals directly."<br /><br />It's Neandertals directly - look at Table S1, pp. 6-7 of Suppl Mat. How are these matches different from the autosomal matches between Neandertals and non-Africans? Plus I don't understand if you're saying that L0 and L1..6 split so long ago as to predate the African hominin ancestor of modern humans (under the out of Africa model). Such an ancestor, if he existed, would have made Africans completely dissimilar from Neandertals. If you think that those 18 matches between Africans and Neandertals are symplesiomorphic (not synapomorphic) with Neandertals, then it's unclear why they are split into 2 branches.German Dziebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10703679732205862495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-35247664562435442242012-04-16T05:09:03.996+03:002012-04-16T05:09:03.996+03:00"The ostensibly oldest one of the two, M42, w..."The ostensibly oldest one of the two, M42, was also found in India, among the Munda". <br /><br />Thanks. I didn't know that. However it seems that the Munda language is probably an early Austro-Asiatic language and so may have entered India from further east. Although M74 is 'only' 35,000 years old its ancestor must have separated from M42 at least 47,000 years ago, and M74 is South Chinese.terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-59740468281951062652012-04-14T12:44:43.036+03:002012-04-14T12:44:43.036+03:00How else can we interpret the data?
German, anoth...<i>How else can we interpret the data?</i><br /><br />German, another way of illuminating this is that the number of mutations in two branches (10 vs. 8) before they branch again is really not that telling. It's just a matter of who had more surviving daughters, earlier. For example, if L1 had not survived, all of-a-sudden the L2-6 branch would have more mutations with respect to L0. You can play the same Gedankenexperiment with other Ls.eurologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03440019181278830033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-38868085925859293432012-04-14T11:04:47.550+03:002012-04-14T11:04:47.550+03:00German,
Firstly, the total number of mutations is...German,<br /><br />Firstly, the total number of mutations is minuscule compared to the over 16,000 base pairs - so, outside the hypervariable regions, mutations are clearly very rare. Secondly, you are looking at the relation of L0 and L1-6 with respect to the <i>progenitor</i> of humans and Neanderthals - not to Neanderthals directly. So, none of the two branches is closer to Neanderthals. Thirdly, there are about 150 mutations that all humans share, with respect to RNRS (or, presumably of the order of 80 or so to the progenitor). But there are only 18 that the tops of two main human branches don't share - roughly evenly distributed. That's roughly an order of magnitude (on each branch) smaller than the number of shared mutations to the progenitor. In other words, relatively speaking, the progenitor is very far away, and both branches are virtually the same distance away, as would be expected from a small initial human population.eurologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03440019181278830033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-16593912223212568692012-04-13T21:59:28.523+03:002012-04-13T21:59:28.523+03:00@Terry
"The oldest is M42'74, the haplog...@Terry<br /><br />"The oldest is M42'74, the haplogroups shared between Australia and South China."<br /><br />The ostensibly oldest one of the two, M42, was also found in India, among the Munda. <br /><br />http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/9/173German Dziebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10703679732205862495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-16637407536374159972012-04-13T18:22:21.853+03:002012-04-13T18:22:21.853+03:00It's in clear contradiction to autosomal studi...<i>It's in clear contradiction to autosomal studies in which identities-by-state are detected between non-Africans or Melanesians and Neandertals or Denisovans, with the exclusion of Africans who have unique matches with chimps not seen in non-Africans. My interpretation of mtDNA is that it mutates too fast and all these matches between L0 and L1-6 and Neandertal sequences are probably homoplastic.</i><br /><br />Dziebel, your homoplasy interpretation does not make sense, as it is very strained. The most reasonable and parsimonious interpretation of the data is that the most recent common ancestor of the extant human mitochondrial lineages and its oldest branches existed in Africa, and they all date from well after the modern human-Neanderthal split.<br /><br /><i>Africans are closer to Neanderthals in mtDNA and Y-DNA because, so far, no surviving mtDNA or Y-DNA offspring of admixture have been found. That is, to a very high degree, following just these two lines (and not autosomal DNA), all extant humans derive from people who split off from future Neanderthals and future Denisovans a long time ago, and then (at one time) lived in Africa (or moved to Africa and then out - but that is less likely).</i><br /><br />I completely agree, Eurologist.Onur Dincerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05041378853428912894noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-68007508738562818602012-04-13T05:33:23.110+03:002012-04-13T05:33:23.110+03:00@ Eurologist
"There are 18 changes with resp...@ Eurologist<br /><br />"There are 18 changes with respect to Neanderthals that are not shared by the roots of L0 vs. L1-6 -- and these are roughly evenly distributed between these two branches. All it indicates is that these two branches split a long time ago, and perhaps blossomed at about the same time (which makes sense, from a climate perspective)."<br /><br />There are 18 identical-by-state nps between Neandertals and the roots of the two most divergent branches of modern humans. L1-6 is by 3 np closer to neandertals than L0 but since both L0 and L1-6 are found in Africa, while only L1-6 are found outside of Africa, Africans are closer to Neandertals than non-Africans. How else can we interpret the data?<br /><br />It's in clear contradiction to autosomal studies in which identities-by-state are detected between non-Africans or Melanesians and Neandertals or Denisovans, with the exclusion of Africans who have unique matches with chimps not seen in non-Africans. My interpretation of mtDNA is that it mutates too fast and all these matches between L0 and L1-6 and Neandertal sequences are probably homoplastic.German Dziebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10703679732205862495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-90204723568258414132012-04-13T02:15:44.250+03:002012-04-13T02:15:44.250+03:00"Yeah, it seems that all the major expansion ..."Yeah, it seems that all the major expansion dates fit nicely into climate change scenarios" <br /><br />But there is a really interesting aspect that I just noticed yesterday, assuming the dates are near enough to accurate or at least relatively so. M's expansion appears to have begun in the east. The oldest is M42'74, the haplogroups shared between Australia and South China. Its expansion rapidly follows that of P to the Philippines, so perhaps there is a connection. In rapid succession we then have a series of East and SE Asian haplogroup expansions leading towards India. M32'75, M12'G, M1'20'51, M13'46'61. It is only contemporary with the last that we have M29'Q into New Guinea/Melanesia and M40'62 shared between East Asia and Orissa. The M haplogroups in Central India (M2, M3, M5, M6, M25, M35 and M39) expand surprisingly recently. The earliest being M35 at 39,000 years, long after several R expansions in South Asia and even in West Eurasia. Something funny is going on with M and the southern migration theory, unless the dates are completely wrong.terrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-11053936613683402672012-04-11T13:05:37.369+03:002012-04-11T13:05:37.369+03:00It's remarkable that Behar et al 's Table ...<i>It's remarkable that Behar et al 's Table S1 (Suppl Mat) suggests that Africans are closer to Neandertals than non-Africans, as between the 18 nucleotides apparently common between Neandertals and modern humans, all 18 are found in Africa (L0, L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, L6), while only 10 are found outside of Africa.</i><br /><br />German,<br />I don't understand your interpretation of the data. There are 18 changes with respect to Neanderthals that are not shared by the roots of L0 vs. L1-6 -- and these are roughly evenly distributed between these two branches. All it indicates is that these two branches split a long time ago, and perhaps blossomed at about the same time (which makes sense, from a climate perspective). <br /><br />Africans are closer to Neanderthals in mtDNA and Y-DNA because, so far, no surviving mtDNA or Y-DNA offspring of admixture have been found. That is, to a very high degree, <b>following just these two lines (and not autosomal DNA)</b>, all extant humans derive from people who split off from future Neanderthals and future Denisovans a long time ago, and then (at one time) lived in Africa (or moved to Africa and then out - but that is less likely).eurologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03440019181278830033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-42326556731315033482012-04-10T04:10:16.625+03:002012-04-10T04:10:16.625+03:00"What is the definition of RSRS"
From..."What is the definition of RSRS" <br /><br />From the Abstract: <br /><br />"Reconstructed Sapiens Reference Sequence" <br /><br />"and how does it differ from L?" <br /><br />It is a postulated pre-L haplogroup, ancestral to both L0 and L1''6. <br /><br />"The two main Eurasian macrohaplogroups M (~50,000 years) and N (~59,000 years)" <br /><br />Very interesting. I've long thought that the evidence suggests that N is much older than M in the east, especially in Australia. This paper supports such a conclusion although I agree with Eurologist that the time estimates could be horribly off. The oldest date for M in New Guinea/Australia is around 45,000 years (M14, M29'Q and M28). The N-derived haplogroups S and O are given as 53,000 and 52,000. And even R is actually older than M at 56,000 years. In fact P may have reached australia/New Guinea before N. P is given as 55,000 years and looks most likely to have originated in Australia and spread back north as far as the Philippines, if this P phylogeny is correct: <br /><br />http://www.cjcsysu.cn/ENpdf/2011/2/96.pdfterrythttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17327062321100035888noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-41358261653962000622012-04-10T04:09:34.474+03:002012-04-10T04:09:34.474+03:00It's remarkable that Behar et al 's Table ...It's remarkable that Behar et al 's Table S1 (Suppl Mat) suggests that Africans are closer to Neandertals than non-Africans, as between the 18 nucleotides apparently common between Neandertals and modern humans, all 18 are found in Africa (L0, L1, L2, L3, L4, L5, L6), while only 10 are found outside of Africa. This is very unlikely and contradicts autosomal studies in which it's non-Africans that are closer to Neandertals. I don't think Behar et al. sorted out homoplasies and common descent between humans and Neandertals.<br /><br />More at http://anthropogenesis.kinshipstudies.org/2012/04/between-behar-et-al-2012-and-johnson-et-al-1983-the-mitochondrial-dna-tree-comes-of-age-but-remains-a-blunt-tool-for-human-evolutionary-history/German Dziebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10703679732205862495noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-23116391354877814262012-04-08T12:13:26.600+03:002012-04-08T12:13:26.600+03:00What is the definition of RSRS, and how does it di...What is the definition of RSRS, and how does it differ from L?Anthony Faullhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14162272860971401935noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-13347600356670569262012-04-07T13:52:27.817+03:002012-04-07T13:52:27.817+03:00Nice and very important paper - but I agree, the t...Nice and very important paper - but I agree, the time estimates are most likely horribly off.<br /><br /><i>I have been conducting survey and excavation in southern Arabia for the last 15 years and can say with a relative degree of confidence that there was no post-70 ka BP migration out of Africa</i><br /><br />While I am not an expert, it should be clear to anyone that the climate was extremely cold and dry post-Toba, and as such, any major migration, let alone population growth, is out of the question then and for ~20,000 years following. Before the advent of rather modern transportation and storage technologies, crossing hundreds, let alone thousands of miles of desert was an impossible feat. Instead, people migrated in climatically <i>good times,</i> when possible and when under population pressure. This makes ~125,000 - 110,000 ya the most likely scenario, by far. Sure, there's the possibility of further migration ~100,000 - 70,000 ya, but (i) HGs late-comers cannot really be expected to make a dent when entire continents were newly exploited before their arrival, and (ii) AFAIK there is zero archaeological evidence for it.<br /><br />The populating of SE Asia, including the known Denisovan admixture estimates, makes most sense if it happened before Toba. At the <i>minimum,</i> M expansion (not the node!) would be right after 70,000 ya - but more likely starting substantially before it. There is also an interesting bi-modal distribution of the N-substitutions, and a huge difference with respect to M. Again, the Toba bottleneck and re-populating may account for this.eurologisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03440019181278830033noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-55484052735125763552012-04-07T05:22:21.186+03:002012-04-07T05:22:21.186+03:00see http://www.mendeley.com/research/selection-sel...see http://www.mendeley.com/research/selection-selection-mitochondrial-dna-neanderthal-problem/Robhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07166839601638241857noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-86511182809775979782012-04-07T05:19:43.733+03:002012-04-07T05:19:43.733+03:00This could tie in with the discussion on the Stewa...This could tie in with the discussion on the Stewart paper. I agree with Mousterian's suggestion that anatomically modern humans and behaviuorally modern humans could be different things from different origins. (the latter originating in Arabian cradle). <br /><br />The mtDNA evidence is at face value supportive of recent (100kya) out of African expansion. Other genomic sites (esp nuclear) suggest that expansion occurred from much earlier times, multiple times, and not solely from Africa (eg from West Asia also); into Europe at least. Given that the dating of mtDNA is still arguable, and the apparent recent out-of-african mtDNA picutre could be due to a selective sweep and recent bottlencks, etc; one could rightly doubt such a hypothesisRobhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07166839601638241857noreply@blogger.com