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Do some South Indians have Tropical limb ratios?
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by zarahan- aka Enrique Cardova: [QB] [IMG]http://outlawpoetry.com/files/2009/01/gil-scott-heron-the-revolut.jpg[/IMG] [b]Proponents of a "fast track" human "revolution" in cognition, organization and technology locate the "revolution" as beginning in, and being sustained from Africa, not other parts of the globe. Other scholars argue for a more gradual evolution of the traits that brought about advances in Africa where anatomically modern humans first appeared, and their expansion to Europe and Asia circa 50kya. Whatever scenario is followed, it makes little difference. The "revo", gradual or "fast track", began in Africa and was sustained from thence.[/b] - QUOTE: "..distance and small population size probably limited gene flow, and the composite fossil and archeological records indicate that the African lineage spread to replace or swamp the others beginning roughly 50 ky ago. It is thus reasonable to supply the lineages with biological species labels: Homo sapiens in Africa, H. neanderthalensis in Europe, and H. erectus in the Far East. The European lineage is the best documented,73 and it is marked by the progressive accumulation of Neanderthal features, culminating in the classic Neanderthals by 130 ky ago. During the long interval when the Neanderthals were evolving, from at least 500 to 130 ky ago, Europe was generally much cooler than it has been historically, and some conspicuous Neanderthal distinctions, including massive trunks and short limbs, were probably physiological adaptations to cold. Other key distinctions— including, for example, the strong forward projection of the face along the midline, the unique configuration of the mastoid region and the occipital, and some peculiarities of the postcranium— may owe more to gene drift in populations that periodically crashed when climate became especially cold. The pertinent African fossil record is much less complete, but it contains no specimens that anticipate the Neanderthals, and it shows that anatomically near-modern people were widespread in Africa by 130 ky ago,74 when only Neanderthals inhabited Europe. The Far Eastern record is the most sketchy,75 and it may actually comprise two distinct evolutionary trajectories: one in southeastern Asia that suggests continuity within Indonesian Homo erectus from before 500 ky ago until perhaps 50 ky ago,76 and a second in China that may indicate evolution from classic H. erectus before 500 ky ago to populations that by 100 ky ago, retained few distinctive H. erectus features and that approached H. sapiens in braincase size and form.77 The relevant archeology suggests that even as Europeans and Africans progressively diverged in morphology after 500 ky ago, they remained fundamentally similar in behavior. [IMG]http://worldofweirdthings.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/ancient_hunters_440.jpg[/IMG] Thus, both Europeans and Africans produced Acheulean artifacts before 250 ky ago, and they made very similar kinds of non-Acheulean artifacts afterwards. From a strictly artifactual perspective, a conspicuous difference between Africa and Europe arose only after 40 ky ago, and it then occurred in the absence of a morphological contrast, for the artifact makers on both continents were now H. sapiens of African origin. Archeological divergence was followed on each continent by a significant acceleration in artifactual (cultural) differentiation through time and space. This surely signals the existence of the historically familiar modern human ability to innovate. If as I suggest, the development of this ability depended on a biological (neural) change in Africa 50–40 ky ago, then the name H. sapiens should probably be restricted to fully modern humans after this time, and their preceding near-modern African ancestors should be assigned to another species, for which the name H. helmei is available.78 The more fundamental point, however, is that the sudden origin of the modern capacity for culture in Africa 50–40 ky ago could help explain both how and why fully modern Africans were then able to expand at the expense of their nonmodern Eurasian contemporaries... The issue is complicated by the realization that Middle Paleolithic people in Europe were Neanderthals, whereas MSA people in Africa more closely resembled living people. contexts. Using this criterion, the most plausible evidence for modern human behavior before 50 ky ago comes from the Katanda sites in the Democratic Republic of the Congo121–124 and from Blombos Cave in South Africa.125–128 At Katanda, electron spin-resonance dates on hippopotamus teeth and luminescence dates on covering sands bracket mammal and fish bones, stone artifacts that could be either MSA or LSA, eight whole or partial barbed bone points, and four additional formal bone artifacts between 150 and 90 ky ago. At Blombos Cave, luminescence dates on enclosing sands suggest that mammal and fish bones, classic MSA stone artifacts, three whole or fragmentary polished bone points, and 17 less formal bone artifacts accumulated around 100 ky ago.129 At both Katanda and Blombos Cave, the most striking discoveries are the formal bone artifacts.. .. credible claims for art or other modern human behavioral markers before 50 ky ago must involve relatively large numbers of highly patterned objects from deeply stratified, sealed contexts would antedate other known examples, from LSA/Upper Paleolithic sites, by 50 to 40 ky. If the stratigraphic associations and age estimates at both sites are accepted, they could imply that modern human behavioral traits and modern morphology arose in Africa together, at or before 100 ky ago..." --Richard Klein. Archeology and the Evolution of Human Behavior. [/QB][/QUOTE]
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