Early Human Remains Challenge 'Out of Africa' Theory

The discovery of ancient human remains in China has challenged the long agreed upon theory that humans developed in African, then began moving to the rest of the world from there.

The new discovery has been found in a cave in China, the find is the remains of one of the earliest forms of modern humans. The remains found in China open up many new avenues for further the understanding of human movement and development in eastern Asia. How humans came to occupy this part of the world is still not understood well.

The cave where the discovery was made is called, Tianyuan Cave, and it is located near the city of Beijing. The early human remains are that of one person and include 34 fragments of bone.

Researchers investigating the human remains have carried out radiocarbon testing to determine how old the remains are. The results indicated that the early human remains were that of a person that was alive between 42,000 and 39,000 years ago. This is the oldest early modern human found so far in China.

One of the researchers that helped to write about the find, Professor Erik Trinkaus, from Washington University in St. Louis, said, "For this time period, which is critical for understanding the spread of modern humans around the world, we have two well-dated human fossils from eastern Asia. We have remains from the Niah Cave from Sarawak in Borneo, and now this specimen from China. As you go west, the next specimens are from Lebanon. There's nothing in between."

The announcement about this interesting anthropological find was made in the journal of 'Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences' today.

The currently widely accepted theory about the origins of humans is the 'Out of Africa' theory. This theory believes that modern humans came from East Africa around 70,000 years ago. It is thought that when these early humans spread out of Africa they replaced other early human type populations such as the Neanderthal. However it is believed that the early African humans became the prominent human species without any interbreeding with other forms of humans.

The early human, homo sapien, remains, found in China bring up some interesting questions about human evolution. The remains discovered in China have many modern human features, however, the remains also have a number of features that come from early human forms. The reason for this combination is thought to be the result of interbreeding.

Professor Trinkaus has said, "The pattern we see across the Old World is basically a modern human in terms of its newly emerged characteristics, but also a minority of traits that are absent or lost in the earliest modern humans in East Africa. The question is where did they get them from? Either they re-evolved them, which is not very likely, or, to some degree, they interbred with archaic groups."

This new theory of interbreeding is creating quite a bit of controversy. Some anthropologists disagree with it, saying that the seemingly old features are just left over from early forms of African humans. Another controversial theory is that modern humans didn't just develop in Africa but also in other parts of the world.

A number of interesting details were discovered about the Chinese remains and how they may of lived. It is thought that the person was between 40 and 50 years old when they died. It is also thought that they were suffering from some kind of disease as lesions were found on the leg bones. Also changing current beliefs was the discovery of a toe bone that indicated that the person wore shoes. This makes the theory of when humans began wearing showing shoes date back 10,000 more years than previously thought.

Sources
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6518527.stm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070402214930.htm
http://www.smh.com.au/news/science/skeleton-challenge-to-africa-theory/2007/04/03/1175366247119.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/04/03/wbones03.xml