Ever since a recent article, it's been bugging me as to how Neanderthal Man got to Europe before Cro-Magnon / Modern Man. (Ithaka: Coming Out of Africa Gets More Complicated in a Neanderthal Way)
Didn't we come out of Africa more or less together and Kumbaya or some such around the world. My thinking might have been a bit skew whiff on this.
Reading some more, I see Homo erectus, a precursor species to us, started migrating out of Africa two million years ago and they didn't get to Europe but they got just about everywhere else. It gets more twisted with Homo heidelbergensis after Homo erectus since Cro-Mag and Neanderthal arose from them. It's more complicated than that and some of it remains hypothetical but there's plenty of detail in the WIKI. (WIKI: Early human migrations)
The thinking has gnawed somewhat since the solution seemed magical because the question was hanging on how Neanderthals got anywhere before Moderns.
Ed: so what?
This made us what we are. In a way, it's genealogy since this really is the family tree, it's just a really, really big one. Searching for Ithaka is the overall pursuit but, within that, Searching for Eden works just fine. Finding one doesn't obviate the other. If we're really diligent in studying the family tree in this way, we should be able to find our way back to Eden.
Ed: do you mean to find Adam and Eve?
Well, they might not exactly look like in the pictures.
If you're the World's Ultimate Genome Researcher, you should be able to find your way back to the first instance of the mutation which separated Homo sapiens from all who preceded.
Adam: pleased to meet you
Likewise, bud. Pleased to meet you, Adam. You know I'm not a threat, right? Please don't kill and eat me.
Ed: I remember "Adam's Family" on television with Gomez and Morticia.
Yes, that was a sixties documentary about our heritage.
Ed: Gomez and Morticia are really Adam and Eve?
Yes. Finally their truth is told and only here on Ithaka.
Evolutionary genetics is a Rockhouse Mystery since we don't get how the magic mutation suddenly propagates to many people and breeds true after that. It's not clear whether multiple examples of the mutation start popping up for who knows what reason and the lack of clarity on that just may be due to the lightyears from here back to my university time.
Assuming it popped up in multiple places and, presto, these were the first humans, we should be able to trace back to them. This also assumes multiple impossible things are true since we need a perfect archaeological record for everything from that time so we're stopped on the first one. We can't tell if this one is Adam or some nobody (sniff).
But if we could ...
We should be able to find Adam and wherever we find him must be Eden, the place from where all humans spread, hideous in our nakedness (sob).
There's no Bible spoilage in this since everything needs symbols or graveyards just become bad jokes.
In Ethiopia there are the Omo Kibish sites and they have the earliest instances of any Homo sapiens. (WIKI: Omo remains)
Ed: Eden?
Yep, at least in this context. We were here before we were anywhere. It's Africa so there should be plenty of snakes. The apple didn't get to North Africa until the Greeks and Romans brought it so we may need to improvise on that. (Today I Found Out: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE APPLE TREE)
Didn't we come out of Africa more or less together and Kumbaya or some such around the world. My thinking might have been a bit skew whiff on this.
Reading some more, I see Homo erectus, a precursor species to us, started migrating out of Africa two million years ago and they didn't get to Europe but they got just about everywhere else. It gets more twisted with Homo heidelbergensis after Homo erectus since Cro-Mag and Neanderthal arose from them. It's more complicated than that and some of it remains hypothetical but there's plenty of detail in the WIKI. (WIKI: Early human migrations)
The thinking has gnawed somewhat since the solution seemed magical because the question was hanging on how Neanderthals got anywhere before Moderns.
Ed: so what?
This made us what we are. In a way, it's genealogy since this really is the family tree, it's just a really, really big one. Searching for Ithaka is the overall pursuit but, within that, Searching for Eden works just fine. Finding one doesn't obviate the other. If we're really diligent in studying the family tree in this way, we should be able to find our way back to Eden.
Ed: do you mean to find Adam and Eve?
Well, they might not exactly look like in the pictures.
If you're the World's Ultimate Genome Researcher, you should be able to find your way back to the first instance of the mutation which separated Homo sapiens from all who preceded.
Adam: pleased to meet you
Likewise, bud. Pleased to meet you, Adam. You know I'm not a threat, right? Please don't kill and eat me.
Ed: I remember "Adam's Family" on television with Gomez and Morticia.
Yes, that was a sixties documentary about our heritage.
Ed: Gomez and Morticia are really Adam and Eve?
Yes. Finally their truth is told and only here on Ithaka.
Evolutionary genetics is a Rockhouse Mystery since we don't get how the magic mutation suddenly propagates to many people and breeds true after that. It's not clear whether multiple examples of the mutation start popping up for who knows what reason and the lack of clarity on that just may be due to the lightyears from here back to my university time.
Assuming it popped up in multiple places and, presto, these were the first humans, we should be able to trace back to them. This also assumes multiple impossible things are true since we need a perfect archaeological record for everything from that time so we're stopped on the first one. We can't tell if this one is Adam or some nobody (sniff).
But if we could ...
We should be able to find Adam and wherever we find him must be Eden, the place from where all humans spread, hideous in our nakedness (sob).
There's no Bible spoilage in this since everything needs symbols or graveyards just become bad jokes.
In Ethiopia there are the Omo Kibish sites and they have the earliest instances of any Homo sapiens. (WIKI: Omo remains)
Ed: Eden?
Yep, at least in this context. We were here before we were anywhere. It's Africa so there should be plenty of snakes. The apple didn't get to North Africa until the Greeks and Romans brought it so we may need to improvise on that. (Today I Found Out: A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE APPLE TREE)
2 comments:
Could it be Homo Trumpus built a wall to keep them out
Nah, it was a hoax when he tried it back then too. Damn Neanderthals wouldn't pay for it. They surrounded Homo trumpus with taco vans until he backed down.
Post a Comment