The revolution that wasn't: a new interpretation of the origin of modern human behavior.
TL;DR: The African Middle and early Late Pleistocene hominid fossil record is fairly continuous and in it can be recognized a number of probably distinct species that provide plausible ancestors for H. sapiens, and suggests a gradual assembling of the package of modern human behaviors in Africa, and its later export to other regions of the Old World.
About: This article is published in Journal of Human Evolution.The article was published on 2000-11-01. It has received 2165 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Behavioral modernity & Later Stone Age.
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TL;DR: Co-evolution of genes with language and some slowly evolving cultural traits, together with the genetic evolution of commensals and parasites that have accompanied modern humans in their expansion from Africa to the other continents, supports and supplements the standard model of genetic evolution.
Abstract: doi:10.1038/ng1113 The past decade of advances in molecular genetic technology has heralded a new era for all evolutionary studies, but especially the science of human evolution. Data on various kinds of DNA variation in human populations have rapidly accumulated. There is increasing recognition of the importance of this variation for medicine and developmental biology and for understanding the history of our species. Haploid markers from mitochondrial DNA and the Y chromosome have proven invaluable for generating a standard model for evolution of modern humans. Conclusions from earlier research on protein polymorphisms have been generally supported by more sophisticated DNA analysis. Co-evolution of genes with language and some slowly evolving cultural traits, together with the genetic evolution of commensals and parasites that have accompanied modern humans in their expansion from Africa to the other continents, supports and supplements the standard model of genetic evolution. The advances in our understanding of the evolutionary history of humans attests to the advantages of multidisciplinary research. review
566 citations
TL;DR: Morphometric, taphonomic and microscopic analysis of modern assemblages of living and dead tick shell demonstrate that the presence of perforated Nassarius kraussianus shells in the Blombos MSA levels cannot be due to natural processes or accidental transport by humans.
548 citations
Cites background from "The revolution that wasn't: a new i..."
...This mutation, the authors suggest, most probably took place in Africa at c. 50,0000 years ago (Klein, 1995, 1999, 2000; Klein & Edgar, 2002; cf. Ambrose, 1998, and Wadley, 2001, 2003, for the archaeological counterpart of this hypothesis)....
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...In a recent article (Henshilwood et al., 2004) we report onmarine shells manufactured into beads by MSA populations at Blombos Cave, South Africa at c. 75 ka....
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...This work was supported by grants to F.D. from the European Science Foundation (Origin of Man, Language and Languages), the Service Culturel of the French Embassy in South Africa, the French Ministry of Research (ACI Espaces et Territoires); to C.H from the National Science Foundation, the South African National Research Foundation, Centre for Development Studies - University of Bergen, PAST, European Science Foundation (Origin of Man, Language and Languages); to M.V. from the French Ministry of Education and Research (Aires Culturelles), and the CNRS (post-doctoral fellowship); to K.v.N. from the University of Bergen....
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...Human remains from Herto, Ethiopia demonstrate that Homo sapiens in Africa was anatomically modern at 160 ka (White et al., 2003), but the debate continues over when and where humans first became behaviourally modern....
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...Personal ornaments, often cited as support for the second model above, are reported from eight South and East African MSA sites....
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TL;DR: It is suggested here that the answer to why it took these populations approximately 100,000 years to disperse from Africa to other regions of the world has never been clearly resolved may lie partly in the results of recent DNA studies of present-day African populations, combined with a spate of new archaeological discoveries in Africa.
Abstract: Recent research has provided increasing support for the origins of anatomically and genetically “modern” human populations in Africa between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago, followed by a major dispersal of these populations to both Asia and Europe sometime after ca. 65,000 before present (B.P.). However, the central question of why it took these populations ≈100,000 years to disperse from Africa to other regions of the world has never been clearly resolved. It is suggested here that the answer may lie partly in the results of recent DNA studies of present-day African populations, combined with a spate of new archaeological discoveries in Africa. Studies of both the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) mismatch patterns in modern African populations and related mtDNA lineage-analysis patterns point to a major demographic expansion centered broadly within the time range from 80,000 to 60,000 B.P., probably deriving from a small geographical region of Africa. Recent archaeological discoveries in southern and eastern Africa suggest that, at approximately the same time, there was a major increase in the complexity of the technological, economic, social, and cognitive behavior of certain African groups, which could have led to a major demographic expansion of these groups in competition with other, adjacent groups. It is suggested that this complex of behavioral changes (possibly triggered by the rapid environmental changes around the transition from oxygen isotope stage 5 to stage 4) could have led not only to the expansion of the L2 and L3 mitochondrial lineages over the whole of Africa but also to the ensuing dispersal of these modern populations over most regions of Asia, Australasia, and Europe, and their replacement (with or without interbreeding) of the preceding “archaic” populations in these regions.
537 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that language evolved from manual gestures, gradually incorporating vocal elements, and may be traced through changes in the function of Broca's area, the code for both the production of manual reaching movements and the perception of the same movements performed by others.
Abstract: The strong predominance of right-handedness appears to be a uniquely human characteristic, whereas the left-cerebral dominance for vocalization occurs in many species, including frogs, birds, and mammals. Right-handedness may have arisen because of an association between manual gestures and vocalization in the evolution of language. I argue that language evolved from manual gestures, gradually incorporating vocal elements. The transition may be traced through changes in the function of Broca's area. Its homologue in monkeys has nothing to do with vocal control, but contains the so-called “mirror neurons,” the code for both the production of manual reaching movements and the perception of the same movements performed by others. This system is bilateral in monkeys, but predominantly left-hemispheric in humans, and in humans is involved with vocalization as well as manual actions. There is evidence that Broca's area is enlarged on the left side in Homo habilis, suggesting that a link between gesture and vocalization may go back at least two million years, although other evidence suggests that speech may not have become fully autonomous until Homo sapiens appeared some 170,000 years ago, or perhaps even later. The removal of manual gesture as a necessary component of language may explain the rapid advance of technology, allowing late migrations of Homo sapiens from Africa to replace all other hominids in other parts of the world, including the Neanderthals in Europe and Homo erectus in Asia. Nevertheless, the long association of vocalization with manual gesture left us a legacy of right-handedness.
521 citations
TL;DR: The review of the European evidence suggests that early hominins moved into northern latitudes without the habitual use of fire, and the increase in the number of sites with good evidence of fire throughout the Late Pleistocene shows that European Neandertals had fire management not unlike that documented for Upper Paleolithic groups.
Abstract: The timing of the human control of fire is a hotly debated issue, with claims for regular fire use by early hominins in Africa at ∼1.6 million y ago. These claims are not uncontested, but most archaeologists would agree that the colonization of areas outside Africa, especially of regions such as Europe where temperatures at time dropped below freezing, was indeed tied to the use of fire. Our review of the European evidence suggests that early hominins moved into northern latitudes without the habitual use of fire. It was only much later, from ∼300,000 to 400,000 y ago onward, that fire became a significant part of the hominin technological repertoire. It is also from the second half of the Middle Pleistocene onward that we can observe spectacular cases of Neandertal pyrotechnological knowledge in the production of hafting materials. The increase in the number of sites with good evidence of fire throughout the Late Pleistocene shows that European Neandertals had fire management not unlike that documented for Upper Paleolithic groups.
513 citations
Cites background from "The revolution that wasn't: a new i..."
...For much later periods, a greater control and more extensive use of fire is seen by some (12, 13) as one of the behavioral innovations that emerged in Africa among modern humans, favoring their spread throughout the world and their eventual evolutionary success....
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...In more general terms, a greater control and more extensive use of fire is sometimes (12) seen as one of the behavioral innovations that emerged in Africa among modern humans and favored the spread of modern humans throughout the world....
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References
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TL;DR: Using the concept of "orbital tuning", a continuous, high-resolution deep-sea chronostratigraphy has been developed spanning the last 300,000 yr as mentioned in this paper.
3,256 citations
TL;DR: All these mitochondrial DMAs stem from one woman who is postulated to have lived about 200,000 years ago, probably in Africa, implying that each area was colonised repeatedly.
Abstract: ▪ Abstract Several unique properties of human mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), including its high copy number, maternal inheritance, lack of recombination, and high mutation rate, have made it the molecule of choice for studies of human population history and evolution. Here we review the current state of knowledge concerning these properties, how mtDNA variation is studied, what we have learned, and what the future likely holds. We conclude that increasingly, mtDNA studies are (and should be) supplemented with analyses of the Y-chromosome and other nuclear DNA variation. Some serious issues need to be addressed concerning nuclear inserts, database quality, and the possible influence of selection on mtDNA variation. Nonetheless, mtDNA studies will continue to play an important role in such areas as examining socio-cultural influences on human genetic variation, ancient DNA, certain forensic DNA applications, and in tracing personal genetic history.
2,631 citations