I thought you all would find this interesting. https://www.google.com/amp/s/bigthink.com/amp/evolution-europe-2635135545
It is illegible. However, rather than worry about the geography of the original humans, it might make sense to figure out what creature represented the split between the humanoids and the other primates. I don't believe they have gotten that far yet. Knowing that might help nail down the geography.
a quote from the article: "The multi-regional theory suggests that humans evolved in parallel across various regions. According to this model, the hominins Homo erectus left Africa to settle across Eurasia and (maybe) Australia. These disparate populations eventually evolved into modern humans thanks to a helping dollop of gene flow." This may be very likely, I am thinking. Evolution did not happen in only one place. Different humanoid primate populations in different regions probably evolved simultaneously, with there being some gene flow between the groups. At this time, there might not have been a clear differentiation between "human" and "non-human". The different groups would have been more like different sub-species, capable of interbreeding, but still very different. Possibly even some of the groups might have had very moderate reproductive barriers, more clearly putting them in a different species categorization. Adam and Eve might have been the first real "humans", but then their children might have bred with the other humanoid primates. Before then, they might not have really had human souls.
The sexual nature of reproduction allows genes that confer advantages to quickly spread within a population genepool. This means that it would not take much gene flow movement from one area to another to allow different populations over large distances to quickly share advantageous genes. The advantageous genes would get amplified much more than other general genes. So if you had a population of ape-like primates, it would only take a tiny amount of human gene flow to quickly turn them all into a new race of humans. Maybe one person is all it would take. And the genepool could still retain 99% of its previous genes while still being fundamentally and radically changed. Here's a very controversial hypothesis, but imagine at one time all the different ape-like primate groups looked very similar to the different modern-day races. Except they were not really human at the time. Then one or two human ancestors come along, and suddenly (within a quick period of time on the evolutionary scale) they are all transformed into humans. Just different humans. The foundations for the different human races could be older than humanity itself. This would contrast with the idea that there was one group of humans and then they later diverged into the different races, from a single population.
Yes, a very interesting article, though obviously not a deep enough scientific dive into the subject, on which, for anyone to base their beliefs. There are actually known to be numerous archaic hominids, that were very different from one another, and numerous of which, who lived in isolated areas. https://nationalpost.com/news/world/there-used-to-be-nine-species-of-human-what-happened-to-them The article mentions 8 of them, who all existed 300,000 years ago, with early Homo Sapiens. This includes Indonesia's "hobbits," Homo floresiensis; as well as China's mysterious Red Deer Cave People; Homo luzonensis, of the Philippines; and the Denisovans of Central Asia (remains found in a Siberian, mountain cave, and on the Tibetan Plateau); as well as Neanderthals of the European steppes, Homo erectus, Homo rhodesiensis, and Homo naledi. The article dwells on all of their unexplained demises, but all of their coming into being, may be an even more interesting point of speculation.
I'd not been familiar with these people. While it was interesting to read a bit about them, just now, the information so far seems to say that this group had not come to its remote island, nearly so far in the past as the others I had mentioned. IOW, while having a degree of preserved uniqueness, from their millennia of isolation, all of their genes are shared with modern humans who did not migrate to their island. Still, I appreciate the new knowledge! Thanks.
That is true, but those people are probably a remnant of a much larger population group that once existed across the entire length of South Asia, perhaps even further North going extremely far back. They've found a link in the genetics between the Andaman islanders and the mysterious Ainu in Northern Japan. For such a link to exist, it must go back an extremely long ways, back even before the Asian Mongoloid peoples entered China. So that would have to be an extremely long ways back. Until relatively recently there used to even be isolated "Negrito" tribes in the hills in Southeast Asia, and these people were not ethnically Asian. Which indicates these people were probably there before the Asians. China's early history has records of black-skinned cannibals in its far Southern provinces in the hills, which do not exist anymore. The Chinese civilization seems to have resulted in them being wiped out. This must have been an incredibly ancient population group going back far into pre-history. We're probably talking at least 5000 or 6000 years ago.
I had only skimmed a wikipedia page, but it had quoted authorities of estimating 26,000 years ago. And yes, these definitely represent an old line of humans; I was only saying that, by then, they were completely modern Homo Sapiens, as opposed to the groups I had mentioned from several hundred thousand years ago. But this estimate would put them only little (a couple thousand years) beyond the point when the last Neanderthals disappeared.
Yes it is a mystery yet to be solved by science. Human origins are hard to study because they happened a long, long time ago.
Ah the Andaman Islands. One of the few neolithic places left on the planet. A curious phenomenon to be sure. I don't think the behavior of the islanders has anything to do with their evolution, however.
