I mean the preponderance of evidence says Africa, great rift valley.
This “out of Asia” hypothesis has been pushed for decades with almost no evidence supporting it, while there is an enormous amount of evidence coming from Africa, which is and always has been the center of hominid diversity.
The thing about fossil evidence is that it is massively subjective in terms of it’s interpretation. It’s not cut and dry like DNA evidence. It fundamentally relies on manual, human interpretation. A bit less so for plant fossils because plant tissues have chemistry that fossilize far more effectively than animal tissues.
This is also not a particularly “good” fossil. It’s not an intact or partially intact skull. It’s a crushed skull. And look careful at the caveats the fairly salacious article gives, noting that scientists outside of the research group presenting the results don’t agree with their conclusions.
China is heavily invested in promoting the ‘out of Asia’ hypothesis for a plethora of reasons, one of the main one is not wanting to be of African descent.
It’s very healthy to be a bit sceptic about this type of research.
Note that I won’t claim this research is faulty, being sceptic against bold claims is generally a good idea.
I mean the preponderance of evidence says Africa, great rift valley.
This “out of Asia” hypothesis has been pushed for decades with almost no evidence supporting it, while there is an enormous amount of evidence coming from Africa, which is and always has been the center of hominid diversity.
The thing about fossil evidence is that it is massively subjective in terms of it’s interpretation. It’s not cut and dry like DNA evidence. It fundamentally relies on manual, human interpretation. A bit less so for plant fossils because plant tissues have chemistry that fossilize far more effectively than animal tissues.
This is also not a particularly “good” fossil. It’s not an intact or partially intact skull. It’s a crushed skull. And look careful at the caveats the fairly salacious article gives, noting that scientists outside of the research group presenting the results don’t agree with their conclusions.
China is heavily invested in promoting the ‘out of Asia’ hypothesis for a plethora of reasons, one of the main one is not wanting to be of African descent.
It’s very healthy to be a bit sceptic about this type of research.
Note that I won’t claim this research is faulty, being sceptic against bold claims is generally a good idea.