V. Life's Corporeal Evolution Develops, Encodes and Organizes Itself: An Earthtwinian Genesis Synthesis

7. Multiple Ancestries of Homo Sapiens

Renfrew, Colin, et al. Introduction: The Sapient Mind: Archaeology Meets Neuroscience. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B. 363/1935, 2008. Which courses through the 14 papers from a 2007 McDonald Institute for Archaeological Research symposium on this cerebral and cognitive reconstruction of human culture. In “Biology is Only Part of the Story” authors Dwight and Sander van der Leeuw claim that artifact technology can be a measure of neural capacity. After a slower initial phase, hominid advances indicate a later breakout from biological limits. In another instance, “Big Brains, Small Worlds,” Fiona Coward and Clive Gamble employ neuroimaging methods to study encephalization, the human diaspora, and the onset of sedentary agriculture. A projection of these trends can serve to illuminate global distributed societal networks. In his own paper, Renfrew considers the rise of behavioral values, along with intimations of a sacred milieu.

Archaeology, for instance, can now give us a good idea about where, and an approximate idea about when, Homo sapiens appeared. The place is Africa and the time somewhere between 100 000 and 200 000 years ago. Recent DNA studies can now confirm the out-of-Africa human dispersal hypothesis of approximately 60,000 years ago, …. Neuroscience, on the other hand, based on a quite different scale of spatial and temporal resolution can also give as a good indication about where in the human brain these modern human capacities (e.g. language, symbolic capacity, representational ability, theory of mind, causal belief, learning by teaching, ‘we’ intentionality, sense of selfhood) can be identified and the possible neural networks and cognitive mechanisms that support them. (1935)

Reynolds, Sally and Andrew Gallagher, eds. African Genesis: Perspectives on Hominin Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012. A large volume from a 2006 Johannesburg symposium for the 80th birthday of paleoanthropologist Philip Tobias, and in memory of his mentor Raymond Dart. Four Parts compose - In Search of Origins: Evolutionary Theory, New Species and Paths into the Past; Hominin Morphology Through Time: Brains, Bodies and Teeth; Modern Human Origins: Patterns and Processes; and In Search of Context: Hominin Environments, Behaviour and Lithic Cultures. (“Hominin” is a take from Hominid for new findings that the human lineage arose more from chimpanzees and gorillas than orangutans.) Among a world class cadre, typical chapters are Hominin Brain Evolution 1925-2011 by Dean Falk, The Issue of Brain Reorganization in Australopithecus and Early Hominids, Ralph Holloway, and The African Origin of Recent Humanity by Milford Wolpoff and Sang-Hee Lee.

Roberts, Patrick and Brian Stewart. Defining the “Generalist Specialist” Niche for Pleistocene Homo Sapiens.. Nature Human Behavior. 2.542, 2018. . MPI Science of Human History and University of Michigan paleo-anthropologists suggest ways that a reciprocal combination of mental attention to detail, along with a capacity for wider scene views could explain why our (genius) genus arose and won out from an array of other candidates.

Definitions of our species as unique within the hominin clade have cited capacities for symbolism, language, social networking, technological competence and cognitive development. Recent thought has been turned towards humans’ unique ecological plasticity. Here, we review the growing archaeological and palaeo-environmental datasets relating to the Middle–Late Pleistocene (300–12 thousand years ago) dispersal of our species within and beyond Africa. We argue, in comparison with other members of the genus Homo, that our species developed a new ecological niche, that of a ‘generalist specialist’. Not only could a diversity of environments be occupied and utilized, but this mentality aided adaptations to some environmental extremes. (Abstract)

Roux, Valentine. A Dynamic Systems Framework for Studying Technological Change. Journal of Archaeological Method and Theory. 10/1, 2003. The emergence of the potter’s wheel in the Southern Levant can be modeled as “a complex set of interactions among internal components” which self-organize over time into emergent social patterns.

Sarmiento, Esteban, et al. The Last Human: A Guide to Twenty-Two Species of Extinct Humans. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007. A plethora of recent fossil finds, such as the petite homo floresiensis, is radically expanding the hominid family tree, of which this collaborative volume presents a lucid illustrated update. Out of the earliest African hominids some eight million years ago to many interim stages from sahelanthropus to neanderthalensis has appeared gracile, communal, loquacious homo sapiens. As our worldwide cerebral phenomenon can lately contemplate such past visages, the question is begged as to whom we individually and collectively are, what future personage and mission do we bear, what and whom is it for.

Scerri, Eleanor, et al. Did Our Species Evolve in Subdivided Populations across Africa, and Why Does It Matter? Trends in Ecology and Evolution. Online July, 2018. A 23 member international collaboration from the UK, Germany, South Korea, the USA, France, Norway, and Portugal including Brenna Henn, Chris Stringer, and Philipp Gunz achieve a latest synthesis of archeological fossils and genetic sequencings as our Earthropo sapiens project to learn how we peoples came to be proceeds apace. From skull casings, dentures, bones, stone tools, along with DNA scrapings and other evidence from inter-bred “ancient hominins” groupings, a quantified, albeit variegated reconstruction is much underway. For example, glossary terms include allele-frequency spectrum, effective population sizes, pairwise sequentially Markovian coalescent, panmixia and refugia. Questions then arise: whom are me + We latecomers that can retrospectively do this, what is life’s long gestation trying to self-realize, what palliative, procreative Earthian future could it portend?

We challenge the view that our species, Homo sapiens, evolved within a single population and/or region of Africa. The chronology and physical diversity of Pleistocene human fossils suggest that morphologically varied populations pertaining to the H. sapiens clade lived throughout Africa. Similarly, the African archaeological record demonstrates the polycentric origin and persistence of regionally distinct Pleistocene material culture in a variety of paleoecological settings. Genetic studies also indicate that present-day population structure within Africa extends to deep times, paralleling a paleoenvironmental record of shifting and fractured habitable zones. We argue that these fields support an emerging view of a highly structured African prehistory that should be considered in human evolutionary inferences, prompting new interpretations, questions, and interdisciplinary research directions. (Abstract)

Schwartz, Jeffrey, ed. Rethinking Human Evolution. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2018. A Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology edition from a September 2015 Konrad Lorenz Institute workshop on how the latest evidence steadily coming serves to revise the prior trajectories. Chapter authors include Ian Tattersall, Claudine Cohen, Peter Waddell and Markus Bastir.

Shennan, Stephen. Genes, Memes and Human History: Darwinian Archaeology and Cultural Evolution. London: Thames & Hudson, 2002. A contribution to an evolutionary context for the full reconstruction of human origins. Two approaches are emphasized: ‘behavioral ecology’ which studies evolving behavior and ‘dual inheritance theory’ as the formation of a cultural genetic code.

Shriner, Daniel, et al. Ancient Human Migration after Out-of-Africa. Nature Scientific Reports. 6/26565, 2016. With Fasil Tekola-Ayele, Adebowale Adeyemo and Charles Rotimi, National Human Genome Research Institute, Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health researchers employ the latest synthesis of network science, genetic sequencing techniques and computational analysis to finesse our worldwide retrospective ancestry project. Whomever then is this emergent Anthropo sapiens personsphere that can proceed to wholly quantify for whence me and We all arose? Why is an organic universe doing this by way of valiant Earthlings, toward what great discovery and purpose?

The serial founder model of modern human origins predicts that the phylogeny of ancestries exhibits bifurcating, tree-like behavior. Here, we tested this prediction using three methods designed to investigate gene flow in autosome-wide genotype data from 3,528 unrelated individuals from 163 global samples. Specifically, we investigated whether Cushitic ancestry has an East African or Middle Eastern origin. We found evidence for non-tree-like behavior in the form of four migration events. First, we found that Cushitic ancestry is a mixture of ancestries closely related to Arabian ancestry and Nilo-Saharan or Omotic ancestry. We found evidence for additional migration events in the histories of: 1) Indian and Arabian ancestries, 2) Kalash ancestry, and 3) Native American and Northern European ancestries. These findings, based on analysis of ancestry of present-day humans, reveal migration in the distant past and provide new insights into human history. (Abstract)

Shriner, Daniel, et al. Genome-Wide Genotype and Sequence-Based Reconstruction of the 140,000 Year History of Modern Human Ancestry. Nature Scientific Reports. 4/6055, 2014. A National Human Genome Research Institute, Center for Research on Genomics and Global Health, team reports that these latest techniques capabilities can provide a unique, 21st century approach to understand how we peoples came to evolve and cover the earth.

We investigated ancestry of 3,528 modern humans from 163 samples. We identified 19 ancestral components, with 94.4% of individuals showing mixed ancestry. After using whole genome sequences to correct for ascertainment biases in genome-wide genotype data, we dated the oldest divergence event to 140,000 years ago. We detected an Out-of-Africa migration 100,000–87,000 years ago, leading to peoples of the Americas, east and north Asia, and Oceania, followed by another migration 61,000–44,000 years ago, leading to peoples of the Caucasus, Europe, the Middle East, and south Asia. We dated eight divergence events to 33,000–20,000 years ago, coincident with the Last Glacial Maximum. We refined understanding of the ancestry of several ethno-linguistic groups, including African Americans, Ethiopians, the Kalash, Latin Americans, Mozabites, Pygmies, and Uygurs, as well as the CEU sample. Ubiquity of mixed ancestry emphasizes the importance of accounting for ancestry in history, forensics, and health. (Abstract)

Smith, Daniel, et al. Cooperation and the Evolution of Hunter-Gatherer Storytelling. Nature Communications. 8/1853, 2017. A thirteen member effort from the University College London, Bristol Zoological Society, Cambridge University, and Lyceum of the Philippines University including Ruth Mace and Lucio Vinicius provide a unique appreciation of group narrations as they found to support reciprocal community welfare. See also Andrea Migliano for a companion paper by this group. But I add, as Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme’s 1992 The Universe Story, (for which I was a reader at TBs request), tried to broach, into these later 2010s our worldwide human/Earth community is terminally bereft of any sensible story which could serve this purpose and provide common global guidance.

From gathering around the camp-fire telling tales of ancestors to watching the latest television box-set, humans are inveterate producers and consumers of stories. Here we explore the impact of storytelling on hunter-gatherer cooperative behaviour and the individual-level fitness benefits to being a skilled storyteller. Stories told by the Agta, a Filipino hunter-gatherer population, convey messages relevant to coordinating behaviour in a foraging ecology, such as cooperation, sex equality and egalitarianism. These themes are present in narratives from other foraging societies. In return, skilled storytellers are preferred social partners and have greater reproductive success, providing a pathway by which group-beneficial behaviours can evolve via individual-level selection. (Abstract excerpts)

Stade, Cory and Clive Gamble. In Three Minds: Extending Cognitive Archaeology with the Social Brain. Overmann, Karenleigh and Frederick Coolidge, eds. Squeezing Minds from Stones. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. In this major volume reviewed herein, University of Southampton scholars (search CG) propose a triune cerebral emphasis of Rational, Experiential, and Relational functions. Altogether, they serve a materially based communal cognition (which might seen as left, right, and whole brain/mind phases). By another view, a member/group reciprocity, in some early ubuntu way, quite aids sustenance and survival.

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