[Laith (OP)]

Were the first humans in africa?

Laith

[neilep]

Yes, that's widely accepted as true !!...Though I don't feel human at all right now....*grrrr !..vents his angst in his confused distraught exhausted frazzled state*

From Wikipedia:

Habitat and population

   

The most widely accepted view among current anthropologists is that Homo sapiens originated in the African savanna between 200 and 250 thousand years ago, descending from Homo erectus, and colonized the Eurasia and Oceania by 40,000 years ago, and finally colonized the Americas by 10,000 years ago.[17] They displaced Homo neanderthalensis, Homo floresiensis and other species descended from Homo erectus (which had colonized Eurasia as early as 2 million years ago) through more successful reproduction and competition for resources.
Men are the same as women, just inside out !

[Laith (OP)]

Thanks Neil,
 how sure are we?

Laith

[neilep]

quote:Originally posted by Laith

Thanks Neil,
 how sure are we?

Laith

You're welcome Laith !

I'm not too sure of anything today !! []..

However, to answer your question...I'm pretty sure that we're pretty sure !!..There !!..hope that clears things up for you []

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humans

Men are the same as women, just inside out !

[Laith (OP)]

Thanks again Neil, I've known about it before and believed it too, but a lot of my (semi-religious) friends keep arguing with me,I assume because in some scripts Adam and Eve were born in Eden which is in Iraq,
so i needed to make sure again..

if your interested, the documentaries i saw about this are 'The Journey of Man' and'Guns, Germs, and Steel', the last one is based on the book, its very popular maybe you heard about it. i recommend downloading them


Laith

[neilep]

When people have such a staunch view because of religion they then offer no reason to be flexible, to them , it goes against doctrine which would then mean that they would have to re-evaluate their whole belief system.

They sound like great documentaries Laith.

Men are the same as women, just inside out !

[science_guy]

quote:When people have such a staunch view because of religion they then offer no reason to be flexible, to them , it goes against doctrine which would then mean that they would have to re-evaluate their whole belief system.

thats not always true.  The Cristian bible is full of metaphors and similes, of which can be taken for different meanings.  One reference that I know of who is very flexible is Dr. Hugh Ross, Ph.D., of whom you can find on just about any search engine.  

BTW, i hope this doesn't bias the good people of this forum, for revealing my religous beliefs, agaisnt my opinions.

E=MC2... m=deg/360 X C... C= PiD

therefore E=deg/360 X 2(PiD)

[neilep]

You're right of course Science Guy.......I should have said in the context of the opinions Laith has been receiving...but I think for the most part...fundamentalists...orthodox ,...or just people who are set in their religious beliefs....... are quite inlexible..

...In their eyes...they have no reason to consider an alternative.

Of course, there are Christians who would diagree with you ScienceGuy...they will interpret the meanings in the bible to fit in with their opinions....but..your point is valid and I thank you for making it.

Men are the same as women, just inside out !

[another_someone]

I am not arguing that we did not come from Africa, only, being the sceptical sort I am, I am not at all certain that it has been proven that the first humans came from Africa (although, without a doubt, the balance of evidence presently points that way).

Not actually sure that the Bible says very much about the geographic location of Eden, the myth itself probably originated in Persia or Mesopotamia.

What we have demonstrated is that the genetic lineage of humanity leads back to Africa, but there are many contradictions regarding that lineage, and it really does not adequately tell us when the first humans arrived, or who they were, and hence cannot really tell us where they were (except that if they were not in Africa, their ancestors almost certainly came from Africa).

I suspect that unless it would be possible to actually extract DNA from fossils of known date and location, there will remain many inadequately answered questions about our lineage.

George

[MunK]

errrr maybe a stupid question but.....is it widely accepted that we all evolved from the same place and time? i realise we have evolved over a long period of time but its just there are some really significant differences between some humans who have existed geographically quite close to each other for some time.  Sorry to go off on a tangent with this but you seem to know quite a bit about the subject.

Cheers

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by MunK
errrr maybe a stupid question but.....is it widely accepted that we all evolved from the same place and time? i realise we have evolved over a long period of time but its just there are some really significant differences between some humans who have existed geographically quite close to each other for some time.  Sorry to go off on a tangent with this but you seem to know quite a bit about the subject.

Who was it who said there is no such thing as a stupid question, only a stupid answer.

The variation is between human beings that have developed over thousands, and even hundreds of thousands of years is far less that the differences that have been bred between dogs over a mere few centuries (or, in fact, a good number of other domestic animals).

What is more of a question is not whether such diversity could have occurred over the given time (I suspect that it very easily could – but then, however much I may pontificate, I am not an expert), but rather whether there is detectable continuity from earlier hominid subspecies that occupied the same geographic regions from a time that pre-dates the explosion of modern humans, thus indicating that modern humans may have interbred with their immediate ancestors.

The dominant view is that no such interbreeding happened, but it is not a universal view.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiregional_hypothesis
http://www.geocities.com/palaeoanthropology/Multiregional.html
http://www.archaeologyinfo.com/homosapiens.htm
http://www.athenapub.com/8shea1.htm
http://karmak.org/archive/2003/01/westasia.htm

George

[gecko]

it depends on how strict you are about what is "human". our species is not quite the same as it was 200,000 years ago, 40,000 years ago, or even 1,000 years ago, changes are always taking place. but i do think the primates that could first be classified as our human species began in africa and moved outwards, dont the fossil records agree? if human habitats in africa are dated 200,000 years ago, in europe 40,000, and the americas 10,000, this would only logically follow.

what is human though? neanderthals are believed to have been able to, and maybe did, breed with our current species. i guess this doesnt mean they were the same species though, as ligers, wolf-dogs and muels exist because they are close enough genetically to breed but are still considered different species. but there are things to consider.

[another_someone]

quote:Originally posted by gecko
it depends on how strict you are about what is "human". our species is not quite the same as it was 200,000 years ago, 40,000 years ago, or even 1,000 years ago, changes are always taking place. but i do think the primates that could first be classified as our human species began in africa and moved outwards, dont the fossil records agree? if human habitats in africa are dated 200,000 years ago, in europe 40,000, and the americas 10,000, this would only logically follow.

As you say, it depends what you consider to be human.

I think it is uncontested by any mainstream evolutionist that all hominids originated in Africa.  The question is which hominid is the first human, and thus at which time did they leave Africa (unless one speculates that two proto-humans left Africa, interbred outside Africa, and thus bred the first true human – but such a theory is way outside anything that is currently mainstream).

quote:
what is human though? neanderthals are believed to have been able to, and maybe did, breed with our current species. i guess this doesnt mean they were the same species though, as ligers, wolf-dogs and muels exist because they are close enough genetically to breed but are still considered different species. but there are things to consider.

Not really good comparisons.

I am not saying that there are not many ambiguities in the definition of a species (just as there is ambiguity about what constitutes an organism), just that if you wished to find examples, these are not very good examples.

The point is that mules and ligers are both sterile.

The dog/wolf issue does mean that many people actually refuse to regard dogs and wolves as separate species.

George

[MayoFlyFarmer]

To answre laith's second question as to "how sure we are"  the answer is that where humanity originated is a scientific question (one of the science of acrchaeology) and is thus subject to the same certainty of any other scientific theory or hypothesis, that it is assumed to be right until it is proven wrong.  so until we find older human remains elsewhere in the world, that is where we believe humanity originated.

Are YOUR mice nude? []

[moonfire]

Hmmm, I thought I heard about some bones being discovered in Asia that was much older than the ones found in Africa...but that was some time ago...I will check some information to research it further.

"Lo" Loretta

[gecko]

anoth_some-

you do agree with me that what constitutes a species is debatable. you say ligers and muels are sterile, so theyre parent species are not the same species. i agree... i shouldnt have brought them up as examples.

if your definition of a species is "close enough genetically to interbreed, and produce fertile offspring" then wolves, coyotes, jackals, dingos, and domestic dogs are all the same species. as well, most bears with the exception of panda and sloth bears are the same species too.

which i agree with! so the question is still important as to wether neanderthals and homo sapiens couldve interbred and produced fertile offspring. if they could have, then neanderthals would, by this same reasoning, be the same species and the earliest humans. if their offspring was infertile, then they werent.

then again, this is the biological view of species, the more common today takes into account geographic region, diet, temperment, and other factors as well.