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Published online 11 March 2009 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2009.149
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Peking Man older than thought
Classic Homo erectus fossils in Zhoukoudian caves are more than 700,000 years old.
Researchers have sifted the sands of time to show that Homo erectus lived at China's most famous anthropology site at least 250,000 years earlier than was thought.
The new date means that this early human ancestor â€" the first lineage to migrate out of Africa â€" prospered in an earlier, colder climate, and its physical development in China matched that in Africa, where the species first evolved.
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An alternative view on human origin and evolution may be that human beings are descendants of different pre-human species already dispersed in the different parts of the world rather than offspring of a common human ancestor located in Africa (see details at http://im1.biz/albums/userpics/10001/P2007V2N2A6_HumanEvolution.htm or http://im1.biz/albums/userpics/10001/P2007V2N2A6_HumanEvolution.pdf). This view is based on a fundamentally different view of life origin and evolution which claims that cellular life forms were descendants of already diversified acellular life forms.(see details at http://im1.biz/albums/userpics/10001/P2008V3N1A4_Evolution.htm or PDF (http://im1.biz/albums/userpics/10001/P2008V3N1A4_Evolution.pdf. That view is in sharp contrast to the Darwinian view on origin and evolution of life (see details at http://im1.biz/displayimage.php?album=19&pos=4 ). Shi V. Liu (http://im1.biz and http://blog.sina.com.cn/im1 )
Out of Africa is a politically motivated theory being pushed for long term benefits of certain people and the Black-African nations are being taken for a ride. Even if we dig the whole planet and find the oldest fossil of Homo sapiens, we can only conclude that this is the oldest fossil we know of but not the first Homo sapiens. Even a layman can figure this out. Thus out of Africa is a bankrupt theory.
Déjà vu? The original ?Peking Man,? was found during excavations in China which had started in the early 1920?s. The first evidence for the Peking man was two human-similar molars. Later, a lower jaw and several teeth and skull fragments were later discovered in November 1928. The original study on the Peking Man fossils was performed by anatomist Davidson Black who thought the specimens belonged to a new human species and gives them the name Sinanthropus pekinensis. Black published the findings in the journal Nature. The discovery garnered international attention and the support of the Rockefeller Foundation for continued exploration. Over the next several years, more than forty fossil specimens including six nearly complete skullcaps were uncovered. While being shipped to the United States in 1941 for safety during World War II, the original fossils disappeared. Today, only the casts and descriptions remain. While originally thought to be a missing link, after critical analysis the ?Peking Man,? like the ?Java Man,? is now classified as Homo erectus ? a distinct species, with no known link to man. Drawing conclusions on the origins of man with limited evidence can be a tricky business. N 2001, Henry Gee, senior science writer of the leading British journal, Nature, concedes that the origin of man remains a mystery and cautioned against the routine use of scant evidence to draw conclusion writes ? ?Given that bones and teeth are, for practical purposes, all there is to go on, uncertainty is likely to reign for some time, leaving the nature of the latest common ancestor?and the general course of early hominid evolution?as mysterious as ever.? Déjà vu? Richard William Nelson @ www.DarwinThenAndNow.com
770,000 years puts it at a similar age to the puzzling Australasian Tekite cosmic impact event that would have caused global climate disturbance. http://users.tpg.com.au/horsts/climate.htm
If I were an evolutionist, I would await DNA isolation and analysis of the FOXP2 gene of Homo erectus. This will prove compelling evidence if it is human or ape. The FOXP2 gene already provided the evidence Neandertal people were fully human. Peter Borger
250 thousand years older? How was the first measurement done? With a thermometer?