William wrote:

> On Thu, 17 Feb 2005 04:35:14 -0500, Keith Thomas <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> "A new study concludes that the earliest known humans appeared in
>> southern Ethiopia by about
>> 195,000 years ago, about 35,000 years earlier than previously thought,
>> based on what researchers
>> say are the oldest anatomically modern human fossils ever found.
>
>
> If I have it correctly, this implies that since they didn't find any
> human
> remains elsewhere, they don't exist.


Well, it says "earliest known humans," doesn't it?  So that's what it
implies, no more, no less.  If and when older anatomically modern
fossils are found elsewhere, then the thesis will have to be revised.

This discovery converges with mitochondrial DNA studies, according to
which the human species is about 225,000 years old.  Prior to this
discovery, the oldest anatomically human fossils were just 160,000 years
old.  So the gap between the two lines of evidence has narrowed quite a
bit.  And as the article points out, the "great leap forward" that took
place about 50,000 years ago (I'd always heard 40,000) remains
unexplained.  Pretty interesting stuff.

Todd Moody
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