The religious impulse has been with man since at least the beginnings of language. Monotheistic conceptions of the sacred and divine have come to dominate humanity's consciousness and practices at large. Prior to monotheistic and particularly Judeo-Christian hegemony, the diverse cultures and peoples of the human race acknowledged many gods and goddesses and other beings of supernatural power. This is not a revelation, of course, but I think it is not as commonly known or understood as many imagine.
For the overwhelming majority of the history of religion, human conceptions of the sacred have been by all accounts shamanistic, animistic, nature-centered, polytheistic, pantheistic, and quite frankly, in a word, magical. One might look to the ancient Celts, the Germanic and Norse pagans, the Sumerians, the Slavs, or any number of indigenous peoples from the Amazonian rainforest to the wide Siberian tundra--all such peoples venerated nature as a living creative force and all measured their being in relation to the cosmos. The monotheistic notion that sets a single and all-powerful (almost invariably male) God at the crown and source of creation--this was alien to the understanding of most of the peoples on the planet for literally tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of years. To believe their worldview and cosmology to be the naive and misguided product of savage ignorance or pagan superstition was as inconceivable to their minds as the sense and reality of their views have come to be seen by the majority of humans who walk in the world today.
To see this proven relativity of religious conceptions among the diverse peoples of the world both in the current and ancient worlds is the privilege of an anthropologically and historically trained mind. There is in fact nothing at first glance obvious about this relativity of religious perspective. For the mind and view of the monotheistic believer, any alternative religion must seem not only strange and other but wrong and in need of rectification and conversion. Indeed, it is due to the fervent missionary activities of the past two thousand years that such pre-Christian pagan and magical worldviews have been suppressed and silenced when not outright destroyed. Much of what has survived of the worldview and cosmology of the ancient, pre-Christian world has come to us through oral tradition and what scholars have come to call "folklore." In addition, it should be noted that a significant part of this cultural recovery process has the painstaking work of scholars and particularly philologists and literary historians to thank for it.[1] Much as is the case in the matter of anthropologists who have worked to "salvage" what they could of the dying languages and folkways of the Native Americans (and other aboriginal and First-Nations peoples), so too in the realm of folkloric research has much of what otherwise would surely have disappeared forever been preserved and passed on in some (albeit less than culturally pure) capacity. Storytelling traditions, too, have played their part in keeping some meaningful sense of the ancient worldviews, religions, and cosmological conceptions alive.
The origin of language is thus intimately and inextricably tied to the origin of religion, and to any and all conceptions of the sacred and divine. This, in short, is very largely why storytelling is of such ancient and vital and perennial importance, particularly at the level of myth and ritual, which are the most ancient and universal origins for any storytelling tradition proper. Storytelling and religious ritual are and have always been part and parcel of the human experience, and arguably the most sacred and vital of human symbolic expression.
Notes
[1] It is also very much the case that so much of the knowledge that has been preserved over the past two thousand years, both literate and oral traditions, has the painstaking work of scribes and monks, a great many Catholic, to thank for it. The history of religion, and all history, is by no means a simple or uncomplicated, one-dimensional matter. Politics is one thing, scholarship is always tuned to other purposes, particularly when the prime motivation is the search for understanding and the preservation of knowledge, wheresoever discovered.
Tuesday, August 27, 2019
Saturday, August 24, 2019
The Writer's Call and Covenant
A writer, if he has anything of true value to communicate, will write not so much from an act of personal choice (though it is, certainly, a choice). He will write because he must, because he observes and honors a calling.
The writer's calling is nothing less than a covenant of the soul. This is not hyperbole or self-aggrandizement; it is a vital existential and cosmic truth. To ignore the calling or to refuse the charge that is placed upon the writer is simply at the point of true recognition an impossibility. The writer must write. He must find a way to communicate the vision and understanding of the life he has known, the insight earned and entrusted to him. For writing, as any vocation, is indeed a truth and a trust. Perhaps he will speak to the whole of humanity. Perhaps he will speak to an audience of few or of one. But if he is true to his vision and vocation, he will take up the mantle and write.
To write is not simply to exercise the crafting of words (however rhetorically or artistically practiced). Less so is it pure "self-expression." To write, as a writer, is to give truth to the voice and the vision of the soul. So it is with painting. So it is with music. So it is with dance. Writing is a matter of necessity. It is a creative act of acceptance and surrender. It is not conceived in the womb of contingency, governed by the tides of chance.
The recognition of the writer's call and covenant--this, and this alone, is the moment of the birth of the word. The rest is revision, a fine-tuning of the music first heard in the depths of the stillness of the soul.
The writer's calling is nothing less than a covenant of the soul. This is not hyperbole or self-aggrandizement; it is a vital existential and cosmic truth. To ignore the calling or to refuse the charge that is placed upon the writer is simply at the point of true recognition an impossibility. The writer must write. He must find a way to communicate the vision and understanding of the life he has known, the insight earned and entrusted to him. For writing, as any vocation, is indeed a truth and a trust. Perhaps he will speak to the whole of humanity. Perhaps he will speak to an audience of few or of one. But if he is true to his vision and vocation, he will take up the mantle and write.
To write is not simply to exercise the crafting of words (however rhetorically or artistically practiced). Less so is it pure "self-expression." To write, as a writer, is to give truth to the voice and the vision of the soul. So it is with painting. So it is with music. So it is with dance. Writing is a matter of necessity. It is a creative act of acceptance and surrender. It is not conceived in the womb of contingency, governed by the tides of chance.
The recognition of the writer's call and covenant--this, and this alone, is the moment of the birth of the word. The rest is revision, a fine-tuning of the music first heard in the depths of the stillness of the soul.
Tuesday, June 18, 2019
The Unbearable Lightness of Awkward Analogies
I don't know if I'm to make this a regular thing, but there is another thought posted at Wordsmith.org to which I thought I might attempt a sensible contribution. Today there is a thought from Roger Ebert, who, though presumably valiant in intention, draws an at least inaccurate moral equivalence between a justification for capital punishment and acceptance of the Holocaust. I think he goes a step too far. I explain why below.
Re: A Thought for Today, 6/18/19 (Wordsmith.org)
"The ability of so many people to live comfortably with the idea of capital punishment is perhaps a clue to how so many Europeans were able to live with the idea of the Holocaust: Once you accept the notion that the state has the right to kill someone and the right to define what is a capital crime, aren't you halfway there?" -Roger Ebert, film-critic (18 Jun 1942-2013)
Regardless of the degree to which "so many Europeans" were or were not okay with the Holocaust (a debatable point), an absolutely critical distinction to be drawn between capital punishment (as a matter of law and principle) and the state-sanctioned, systematic extermination of the Jewish people (as a total act of genocide) is that in the former case there is the understanding of a crime committed by an individual (presuming of course actual guilt), the retribution for which is execution. In the case of the Holocaust, the "crime" so regarded was an "infection" of the gene pool and body politic by those of Hebrew extraction and Judaic faith. Humanity at large has rightly come to see the Holocaust for the inhuman and insane horror that it was. A crime against humanity, and of the highest and sickest order, to be sure; but it was an organized genocide born in hate and fear and advanced by a propagandistically conditioned and socially anchored ethos (not simply by the authoritarian order of a thoroughly depraved man, i.e. Hitler).
Capital punishment, whatever one's position on this very complex moral issue, would not in any responsible evaluation be so analogously (and causally) linked to the genocide of the Holocaust. To justify capital punishment, whether as a general principle or restricted to a specific case, is by no means to breach the slippery slope toward Auschwitz and Dachau. "Halfway there," the film critic says. I think we are rather in a different moral universe--at least a different country of concern. (This itself being an unsettling analogy or awkward link in the larger semantic chain.)
Re: A Thought for Today, 6/18/19 (Wordsmith.org)
"The ability of so many people to live comfortably with the idea of capital punishment is perhaps a clue to how so many Europeans were able to live with the idea of the Holocaust: Once you accept the notion that the state has the right to kill someone and the right to define what is a capital crime, aren't you halfway there?" -Roger Ebert, film-critic (18 Jun 1942-2013)
Regardless of the degree to which "so many Europeans" were or were not okay with the Holocaust (a debatable point), an absolutely critical distinction to be drawn between capital punishment (as a matter of law and principle) and the state-sanctioned, systematic extermination of the Jewish people (as a total act of genocide) is that in the former case there is the understanding of a crime committed by an individual (presuming of course actual guilt), the retribution for which is execution. In the case of the Holocaust, the "crime" so regarded was an "infection" of the gene pool and body politic by those of Hebrew extraction and Judaic faith. Humanity at large has rightly come to see the Holocaust for the inhuman and insane horror that it was. A crime against humanity, and of the highest and sickest order, to be sure; but it was an organized genocide born in hate and fear and advanced by a propagandistically conditioned and socially anchored ethos (not simply by the authoritarian order of a thoroughly depraved man, i.e. Hitler).
Capital punishment, whatever one's position on this very complex moral issue, would not in any responsible evaluation be so analogously (and causally) linked to the genocide of the Holocaust. To justify capital punishment, whether as a general principle or restricted to a specific case, is by no means to breach the slippery slope toward Auschwitz and Dachau. "Halfway there," the film critic says. I think we are rather in a different moral universe--at least a different country of concern. (This itself being an unsettling analogy or awkward link in the larger semantic chain.)
Monday, June 17, 2019
Human Cultural Diversity and the Vision of the "World Community"
Re: A Thought for Today, 6/17/19 (wordsmith.org):
The ultimate sense of security will be when we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race. Our primary allegiance is to the human race and not to one particular color or border. I think the sooner we renounce the sanctity of these many identities and try to identify ourselves with the human race the sooner we will get a better world and a safer world. -Mohamed ElBaradei, diplomat, Nobel laureate (b. 17 Jun 1942)
A noble thought. The thing is, humans are cultural beings. Tribal identity is woven into the core of the DNA. Tribal bonds as such are not destructive nor should they be entirely discouraged in the name of some transnational, supra-human identity. The notion that, deep down, "we are all one" may sound nice and foster warm and fuzzy feelings, but in point of fact we are not all one: there is much diversity in terms of culture and language and worldview, and despite many of the popular ideas about human origins, the fact is that there is much diversity at the genetic level as well.
"Ethnic diversity" is not an empty phrase, and "culture" is infinitely more than a convenient social construct. Any real and meaningful effort to promote a unifying vision around which to structure human action will need to take much more seriously into account the anthropological questions, which have everything to do with cultural identity, language, tradition, and worldview. It will do no humanist vision any favors to advocate that "we renounce the sanctity of these many identities." These many identities have been forged and fostered over thousands if not millions of years. All people who identify with a certain cultural or tribal identity are not simply prepared to "renounce" that identity in favor of some abstract affiliation that we call "the human race." What, really, is all that to be taken to mean, anyway? I am not so sure that many who advocate this have any clear or definite idea in mind. It is all well to seek to find commonalities and points of connection, and I am all for cross-cultural human cooperation in the interest of productive and peaceful outcomes. I am less than confident that such purposes can be realized by minimizing cultural differences or renouncing identities that have been in gestation since humans first learned to come together in the first place (which, again, had everything to do with cultural bonds, language, religion, and all the rest of it).
What's the solution, then? I think the start of a solution is to understand the problem of human conflict as a fundamentally anthropological problem, at the core of which remains the matter of culture. Margaret Mead has addressed this matter to some productive purpose throughout her writings and in clear, digestible summary in her essay on 'World Culture' (1947). [The essay is included in Anthropology: A Human Science. Selected Papers 1939-1960, pp. 134-45.] Mead in her summary observes the following:
"In summary it may be said that world community seems more likely to be attained by working toward certain over-all abstract and inclusive values, within which the different people of the world, who now see one another as separate, competitive, or unrelated, will be able to feel themselves a part, the cultures of each regularly related to the whole to which all give allegiance in different ways congruent with their own cultural values. Thus we would be working toward the type of multi-dimensional world culture, within which there would be interdependence of diverse values rather than a world in which any one interest or function so dominated the others that single value scales, competition, and destruction were the concomitants." (Mead 1964: 144.)
Key to Mead's analysis here is the notion of a "multi-dimensional world culture," that is, one in which the diversity and plurality of cultures is preserved though participatorily structured toward a common culture and a common goal. Such a common culture we can call "the human race," or something more semantically refined, but the common goal has got to be something higher and more inspiring than the zero-sum game of material acquisition and the maximization of all possible sources of wealth. Yes, economic vitality is and always has been crucial to survival. It is also the case that sustainability and ecological integrity are vital, for the survival of all life on any planet. The humans on planet Earth, by any reasonably honest assessment, face many points of needed improvements in all these areas of interest. An ecological ethic will of necessity guide future human actions and all cultural configurations. Failing this, all notions of "humanity" will be rendered null and void and tragically absurd.
Humans need now more than ever new visions for their humanity and place on the planet, not vague notions about how they are all "connected" or "related." What kinds of models can inspire the forces of action and the change of vision that will be needed? The kinds of models that place "culture" in the foreground, not those that try to minimize its importance or relegate its value to the dustbin of history. Culture has always united human action (for better or worse). At this most critical evolutionary juncture, culture and culture reenvisioned alone will prove the species' salvation. Or its doom.
Part of the reason for recognizing the importance of cultural diversity (rather than renouncing all traditional tribal allegiances and identities) is that there is much that many cultures, and many all but unknown, or little known, can potentially contribute toward the fostering of the environmental ethic and the expansion of vision that alone will ensure our survival as a species and connect us all to a higher and more inclusive picture of humanity. Without their critical cultural knowledge, to say nothing of their natural ability to make others reflect relatively on the merits of their own, we are left with singleminded conceptions for the structuring of human interests and for moving the species forward (and not always in the most profitable, or sanest, of directions). This 'totalizing' impulse, to consume and subsume, has resulted in no shortage of human conflict and suffering. One is right to be wary of all calls, however grand, for a 'unification' of all cultures and ways of living. Few proposals have promised so much good yet yielded so much destruction to cultures in the name of "a common humanity."
It is a very good and even necessary thing that other cultures exist, that other thought patterns and concepts of living obtain, and remain. And every one of them has much indeed to teach and learn from one another about the ways to live and think and see, to express and experience their humanity. To get us all to "a better world and a safer world," we might start by learning a bit more about that larger world, the world that exists quite independently from our own limited view of it.
The ultimate sense of security will be when we come to recognize that we are all part of one human race. Our primary allegiance is to the human race and not to one particular color or border. I think the sooner we renounce the sanctity of these many identities and try to identify ourselves with the human race the sooner we will get a better world and a safer world. -Mohamed ElBaradei, diplomat, Nobel laureate (b. 17 Jun 1942)
A noble thought. The thing is, humans are cultural beings. Tribal identity is woven into the core of the DNA. Tribal bonds as such are not destructive nor should they be entirely discouraged in the name of some transnational, supra-human identity. The notion that, deep down, "we are all one" may sound nice and foster warm and fuzzy feelings, but in point of fact we are not all one: there is much diversity in terms of culture and language and worldview, and despite many of the popular ideas about human origins, the fact is that there is much diversity at the genetic level as well.
"Ethnic diversity" is not an empty phrase, and "culture" is infinitely more than a convenient social construct. Any real and meaningful effort to promote a unifying vision around which to structure human action will need to take much more seriously into account the anthropological questions, which have everything to do with cultural identity, language, tradition, and worldview. It will do no humanist vision any favors to advocate that "we renounce the sanctity of these many identities." These many identities have been forged and fostered over thousands if not millions of years. All people who identify with a certain cultural or tribal identity are not simply prepared to "renounce" that identity in favor of some abstract affiliation that we call "the human race." What, really, is all that to be taken to mean, anyway? I am not so sure that many who advocate this have any clear or definite idea in mind. It is all well to seek to find commonalities and points of connection, and I am all for cross-cultural human cooperation in the interest of productive and peaceful outcomes. I am less than confident that such purposes can be realized by minimizing cultural differences or renouncing identities that have been in gestation since humans first learned to come together in the first place (which, again, had everything to do with cultural bonds, language, religion, and all the rest of it).
What's the solution, then? I think the start of a solution is to understand the problem of human conflict as a fundamentally anthropological problem, at the core of which remains the matter of culture. Margaret Mead has addressed this matter to some productive purpose throughout her writings and in clear, digestible summary in her essay on 'World Culture' (1947). [The essay is included in Anthropology: A Human Science. Selected Papers 1939-1960, pp. 134-45.] Mead in her summary observes the following:
"In summary it may be said that world community seems more likely to be attained by working toward certain over-all abstract and inclusive values, within which the different people of the world, who now see one another as separate, competitive, or unrelated, will be able to feel themselves a part, the cultures of each regularly related to the whole to which all give allegiance in different ways congruent with their own cultural values. Thus we would be working toward the type of multi-dimensional world culture, within which there would be interdependence of diverse values rather than a world in which any one interest or function so dominated the others that single value scales, competition, and destruction were the concomitants." (Mead 1964: 144.)
Key to Mead's analysis here is the notion of a "multi-dimensional world culture," that is, one in which the diversity and plurality of cultures is preserved though participatorily structured toward a common culture and a common goal. Such a common culture we can call "the human race," or something more semantically refined, but the common goal has got to be something higher and more inspiring than the zero-sum game of material acquisition and the maximization of all possible sources of wealth. Yes, economic vitality is and always has been crucial to survival. It is also the case that sustainability and ecological integrity are vital, for the survival of all life on any planet. The humans on planet Earth, by any reasonably honest assessment, face many points of needed improvements in all these areas of interest. An ecological ethic will of necessity guide future human actions and all cultural configurations. Failing this, all notions of "humanity" will be rendered null and void and tragically absurd.
Humans need now more than ever new visions for their humanity and place on the planet, not vague notions about how they are all "connected" or "related." What kinds of models can inspire the forces of action and the change of vision that will be needed? The kinds of models that place "culture" in the foreground, not those that try to minimize its importance or relegate its value to the dustbin of history. Culture has always united human action (for better or worse). At this most critical evolutionary juncture, culture and culture reenvisioned alone will prove the species' salvation. Or its doom.
Part of the reason for recognizing the importance of cultural diversity (rather than renouncing all traditional tribal allegiances and identities) is that there is much that many cultures, and many all but unknown, or little known, can potentially contribute toward the fostering of the environmental ethic and the expansion of vision that alone will ensure our survival as a species and connect us all to a higher and more inclusive picture of humanity. Without their critical cultural knowledge, to say nothing of their natural ability to make others reflect relatively on the merits of their own, we are left with singleminded conceptions for the structuring of human interests and for moving the species forward (and not always in the most profitable, or sanest, of directions). This 'totalizing' impulse, to consume and subsume, has resulted in no shortage of human conflict and suffering. One is right to be wary of all calls, however grand, for a 'unification' of all cultures and ways of living. Few proposals have promised so much good yet yielded so much destruction to cultures in the name of "a common humanity."
It is a very good and even necessary thing that other cultures exist, that other thought patterns and concepts of living obtain, and remain. And every one of them has much indeed to teach and learn from one another about the ways to live and think and see, to express and experience their humanity. To get us all to "a better world and a safer world," we might start by learning a bit more about that larger world, the world that exists quite independently from our own limited view of it.
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Human Origins
Recently, I came across a debate in an NPR comments forum about the origins of modern humans in the African continent. Predictably, the debate got a bit heated. For what it's worth, here is a summary of (some) key data in the paleontological, archaeological, and molecular genetics records.
I.) Ian Tattersall (2009) reviews the literature in a relatively short and quite readable article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS). Key points:
i.) In his section on Fossil Record of H. Sapiens, Tattersall writes:
Relevant references cited in the previous paragraph are:
(23) McDougall I, Brown FH, Fleagle JG (2005) Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia. Nature 433:733–736.
(24) White TD, et al. (2003) Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia. Nature 423:742–747.
(25) Bräuer G (1984) in The Origins of Modern Humans: A World Survey of the Fossil Evidence, eds Smith F, Spencer F (Alan R. Liss, New York), pp 327–410.
(26) Stringer CB, Andrews P (1988) Genetic and fossil evidence for the origin of modern humans. Science 239:1263–1268.
(27) Wolpoff MH, Wu X, Thorne AG (1984) in The Origins of Modern Humans: A World Survey of the Fossil Evidence, eds Smith F, Spencer F (Alan R. Liss, New York), pp 411–483.
(28) Cann RL, Stoneking M, Wilson AC (1987) Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution. Nature 325:31–36.
(29) Stoneking M, Sherry ST, Redd AJ, Vigilant L (1993) New approaches to dating suggest a recent age for the human mtDNA ancestor. Phil Trans R Soc Lond Ser B 337:167–175.
(30) Nei M, Roychoudhury AK (1974) Genic variation within and between the three major races of man, Caucasoids, Negroids and Mongoloids. Am J Hum Genet 26:421–443.
There is much data to be examined in these and other studies. I do find the data compelling for an Africa origination of the genus homo. I am not entirely convinced that all existing modern human variations can be traced precisely and linearily straight back to Africa. Data from such regions as Denisova Cave in Siberia (see below) suggest at the least a more complicated map in the human evolutionary landscape.
Main Source:
Tattersal, Ian. 2009. Human origins: Out of Africa. PNAS 106.38. Web. http://www.pnas.org/content/106/38/16018.full
II.) DNA and Denisova Cave
Paleontological evidence from bone and teeth fragments at Denisova Cave in Siberia point to clear human habitation in the region more than 110,000 years ago. These humans may have
originated from a line millions of years back in the African continent (they also may have evolved independently), but it is clear that along with Neanderthals in Europe and Western Asia, humans in Denisova Cave and surrounding regions had little directly to do with Africa and evidently had sufficient time to adapt to the harsh climate of Siberia. In any case, paleontologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, molecular biologists, and geneticists will have their hands full, certainly, with clarifying these connections with the African evolution and migration hypotheses.
Note: This does not in any way deny African origins. This is clear. What is not entirely clear, and not entirely supported in a uniform and uncomplicated fashion, is whether or not there may have been additional lines of the human lineage that evolved concurrently if not independently from those migrating directly out of Africa. I do not think that the evidence supports an Asian origin for the homo genus. (Tattersal's review is fairly compelling and reasonably presented.) What may be true, however, is that human genetic diversity is greater than previously supposed and that at least some of this diversity can be attributed to independently evolved or at least divergent evolutionary lines.
Sources:
Gruber, Karl. 2013. 'Discovery of Oldest DNA Scrambles Human Origins Picture.' National Geographic. Dec. 5. Web. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131204-human-fossil-dna-spain-denisovan-cave/
(2) Reich David, Richard E. Green, et al. 2010. Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia. Nature 468: 1053-1060. Web. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7327/full/nature09710.html?pagewanted=all
See especially remarks in Reich et al.'s (2010) conclusion:
(4) Wong, Kate. 2010. 'No Bones about It: Ancient DNA from Siberia Hints at Previously Unknown Human Relative'. Scientific American. March 24. Web. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-hominin-species/
(5) Zimmer, Carl. 2015. 'In a Tooth, DNA from Some Very Old Cousins, the Denisovans'. The New York Times. Nov. 16. Web. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/science/in-a-tooth-dna-from-some-very-old-cousins-the-denisovans.html
III.) All of this potentially lends additional support to the multiregional hypothesis advanced by Wolpoff et al.
See e.g.:
Wolpoff, MH, J Hawks, R Caspari. 2000. Multiregional, not multiple origins. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 112.1. Web. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1096-8644(200005)112:1%3C129::AID-AJPA11%3E3.0.CO;2-K/abstract;jsessionid=AEDE8E9DCCF524C833B1FAFABB821EB7.f01t03
Wolpoff, MH, SH Lee. 2003. The pattern of evolution in Pleistocene human brain size. Paleobiology 29.2: 186-96. Web. http://paleobiol.geoscienceworld.org/content/29/2/186.abstract
From all of this data, I conclude the following:
A.) Humans originated in Africa, barring any discoveries of fossils in Asia or other regions that can be dated back 2 million years or more. (Note: This eventuality cannot be entirely ruled out at this point. There is much potential fossil evidence that might be recovered in Siberia and other regional topographies.)
B.) However, it may be reasonable to speak in terms of diverging evolutionary lines in the homo genus, not necessarily traced in a direct lineation to Africa (except in the sense of ultimate origin for Hominidae, >6 million years ago). This is suggested by Neanderthal lines as well as by more recent discoveries at Denisova Cave (clear, established human habitation in Siberia ca. 110,000 years ago).
C.) Therefore, to suggest that all humans are "100% African" in their origins is simply not accurate and there is much indeed that we do not yet know or understand about the complexity and diversity of the human condition, biologically, genetically, anatomically, or otherwise. Additional fossils will likely be unearthed, data examined, and theories will, or at least should, evolve.
I.) Ian Tattersall (2009) reviews the literature in a relatively short and quite readable article in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States (PNAS). Key points:
i.) In his section on Fossil Record of H. Sapiens, Tattersall writes:
How and where, then, were the distinctive features of H. sapiens acquired? The relevant fossil record is fairly thin, but it does firmly establish that as an anatomically recognizable entity our species made its first appearance in Africa (23, 24). The “Out of Africa” hypothesis of modern human origins emerged in the mid-1980s, when paleoanthropologists such as Günter Bräuer in Germany (e.g., ref. 25) and Chris Stringer in the U.K. (e.g., ref. 26) began to point out that, sparse as they were, the earliest fossils that resembled members of our species came from southern and eastern Africa. The resultant notion of a “single African origin” for modern humans stood in contrast to “multiregional” interpretations, in which the major modern geographical groups of H. sapiens were seen as having extremely deep roots in time (27). The single African origin notion received an enormous boost from molecular systematics when DNA comparisons (28, 29) began strongly supporting earlier conclusions based on proteins (30) that Africa had been the ultimate source of modern human populations worldwide. Over the last quarter-century, evidence on both the molecular and the fossil fronts has accumulated to the point where there can be little doubt that humankind ultimately originated in Africa.ii.) "Beyond this, however," Tattersall continues, "the picture is a little hazy":
To some extent, the perspective is complicated by context, for although Homo neanderthalensis, for example, was clearly a member of a larger clade of species united by a suite of readily identifiable characters, the distinctive H. sapiens is largely isolated, bereft of evident close fossil relatives. This isolation was obscured for many years by paleoanthropologists' habit of designating as “archaic H. sapiens” a very motley assortment of relatively large-brained hominids that are geologically fairly recent, but that are clearly not of modern H. sapiens morphology. In Africa, fossils assigned at one time or another to this meaningless wastebasket taxon include the very distinctive crania from Ngaloba, Ndutu, Kabwe, Florisbad and Jebel Irhoud. In blurring the very clear morphological boundaries of our living species the artificial construct of “archaic H. sapiens” served to obscure a picture of considerable morphological and presumably also taxonomic hominid complexity in the later Pleistocene, and it is fortunate that most paleoanthropologists seem now to have recognized its counterproductive nature.Fair enough, so far as it goes. However, the evolutionary picture is further complicated by more recent discoveries in regions such as Denisova Cave in Siberia. (See subheading 2, below.)
Relevant references cited in the previous paragraph are:
(23) McDougall I, Brown FH, Fleagle JG (2005) Stratigraphic placement and age of modern humans from Kibish, Ethiopia. Nature 433:733–736.
(24) White TD, et al. (2003) Pleistocene Homo sapiens from Middle Awash, Ethiopia. Nature 423:742–747.
(25) Bräuer G (1984) in The Origins of Modern Humans: A World Survey of the Fossil Evidence, eds Smith F, Spencer F (Alan R. Liss, New York), pp 327–410.
(26) Stringer CB, Andrews P (1988) Genetic and fossil evidence for the origin of modern humans. Science 239:1263–1268.
(27) Wolpoff MH, Wu X, Thorne AG (1984) in The Origins of Modern Humans: A World Survey of the Fossil Evidence, eds Smith F, Spencer F (Alan R. Liss, New York), pp 411–483.
(28) Cann RL, Stoneking M, Wilson AC (1987) Mitochondrial DNA and human evolution. Nature 325:31–36.
(29) Stoneking M, Sherry ST, Redd AJ, Vigilant L (1993) New approaches to dating suggest a recent age for the human mtDNA ancestor. Phil Trans R Soc Lond Ser B 337:167–175.
(30) Nei M, Roychoudhury AK (1974) Genic variation within and between the three major races of man, Caucasoids, Negroids and Mongoloids. Am J Hum Genet 26:421–443.
There is much data to be examined in these and other studies. I do find the data compelling for an Africa origination of the genus homo. I am not entirely convinced that all existing modern human variations can be traced precisely and linearily straight back to Africa. Data from such regions as Denisova Cave in Siberia (see below) suggest at the least a more complicated map in the human evolutionary landscape.
Main Source:
Tattersal, Ian. 2009. Human origins: Out of Africa. PNAS 106.38. Web. http://www.pnas.org/content/106/38/16018.full
II.) DNA and Denisova Cave
Paleontological evidence from bone and teeth fragments at Denisova Cave in Siberia point to clear human habitation in the region more than 110,000 years ago. These humans may have
originated from a line millions of years back in the African continent (they also may have evolved independently), but it is clear that along with Neanderthals in Europe and Western Asia, humans in Denisova Cave and surrounding regions had little directly to do with Africa and evidently had sufficient time to adapt to the harsh climate of Siberia. In any case, paleontologists, anthropologists, archaeologists, molecular biologists, and geneticists will have their hands full, certainly, with clarifying these connections with the African evolution and migration hypotheses.
Note: This does not in any way deny African origins. This is clear. What is not entirely clear, and not entirely supported in a uniform and uncomplicated fashion, is whether or not there may have been additional lines of the human lineage that evolved concurrently if not independently from those migrating directly out of Africa. I do not think that the evidence supports an Asian origin for the homo genus. (Tattersal's review is fairly compelling and reasonably presented.) What may be true, however, is that human genetic diversity is greater than previously supposed and that at least some of this diversity can be attributed to independently evolved or at least divergent evolutionary lines.
Sources:
Gruber, Karl. 2013. 'Discovery of Oldest DNA Scrambles Human Origins Picture.' National Geographic. Dec. 5. Web. http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/12/131204-human-fossil-dna-spain-denisovan-cave/
(2) Reich David, Richard E. Green, et al. 2010. Genetic history of an archaic hominin group from Denisova Cave in Siberia. Nature 468: 1053-1060. Web. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v468/n7327/full/nature09710.html?pagewanted=all
See especially remarks in Reich et al.'s (2010) conclusion:
The Denisova individual belongs to a hominin group that shares a common ancestor with Neanderthals but has a distinct population history. We define this group based on genomic evidence and call it Denisovans, but refrain from any formal Linnaean taxonomic designations that would indicate species or subspecies status for either Neanderthals or Denisovans. In our view, these results show that on the Eurasian mainland there existed at least two forms of archaic hominins in the Upper Pleistocene: a western Eurasian form with morphological features that are commonly used to define them as Neanderthals, and an eastern form to which the Denisova individuals belong. In the future, when more complete genomes from these and other archaic hominins will be sequenced from remains that allow more morphological features to assessed, their relationships will become even better understood. This will be an important endeavour as the emerging picture of Upper Pleistocene hominin evolution is one in which gene flow among different hominin groups was common.(3) Sawyer, Susanna, Gabriel Renaud, et al. 2015. Nuclear and mitochondrial DNA sequences from two Denisovan individuals. PNAS 112.51. Web. http://www.pnas.org/content/112/51/15696
(4) Wong, Kate. 2010. 'No Bones about It: Ancient DNA from Siberia Hints at Previously Unknown Human Relative'. Scientific American. March 24. Web. http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-hominin-species/
(5) Zimmer, Carl. 2015. 'In a Tooth, DNA from Some Very Old Cousins, the Denisovans'. The New York Times. Nov. 16. Web. http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/17/science/in-a-tooth-dna-from-some-very-old-cousins-the-denisovans.html
III.) All of this potentially lends additional support to the multiregional hypothesis advanced by Wolpoff et al.
See e.g.:
Wolpoff, MH, J Hawks, R Caspari. 2000. Multiregional, not multiple origins. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 112.1. Web. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/(SICI)1096-8644(200005)112:1%3C129::AID-AJPA11%3E3.0.CO;2-K/abstract;jsessionid=AEDE8E9DCCF524C833B1FAFABB821EB7.f01t03
Wolpoff, MH, SH Lee. 2003. The pattern of evolution in Pleistocene human brain size. Paleobiology 29.2: 186-96. Web. http://paleobiol.geoscienceworld.org/content/29/2/186.abstract
From all of this data, I conclude the following:
A.) Humans originated in Africa, barring any discoveries of fossils in Asia or other regions that can be dated back 2 million years or more. (Note: This eventuality cannot be entirely ruled out at this point. There is much potential fossil evidence that might be recovered in Siberia and other regional topographies.)
B.) However, it may be reasonable to speak in terms of diverging evolutionary lines in the homo genus, not necessarily traced in a direct lineation to Africa (except in the sense of ultimate origin for Hominidae, >6 million years ago). This is suggested by Neanderthal lines as well as by more recent discoveries at Denisova Cave (clear, established human habitation in Siberia ca. 110,000 years ago).
C.) Therefore, to suggest that all humans are "100% African" in their origins is simply not accurate and there is much indeed that we do not yet know or understand about the complexity and diversity of the human condition, biologically, genetically, anatomically, or otherwise. Additional fossils will likely be unearthed, data examined, and theories will, or at least should, evolve.
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