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Main

Articles
Pan the Tool-Maker
Latest Homo erectus of Java
Neandertal mtDNA
Middle Stone Age Bone Industry from Katanda
Pedra Furanda
Venus Figures

Web Sites
The Ancient Indus Valley
Stolen Stones: The Modern Sack of Nineveh
Clovis and Beyond
Chimpanzee Cultures
Oldstoneage.com

ROM Visits
Egypt Exhibit
Evolution of Man Exhibit

Bibliography 		Swisher III, C.C., Rink, W.J., Anton, S.C., Scharcz, H.P., Curtis, G.H., Suprijo, A., Widiasmoro. 1996. Latest Homo erectus of Java: Potential Contemporaneity with Homo sapiens in Southest Asia. Science.

The authors of this article have dated Homo erectus bones from two sites in Central Java. They have dated these bones to about 53000-27000 BP. They state that this indicates that Homo erectus may have survived in Southest Asia 250 000 years longer than in mainland Asia, and 1 million years longer than in Africa. The authors say that this then raises the question of whether Homo erectus might have been in Southest Asia at the same time as Homo sapiens. They dated the specimens with Electron Spin Resonance and Mass Spectrometric U-Series dating.


This picture is a map showing the location of the Jigar, Ngandong, and Sambungmacan sites in Central Java, Indonesia. The stratigraphic section at Ngandong shows the location (marked with an x) of hominid and nonhominid fossils found in unit 2.

They come to the conclusion that features shared by Homo erectus and Homo sapiens may be due to homoplasticity or the result of gene flow. They also say that the overlap of Homo erectus and Homo sapiens is comparable to the overlap of Homo neandertalis and Homo sapiens in Europe.

I think this article lends strong support to the out of Africa II model, in which humans originated in Africa, and then migrated around the world. At the same time, of course, it aslo disproves the multiregional theory for the origin of Homo sapiens. Out of Africa II also seems more plausible than the multiregional theory, because, by its very nature, it implies convergent evolution, where different groups of Homo erectus independently evolved into Homo sapiens. Even with some gene flow, this seems very, very inlikely. Therefore, I think this article does much to help disprove this unlikely theory.

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