More Out-of-Africa Contraindications

[uniface]

"The archaeological findings clearly extend the occurrence of Middle Palaeolithic hominins in South Asia to MIS (Marine Isotope Stage) 5c, or ca 95 ka (95,000 years ago)", Blinkhorn adds.*

Another significant result of their analysis of the finds showed that the artifacts bore characteristics very similar to those exhibited by artifacts found in Arabia and the Sahara in Africa. The African artifacts have been assigned to the Middle Stone Age (280,000 years ago to about 50-25,000 years ago), a lithic type and time period that has been associated by scholarly consensus with both anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) as well as archaic Homo sapiens, sometimes referred to as Homo helmei.

The findings have also upset the traditional consensus model of the dispersal of early modern humans out of Africa based on identification of the emergence and dispersal of Homo sapiens with a certain type of stone tool industry -- namely, what has been described as Upper Paleolithic (or Later Stone Age in Africa) technology, a more sophisticated technology consisting of such stone artifacts as thin, retouched bifacials, blades and bladelets.

"The presence of Middle Palaeolithic technologies in the Thar Desert at ca 60 ka (60,000 years ago) clearly occurs within the timeframe that have been suggested by genetic studies for the arrival of H. sapiens in South Asia," writes Blinkhorn et al. "This contradicts the hypothesis that modern humans arrived in South Asia using small crescentic forms that are markedly similar to those that define the so-called Howiesons Poort (bladelet type) technology. Comparable technologies, principally based around microblade production, are not observed in South Asia until 40 -30 ka, or after the Last Glacial Maximum in the Thar Desert. Instead, the Katoati evidence is consistent with arguments for the dispersal of H. sapiens populations using Middle Palaeolithic technologies."


http://popular-archaeology.com/issue/ju ... s-in-india