So Much For Out of Africa
Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2015 10:09 am
Like Global Warming, the Darwinian Cave Man and Clovis First, Out of Africa has proven to be a zombie meme indeed -- demonstrating that these are not in any real sense scientific hypotheses, but articles of belief (which, always and everywhere, ignores evidence contradicting it).
This, which flew under the radar here, pretty well demolishes the idea :
The conclusions they draw from this and those I do differ markedly, but the essential point is made : Levallois technology (diagnostic of Neanderthal populations) goes much further back in time than was previously (and conveniently for the Out of Africa proponents) imagined.
This, which flew under the radar here, pretty well demolishes the idea :
https://aratta.wordpress.com/2015/03/24 ... echnology/The replacement of bifacial stone tools, such as handaxes, by tools made on flakes detached from Levallois cores documents the most important conceptual shift in stone tool production strategies since the advent of bifacial technology more than one million years earlier and has been argued to result from the expansion of archaic Homo sapiens out of Africa.
Adler et al. challenge the hypothesis that the technique’s appearance in Eurasia was the result of the expansion of hominins from Africa. Levallois obsidian artifacts in the southern Caucasus, dated at 335 to 325 ka, are the oldest in Eurasia.
This suggests that Levallois technology may have evolved independently in different hominin populations. Stone technology cannot thus be used as a reliable indicator of Paleolithic human population change and expansion.
Our data from Nor Geghi 1, Armenia, record the earliest synchronic use of bifacial and Levallois technology outside Africa and are consistent with the hypothesis that this transition occurred independently within geographically dispersed, technologically precocious hominin populations with a shared technological ancestry.
The conclusions they draw from this and those I do differ markedly, but the essential point is made : Levallois technology (diagnostic of Neanderthal populations) goes much further back in time than was previously (and conveniently for the Out of Africa proponents) imagined.