Did Modern Man Come From China?
As the greatest scientific minds in the world once believed the world to be flat, we know that what we commonly believe to be a scientific truth is not always true. This week, Chinese scientists have cause to question the Out of Africa theory, the widely-accepted scientific theory that all modern human life originated in Africa and spread outward. The “Tianyuan skeleton” was found in 2003 in the Tianyuan cave in the outskirts of Beijing. The findings were published Monday in the online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The skeleton was found to be between 42,000 to 38,500 years old making it the oldest modern human skeleton ever found in China and one of the oldest securely dated findings anywhere in the world. According to Science Daily, the modern human characteristics of this skeleton, and younger skeletons similar to this found in East Asia, suggest that the first modern humans in Asia were not the same humans that dispersed from Africa. There is now reason to believe that modern man (and woman) originated in China. The Out of Africa theory contends that archaic humans spread to China 60,000 years ago and replaced the local population there. Wu Xinzhi, a scientist for the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleonanthropology, said “The Tianyuan skeleton is the earliest and the first secured dated fossil of modern humans across eastern Eurasia. The finding provides strong evidence that such entire replacement was impossible.” So if China is where it all started, it will be a serious blow to Africa, which somewhat revels in being the birthplace of humanity. And also, if China was, in fact, where the first modern humans roamed the earth, then it becomes much clearer why I get stared at so much here. I look like a mutant.
•Science
Daily: China’s Earliest Modern Human