Tuesday, August 23, 2005

Bushy phylogenies....   posted by Razib @ 8/23/2005 12:17:00 AM
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A new report is coming out of Dmanisi, Georgia, about a 1.8 million "Homo erectus" skull. This is a site that has generated a lot of buzz in the past few years, mostly because it is evidence that pre-moderns ventured into northern Eurasia very soon after their emergence in Africa. Here is a map from talk.origins which places it in perspective:


(if you click it you will see a larger image)

~1.8 million years ago there were many Homo and homo-like species hanging around on the scene. Remember those popular T-shirts which showed a linear sequence of species? Well, I'm not saying that modern humans are hybridized from branches of the bush (see here though on what might have happened). John Hawks scooped a press a few weeks ago (and knows more about this topic, obviously).