Talk:Multiregional origin of modern humans

caption misstatement

The first image illustrating the multiregional model is mislabeled as polygenism. Milford Wolpoff, probably the most prominent proponent of multiregionalism, makes it very clear that he is not a polygenist. The dashed lines in this diagram show the constant genetic exchanges which make multiregional evolution possible and distinguish it from polygenism. This caption should be changed. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Historic Metal (talk • contribs) 17:11, August 21, 2007 (UTC).

I believe this has been fixed? Warren Dew (talk) 21:05, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

New vs. Classic Multiregionalism?

I just took a look at Templeton's paper, Out of Africa again and again, which is the bases for a good deal of the genetic evidence for the multiregional hypothesis in this article. It seems to me that the evidence points not to the acceptance of Wolpoff's multiregionalism, but instead to a more nuanced hypothesis than either the complete replacement of OOA or the simultaneous origin with gene flow that most multiregionalist propose.

I always thought that the gist of the MR hypothesis was that the regional erectus-grade hominids contributed more to the AMHs in their geographical areas than hominids in other regions. However Templeton's evidence indicates that the African populations contributed a disproportionate amount of genetic diversity to archaic H. sapiens, due to large migrations out of Africa. In essence limiting the effect regional differences contributed to AMH populations.

It seems to me that this article simplifies this hypothesis down to the claim that gene flow existed between the populations, and misses most of the assertions Wolpoff and co. made which are not borne out by this new evidence.

Does anyone think it might be a good idea to have a section on 'classic' MR hypothesis, and then a section which includes the new genetic evidence and the modification of the theories? Bdrydyk 16:42, November 29, 2006 (UTC)

The Multiregional Hypothesis did not originate with Milford H. Wolpoff it goes back to work of Franz Weidenreich in the 1930s. At that time, Weidenreich originated the "Weidenreich Theory of Human Evolution" based on his examination of Peking Man. Being an anatomist, Weidenreich observed numerous anatomical characteristics that Peking Man had in common with modern Asians. The Weidenreich Theory states that human races have evolved independently in the Old World from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens sapiens, while at the same time there was gene flow between the various populations. According to the Weidenreich Theory, genes that were generally adaptive (such as those for intelligence and communication) would flow relatively rapidly from one part of the world to the other, while those that were locally adaptive, would not. This is contrary to popular theories of human evolution that have one superior race displacing other races. A vocal proponent of the Weidenreich theory was Carleton Coon. Ironically, Coon was labeled a racist while the theory in fact proposed that no one race was superior and displacing others. --Matses 17:19, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

I've read Wolpoff and Caspari's "Race and Human Evolution", and he does not make any such quantitative statement that some percentage of alleles were conserved in each region without spreading to others. Only the obvious morphological similarities that show regional continuity are mentioned as possible candidates for genetic continuity. Yes, Wolpoff's multiregional hypothesis is pretty much just that there was gene flow between the populations. Also, a large chunk of the book is about Weidenreich's work and how his ideas were misinterpreted or unjustifiably forgotten. --JWB 02:37, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Good points, Matses and JWB. I'm preparing to edit this talk page, but I want to leave this in as an ongoing discussion. Warren Dew (talk) 03:50, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Empty introduction

The introduction doesn't describe the theory at all. Can someone create a synthetic sentence and put it there? -- NaBUru38 00:17, 29 September 2007 (UTC)

Agree. "The multiregional hypothesis holds that the evolution of humanity throughout the Pleistocene has been within a single widespread human species, Homo sapiens,..." - - this is just a lame attempt to make multiregionalism sound sexy. doesn't work. I am not going to attempt to do it, but please let's give the younger and layman readers a chance with a coherent definition. Grazie Spettro9 (talk) 20:07, 29 October 2008 (UTC)

I've expanded the lead a bit to try to provide more detail. Warren Dew (talk) 11:01, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Clean-up

I've made a start at clean-up. Still remaining:

1. Sources! Too much of this has no inline citations.
2. Clarification and expansion of the genetic and fossil evidence is essential.
3. Clean-up of external links, most of which should be incorporated as references.
4. Balance needs to be according to the weight of the evidence in reliable sources, rather than giving equal credence to the two competing theories or cherry-picking sources.

Fences and windows (talk) 21:13, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

You removed a whole following section, as acording to your opinion (is it your opinion?) adds nothing.

Classification of hominid species

- Evaluation of the multiregional theory revolves around the assumption or non-assumption of >>species barriers<< between early hominids. Because of the scarcity of fossils and the discovery of important new finds every few years, researchers disagree about the details and sometimes even basic elements of human evolutionary history.

While they have revised this history several times over the last decades, researchers currently agree that the oldest named species of the genus Homo, Homo habilis, evolved in Africa around two million years ago, and that members of the genus migrated out of Africa somewhat later, at least 1.5 million years ago. The descendants of these ancient migrants, which probably included Homo erectus, have become known through fossils uncovered far from Africa, such as those of "Peking man" and "Java man". Homo neanderthalensis is also considered a descendant of early migrants.

The species barrier arising in process of speciation is key element differentiating MHO from RAO. If there will be possible gene flow then it will happen the early human as all other species did do a sex if they get children and the children get children this will be the multiregional. On the other hand if they wont be able to fertilly reproduce the only scientific reason "prohibiting" gene flow is the species barrier. If the species barrier arouse in speciation and prohibited the gene flow it will be replacement - per see without the gene flow. The replacement without any gene flow is the main thesis of recent replacement RAO. The word "replacement" is used to point out the important RAO opposition to the fertile reproduction proposed in MHO. (Do you think or know that somebody try devise or prove that there was no 'single occasion' for a "romantic date" between the singles of approaching and preexisting human populations during the last 200 thousand years). If and only if there was only one paleo-date pregnant with fertile children it is the gene flow the key thesis of MHO and MHO theory holds up. If it did not happen pregnant with fertile children there was no gene flow - RAO holds up.

Could you please eloborate on why do you think the section adds nothing as you revile here.

Another important consideration is the likelihood of the speciation in African population at given time frame. The new mutation or recombination may happen any time. The complexity of devising how and why the species barrier should arose is overwhelming and speculative that's why you may not find numerous citation in RAO framework elaborating on the obvious and crucial for ROA thesis evolutionary process. 76.16.176.166 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 23:09, 29 May 2009 (UTC).

It was a fairly incoherent fragment. Some discussion of these issues would be fine, but frankly the whole article needs completely rewriting, so restoring that section would be no improvement. Please stick to the discussion and use of reliable sources. To answer your points, related species may fail to interbreed for behavioural as well as biological reasons, any fertile interbreeding that left no modern genetic descendants wouldn't be support for the multiregional hypothesis, and I think you're building a false dichotomy - an African replacement model with a small extant genetic contribution from the replaced Neanderthal or H. erectus populations wouldn't prove the multiregional hypothesis over Out of Africa. But what we think is pretty irrelevant, it's what the sources say that matters. Fences and windows (talk) 02:27, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

I think you're building a false dichotomy -

• you may think but

an African replacement model with a small extant genetic contribution from the replaced Neanderthal or H. erectus'

• is multiregional conception .

76.16.176.166 (talk) 22:21, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

• small extant - point to F.A.W misunderstanding of sexual reproduction and to the way how the polit-push group try to back out from evident fallacy.

Please, use reliable sources to back up these opinions. Your opinions on what constitutes multiregional evolution are original research; what matters is what the sources say. As for me "misunderstanding sexual reproduction", I fail to see how my statement above would at all lead to that contribution, and I find the suggestion quite uncivil. Please don't try to interpret what I understand about matters of biology. The last part of your comment is unclear, but accusing other editors of "evident fallacies" is not constructive. Fences and windows (talk) 22:27, 5 June 2009 (UTC)

Wolpoff and Caspari's "Race and Human Evolution" indexes "Multiregional evolution: definition of" to page 32, where a description in italics preceded by "In a nutshell, the theory is that" occupies about 60% of the page. It does not specify any lower limit for genetic contribution from archaic Eurasian Homo in order for the theory to be valid. --JWB (talk) 23:41, 19 September 2009 (UTC)

I don't know what happened to this cleanup attempt, but I'm in the process of doing a cleanup now. Warren Dew (talk) 03:54, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Tag removal

IP user 76.16.1xx.xxx is now registered as Xook1kai Choa6aur. XC has removed all tags about neutrality etc. My opinion is that this article is still a total trainwreck, and is probably worse than us having no article at all on this topic, helped into that state in no small part by XC's constant POV pushing and difficulties in communicating in clear English. It needs totally rewriting, so the tags were entirely appropriate. Fences&Windows 20:12, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

You're right, and I've replaced the tags. Dougweller (talk) 20:18, 25 August 2009 (UTC)

Yeah, but what is now disputable? Only the one who put the can take it down ?Xook1kai Choa6aur (talk) 07:25, 1 September 2009 (UTC)

The only remaining tag when I came to this article recently was the "in need of an expert" tag. I think that's ironic because, given the number of peer reviewed references now in the article, expertise doesn't seem to be in short supply at all.

What the article does need is rewriting to make it more readable and more easily understandable by the lay reader. I've tried to do that with about half the article so far, and plan to continue with the rest of the article. I'm leaving the "expert tag" on for now because the article does need some kind of warning tag in its present condition, but once I'm done with the rewrite, I plan to remove it. Warren Dew (talk) 02:44, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I've completed a rewrite of the existing article, and removed the "expert" tag. There is still a tag on the external links section, so I plan to fix that next. There are also a few minor things I want to put in the article, but I don't think they're necessary to remove the tag. Warren Dew (talk) 05:57, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I removed the external links tag after removing most of the links in the section. The remaining two links provide information related to the topic that aren't covered in the article; the Templeton lattice because it's a copyrighted graphic for I can't presently find a free source, and the source with equations regarding migration and mutation because I think the actual equations are beyond what's appropriately covered in the article. Warren Dew (talk) 04:52, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

AfD of John D. Hawks

This article was attacked as nonnotable and proposed for deletion. You can comment at Wikipedia:Articles_for_deletion/John_D._Hawks#John_D._Hawks. --JWB (talk) 22:37, 2 February 2010 (UTC)

Recent Neanderthal results

The May 2010 results that show that approximately 1-4% of human DNA comes from Neanderthals, while not supporting the idea that humans, in the main, evolved from the early migration of homo erectus, does in fact support the idea that at least some of the genomes of modern-day non-African humans are comprised of DNA from the early migration.

Stated another way, this theory is 1-4% right. It's mostly wrong, but not completely. If a European in Spain made his family tree and "knew everything," there's a good chance that he'll hit upon a Neanderthal ancestor some 24,000-30,000 years back. And that neanderthal ancestry would trace back to the older migration of homo erectus some 1+ million years earlier.Ryoung122 08:04, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

Of course, this theory could be "more right" if humans also share ancestry with other early migrant groups, such as homo antecessor and homo heidelbergensis...questions that remain unanswered.Ryoung122 08:05, 24 August 2010 (UTC)

• negroids not arw humans; are simian proto-humans/pre-humans.. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 187.114.192.173 (talk) 02:47, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

• Ryoung, I think the neanderthal finding supports the multiregional theory in all ways, not just 1-4%. Keep in mind that the multiregional theory posits both regional continuity and lateral gene flow between regions, without specifying the split between the two - indeed, the split can't be specified, since over time, the local gene percentage can only go down, as more lateral gene flow occurs over time.

The fact that local contributions from neanderthals and lateral contributions from Africa both exist provides evidence for both aspects of the multiregional theory. The fact that, with respect to say Europe, there has been more lateral gene transfer than local gene retention is irrelevant. Actually, it's not completely irrelevant, since it probably shows that lateral gene transfer includes drift and not just the adaptive lateral transfer emphasized by Weidenreich, but that's a detail that's beyond the level of this article, and would probably constitute original research anyway.

I would also note that the 1-4% number is not for the total neanderthal contribution, but just for the excess contribution to nonafricans over Africans. There could be some additional contribution from neanderthals to all modern humans including Africans; we just don't currently have the data needed to identify it.

At any rate, figuring out how to add this data, along with the denisova data, to the genetics section, is on my to-do list. Warren Dew (talk) 03:12, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

I've added a section discussing the neanderthal and denisovan data. Warren Dew (talk) 00:31, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

It is important to note that the inference of 1-4% Neanderthal ancestry is just that - an inference. While the press coverage stressed the Neanderthal ancestry, and essentially accepted it as fact, the paper itself quite correctly points out that there are other explanations for the data - such as that modern humans and Neanderthals share common ancestry in Africa (just go and read the discussion section of the paper). This scenario, while not as fun as the Neanderthal-modern human mixing, is just as plausible an interpretation of the data. The discussion should reflect this.Davidiank (talk) 19:14, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

The "near consensus" bit

According to the sources given:

first source: there is a near-consensus that DNA and archaeology support "Out of Africa" second source: that sub-Saharan Africa played an important role.

Neither of these sources support what the article intro said about the consensus for "Out of Africa" —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.228.247.41 (talk) 10:31, 2 December 2010 (UTC)

That information is obsolete anyway due to this year's publications on the sequencing of the neanderthal and denisovan DNA and their contributions to the human DNA pool. Clearly there was mixing with nonafrican archaic humans, not just replacement. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Warren Dew (talk • contribs) 10:36, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

No, it is not clear that there was mixing - that is merely an interpretation, and not the only one discussed by the scientists who published the work. Common ancestry within Africa is also possible. Davidiank (talk) 19:20, 11 April 2011 (UTC)

Even if there was some admixture out of Africa, that sounds to me like a "soft" version of the original OoA hypotesis than like a corroboration of the multiregional one. I have the impression the wording of this article is a bit confusing. The last paragraph, "Recent African Replacement" actually defends that the multiregional origin hypotesis is nothing the Out of Africa but accepting some local admixture. I do not think that is accurate (Althogh I think the final consensus will probably tend to that) 212.163.172.180 (talk) 21:23, 18 May 2011 (UTC)Leirus

Paragraph on general medium scale genetic diversity

I removed the following paragraph because I couldn't figure out how it fitted in with the article:

• Genome polymorphism: Inversion polymorphism: known 5-million-base pair (Mbp) 8p23.1, 1-Mbp on 17q21.3 and novel 1.2-Mbp on 15q24, 2.1-Mbp 15q13, 1.7-Mbp 17q12 [1] . In the sample of 8 gnomes from worldwide sample including Yuruba Kidd&al group found 4 million SNPs and 796,273 small indels (1−100 bp in size); 15 large regions of excess nucleotide variation 500 kbp to 3 Mbp. Two of variable sites are described detailed above.

The only thing I could find that might be relevant is the statement that overall African SNP diversity was 13% greater than nonafrican diversity, compared to 40% on the X chromosome. However, it seems to me that relating that to the multiregional hypothesis would be original research.

If someone thinks that material is relevant, please discuss it here and we'll see if we can figure out how to work it in. Warren Dew (talk) 00:28, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Mitochrondial DNA

The end of the Mitochondrial DNA section says that nuclear genome studies showed results that were "very different" from mtDNA studies. What were those results? Is the article referring to the Neanderthal study that was recently published?

SilentWings (talk) 15:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)