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Alan Thorne
Alan Thorne is an Australian- born academic who has been involved extensively with various anthropological events and is an authority on Australian Aborigine and human genome. Thorne was a professor at Australian National University (ANU) where he taught biology and human anatomy. Through many groundbreaking excavations such as Lake Mungo and Kow Swamp, Alan Thorne has posed significant arguments contradicting the traditionally accepted theories of the journey of human beings through time[1].
Lake Mungo
Alan Thorne in 1969 reconstructed the remains of LM1 also known as “Mungo Lady” and LM3 or “Mungo Man” in 1974. Dr. Jim Bowler has been credited with the discovery of both LM1 and LM3 but Alan Thorne performed the reconstruction and analysis of the individuals. Through the initial reconstruction of Mungo Lady, Thorne discovered her bones to be thin and frail, much more similar to the bones found in any human being today. The Mungo Lady’s skull thickness in particular proved to be the biggest contradiction because other hominid specimens found from around the same time period as her in Australia, which was about 25,000 years ago, were tall, thick-skulled hominids. Upon realizing this contradiction found from the Mungo Lady, Thorne began to examine the possibility of new theories to the fundamental question; “where did Homo sapiens come from?” [2][3].
If Mungo Lady has a skull and overall anatomy much more advanced to resemble that of a modern day human, but was found from an era and location where such hominids were not believed to exist yet, then the theory of “out of Africa” human migration mustn’t be entirely correct. Along with colleagues from various other parts of the world, Thorne has spent much time and energy attempting to prove that there was only ever one migration out of Africa. The migration, which potentially took place around two million years ago, was of the Homo erectus species. The study demonstrates that rather than being a second wave of migration from Africa about 100,000 to 120,000 years ago of the new and improved Homo sapiens there proved instead to be “regional continuity”. In other words, Thorne believes that the second migration never happened and that Homo erectus from the first wave of migration from Africa two million years ago is the base of evolution for humans[4][5].
Kow Swamp
Bibliography
- ^ Kow Swamp Revisited. AIATSIS Seminar Series, 2004
- ^ D'Agnese, Joseph. Not Out of Africa, Alan Thorne's Challenging Ideas about Evolution. Discover Magazine, 2002
- ^ Frayer, David W.& Wolpoff, Milford H.& Thorne, Alan G.& Smith, Fred H.& Pope, Geoffrey G. Theories of Modern Human Origins: The Paleontological Test. American Anthropologist, New Series, Vol. 95, No. 1 (Mar., 1993), pp. 14-50
- ^ Mapes, Jennifer. Discoveries Breathe New Life into Human Origins Debate. National Geographic News, 2001
- ^ Bowler, Jim. M. & Thorne, Alan. G. Human remains from Lake Mungo: discovery and excavation of Lake Mungo III. Australian National University, 1976
Kow Swamp Revisited. AIATSIS Seminar Series, 2004. D'Agnese, Joseph. Not Out of Africa, Alan Thorne's Challenging Ideas about Evolution. Discover Magazine, 2002.