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From: alderson@netcom16.netcom.com (Richard M. Alderson III)
Subject: Re: Invention of language
In-Reply-To: annette@vannin.demon.co.uk's message of Tue, 19 Nov 1996 00:30:10 GMT
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Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 23:37:14 GMT
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In article <32909a9b.9446976@news.demon.co.uk> annette@vannin.demon.co.uk
(Annette Padfield) writes:

>As humans now appear spread all over the globe, presumably they evolved first
>into homo sapiens and then diffused, rather than already scattered groups of
>homo xxx simultaneously evolving into distinct, near identical varieties of
>homo sapiens. That is simply logic, the latter case would be an unbelievably
>bizarre coincidence.

Whether or not you think it would be a bizarre coincidence, this is the current
best model of the evolution of modern Homo sapiens.  It appears that the prede-
cessor group, Homo erectus, spread out over Africa, Asia, and Europe, and then
evolved into H. sap. everywhere.  That this involves gene spread over large
populations appears not to be a problem for the model.
-- 
Rich Alderson   You know the sort of thing that you can find in any dictionary
                of a strange language, and which so excites the amateur philo-
                logists, itching to derive one tongue from another that they
                know better: a word that is nearly the same in form and meaning
                as the corresponding word in English, or Latin, or Hebrew, or
                what not.
                                                --J. R. R. Tolkien,
alderson@netcom.com                               _The Notion Club Papers_
