The Forgotten Exodus: The Into Africa Theory of Human Evolution

[Laura]

On my news feed today: 405K twice is 810K... close enough for horseshoes:

405 thousand year climate cycle discovered related to Earth’s orbit around the sun

Anthony Watts / 10 mins ago May 8, 2018


In ancient rocks, scientists see a climate cycle working across deep time.
A repeating shift in Earth’s orbit spans hundreds of millions of years

From THE EARTH INSTITUTE AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY

Scientists drilling deep into ancient rocks in the Arizona desert say they have documented a gradual shift in Earth’s orbit that repeats regularly every 405,000 years, playing a role in natural climate swings. Astrophysicists have long hypothesized that the cycle exists based on calculations of celestial mechanics, but the authors of the new research have found the first verifiable physical evidence. They showed that the cycle has been stable for hundreds of millions of years, from before the rise of dinosaurs, and is still active today. The research may have implications not only for climate studies, but our understanding of the evolution of life on Earth, and the evolution of the Solar System. It appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Scientists have for decades posited that Earth’s orbit around the sun goes from nearly circular to about 5 percent elliptical, and back again every 405,000 years. The shift is believed to result from a complex interplay with the gravitational influences of Venus and Jupiter, along with other bodies in the Solar System as they all whirl around the Sun like a set of gyrating hula-hoops, sometimes closer to one another, sometimes further. Astrophysicists believe the mathematical calculation of the cycle is reliable back to around 50 million years, but after that, the problem gets too complex, because too many shifting motions are at play.

“There are other, shorter, orbital cycles, but when you look into the past, it’s very difficult to know which one you’re dealing with at any one time, because they change over time,” said lead author Dennis Kent, an expert in paleomagnetism at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Rutgers University. “The beauty of this one is that it stands alone. It doesn’t change. All the other ones move over it.”​

The new evidence lies within 1,500-foot-long cores of rock that Kent and his coauthors drilled from a butte in Arizona’s Petrified Forest National Park in 2013, plus earlier deep cores from suburban New York and New Jersey. The Arizona rocks in the study formed during the late Triassic, between 209 million and 215 million years ago, when the area was covered with meandering rivers that laid down sediments. Around this time, early dinosaurs started evolving.

The scientists nailed down the Arizona rocks’ ages by analyzing interspersed volcanic ash layers containing radioisotopes that decay at a predictable rate. Within the sediments, they also detected repeated reversals in the polarity of the planet’s magnetic field. The team then compared these findings to the New York-New Jersey cores, which penetrated old lakebeds and soils that hold exquisitely preserved signs of alternating wet and dry periods during what was believed to be the same time.


Kent and Olsen have long argued that the climate changes displayed in the New York-New Jersey rocks were controlled by the 405,000-year cycle. However, there are no volcanic ash layers there to provide precise dates. But those cores do contain polarity reversals similar to those spotted in Arizona. By combining the two sets of data, the team showed that both sites developed at the same time, and that the 405,000-year interval indeed exerts a kind of master control over climate swings. Paleontologist Paul Olsen, a coauthor of the study, said that the cycle does not directly change climate; rather it intensifies or dampens the effects of shorter-term cycles, which act more directly.


The planetary motions that spur climate swings are known as Milankovitch cycles, named for the Serbian mathematician who worked them out in the 1920s. Boiled down to simplest terms, they consist of a 100,000-year cycle in the eccentricity of Earth’s orbit, similar to the big 405,000-year swing; a 41,000-year cycle in the tilt of Earth’s axis relative to its orbit around the Sun; and a 21,000-year cycle caused by a wobble of the planet’s axis. Together, these shifts change the proportions of solar energy reaching the Northern Hemisphere, where most of the planet’s land is located, during different parts of the year. This in turn influences climate.


In the 1970s, scientists showed that that Milankovitch cycles have driven repeated warming and cooling of the planet, and thus the waxing and waning of ice ages over the last few million years. But they are still arguing over inconsistencies in data over that period, and the cycles’ relationships to rising and falling levels of carbon dioxide, the other apparent master climate control. Understanding how this all worked in the more distant past is even harder. For one, the frequencies of the shorter cycles have almost certainly changed over time, but no one can say exactly by how much. For another, the cycles are all constantly proceeding against each other. Sometimes some are out of phase with others, and they tend to cancel each other out; at others, several may line up with each other to initiate sudden, drastic changes. Making the calculation of how they all might fit together gets harder the further back you go.


Kent and Olsen say that every 405,000 years, when orbital eccentricity is at its peak, seasonal differences caused by shorter cycles will become more intense; summers are hotter and winters colder; dry times drier, wet times wetter.



The eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit changes slowly over time from nearly zero to 0.07. As the orbit gets more eccentric (oval) the difference between the distance from the Sun to the Earth at perihelion (closest approach) and aphelion (furthest away) becomes greater and greater. Note that the Sun is not at the center of the Earth’s orbital ellipse, rather it is at one of focal points. Note: The eccentricty of the orbit shown in the right image is a highly exaggerated 0.5. Even the maximum eccentricity of the Earth’s orbit—0.07—it would be impossible to show at the resolution of a web page. Even so, at the current eccentricity of .017, the Earth is 5 million kilometers closer to Sun at perihelion than at aphelion. (Images by Robert Simmon, NASA GSFC)

The opposite will be true 202,500 years later, when the orbit is at its most circular. During the late Triassic, for poorly understood reasons, the Earth was much warmer than it is now through many cycles, and there was little to no glaciation. Then, the 405,000-year cycle showed up in strongly alternating wet and dry periods. Precipitation peaked when the orbit was at its most eccentric, producing deep lakes that left layers of black shale in eastern North America. When the orbit was most circular, things dried up, leaving lighter layers of soil exposed to the air.


Jupiter and Venus exert such strong influences because of size and proximity. Venus is the nearest planet to us–at its farthest, only about 162 million miles–and roughly similar in mass. Jupiter is much farther away, but is the Solar System’s largest planet, 2.5 times bigger than all others combined.


Linda Hinnov, a professor at George Mason University who studies the deep past, said the new study lends support to previous studies by others that claim to have observed signs of the 405,000-year cycle even further back, before 250 million years ago.

Among other things, she said, it “could lead to new insights into early dinosaur evolution.” She called the findings “a significant new contribution to geology, and to astronomy.”​

Kent and Olsen say that because of all the competing factors at work, there is still much to learn. “This is truly complicated stuff,” said Olsen. “We are using basically the same kinds of math to send spaceships to Mars, and sure, that works. But once you start extending interplanetary motions back in time and tie that to cause and effect in climate, we can’t claim that we understand how it all works.” The metronomic beat of the 405,000-year cycle may eventually help researchers disentangle some of this, he said.


If you were wondering, the Earth is currently in the nearly circular part of the 405,000-year period. What does that mean for us? “Probably not anything very perceptible,” says Kent. “It’s pretty far down on the list of so many other things that can affect climate on times scales that matter to us.” Kent points out that according to the Milankovitch theory, we should be at the peak of a 20,000-some year warming trend that ended the last glacial period; the Earth may eventually start cooling again over thousands of years, and possibly head for another glaciation. “Could happen. Guess we could wait around and see,” said Kent. “On the other hand, all the CO2 we’re pouring into the air right now is the obvious big enchilada. That’s having an effect we can measure right now. The planetary cycle is a little more subtle.”

###​

The other authors of the study are Cornelia Rasmussen and Randall Irmis of the University of Utah; Chris Lepre of Lamont-Doherty; Roland Mundli of Berkeley Geochronology Center; George Gehrels and Dominique Giesler of the University of Arizona; John Geissman of the University of Texas, Dallas; and William Parker of Petrified Forest National Park.


The paper, “Empirical evidence for stability of the 405 kyr Jupiter-Venus eccentricity cycle over hundreds of millions of years,”

 

[Gaby]

If you were wondering, the Earth is currently in the nearly circular part of the 405,000-year period. What does that mean for us? “Probably not anything very perceptible,” says Kent. “It’s pretty far down on the list of so many other things that can affect climate on times scales that matter to us.” Kent points out that according to the Milankovitch theory, we should be at the peak of a 20,000-some year warming trend that ended the last glacial period; the Earth may eventually start cooling again over thousands of years, and possibly head for another glaciation. “Could happen. Guess we could wait around and see,” said Kent. “On the other hand, all the CO2 we’re pouring into the air right now is the obvious big enchilada. That’s having an effect we can measure right now. The planetary cycle is a little more subtle.”

Or not?

I've been reading "A Cold Welcome: The Little Ice Age and Europe's Encounter with North America" (Laura recommended it in a FOTCM thread) and even that "little ice age" seemed a bit too extreme. More info about the book:

https://www.amazon.com/Cold-Welcome-Europes-Encounter-America/dp/0674971922

When Europeans first arrived in North America, they faced a cold new world. The average global temperature had dropped to lows unseen in millennia, and its effects were stark and unpredictable: blizzards and deep freezes, droughts and famines, and winters when even the Rio Grande froze. This period of climate change has come to be known as the Little Ice Age, and it played a decisive role in Europe’s encounter with the lands and peoples of North America. In A Cold Welcome, Sam White tells the story of this crucial period in world history, from Europe’s earliest expeditions in an unfamiliar landscape to the perilous first winters at Santa Fe, Quebec, and Jamestown.
Weaving together evidence from climatology, archaeology, and the written historical record, White describes how the severity and volatility of the Little Ice Age climate threatened to freeze and starve out the Europeans’ precarious new settlements. Lacking basic provisions and wholly unprepared to fend for themselves under such harsh conditions, Europeans suffered life-threatening privation, and their desperation precipitated violent conflict with Native Americans.
In the twenty-first century, as we confront an uncertain future from global warming, A Cold Welcome reminds us of the risks of a changing and unfamiliar climate.

Sam White’s aptly named A Cold Welcome is a remarkable journey through the complex impacts of the Little Ice Age on Colonial North America. His compelling narrative takes the study of early America in a new, and potentially highly important, direction that delves into a now vanished world of daunting climatic extremes. This beautifully written, important book leaves us in no doubt that we ignore the chronicle of past climate change at our peril. I found it hard to put down. (Brian Fagan, author of The Little Ice Age)

I'm reminded of what the Cs said:

A Soul-Smashing Event!

A: Now, we have also told you that the experience of the "Native Americans" vis a vis the Europeans may be a precursor in microcosm...

It gives an idea of how a change in "the world as we know it" can be so drastic!

 

[BruceF]

Okay, I see the reasoning for the 780KYA hook, and we already know the 70KYA period is important. I wonder if there is anything in the geology that shows up for 780KYA? It would be kind of hard for the astronomers to extrapolate back that far for comets and such; they peter out after awhile and turn to dust.

Yes, there is enormous red flag events for something anomalous happening 780,000 years ago. We have the last complete magnetic pole reversal at that time and after this, the regularity of the reversal cycles collapses and we are now hundreds of thousands of years overdue. It is also around that (approx 800Kya) time that our climate cycles go crazy:

"While there is a Milankovitch cycle in the range of 100,000 years, related to Earth's orbital eccentricity, its contribution to variation in insolation is much smaller than those of precession and obliquity. The 100,000-year-problem refers to the lack of an obvious explanation for the periodicity of ice ages at roughly 100,000 years for the past million years, but not before, when the dominant periodicity corresponded to 41,000 years. The unexplained transition between the two periodicity regimes is known as the mid-Pleistocene transition, dated to some 800,000 years ago. " - Wikipedia

There is also a multi-directional asterid bombardment of the planet 780,000 years ago, with hits to most of the continents.

Lastly, there is an anomalous material that rains down across Australasia, Tektite buttons, made of liquefied crystal. This specific material and its formation process are unique in the 4.5 billion years of Earth history. We have identified this as the exploded mothership which carried the engineers.

Then Suddenly multiple forms of large-brained hominins begin to divergence from the last common ancestor. We have more than this but I think you will get the sense now why I am so bold in my assertions, the specifics of our genetic argument really make it pretty conclusive (I think).

 

[BruceF]

This is interesting, and brings to mind not only using viruses to change DNA, but also light. Light could be used for massive, general planet wide changes, followed by tweaking with viral changes specific to certain genome sequences. I wonder if this article represents an (un)conscious defence against viral change. sort of bolting the barn door afterwards?
https://gizmodo.com/artificial-genome-scientists-want-to-build-human-cells-1825693446

All DNA based life is part of an interacting web of bio-photons, it has also been shown that you can use light to transfer DNA information into an egg, I think it was a salamander egg? I have forgotten the exact details. Light may well play some important role in all of this, I certainly suspect the sun sends information to life on our planet.

 

[Altair]

All DNA based life is part of an interacting web of bio-photons, it has also been shown that you can use light to transfer DNA information into an egg, I think it was a salamander egg? I have forgotten the exact details. Light may well play some important role in all of this, I certainly suspect the sun sends information to life on our planet.

You probably mean experiments done by Peter Gariaev, Ph.D. Allegedly he transformed frog embryos to salamander embryos by transmitting DNA information patterns using laser light. He is founder of Institute Of Quantum Genetics.

 

[BruceF]

Finished your book 'Into...' BruceF, and see you are here joining this discussion. As a laymen in genetics, was surprised at how easily things seem to fit together in your telling, which was appreciated.

A couple of brief comments would be to say that your points about early seafaring, osit, seems spot on, yet it is hard or near impossible to nail down physical evidence, as you inferred also. However, the movement of groups overland vs. over water leads one to weight to the latter favorably. You also mentioned the dig at Lake Mungo (and another more substantial one a few hundred kilometers away) whereby 'Mungo Man' was 196cm. What you describe of him was in how he was laid to rest, and I though, now that was a very conscious burial when considering what the lower evolutionary time limit was at 40Kya., and then you pointed out that the skull was 2mm thick and where other finds are as thick as 13 mm or > (thick as motorcycle helmet). At .2 of a cm that is very thin indeed (amazing it even survived). That is curious find.

You mention lack of digs or evidence also in Australia (the former with the geological stratum's role and perhaps with just no real will to explore - with possible uncomfortable findings to be revealed) and a sea level 150m below current levels. There was a Wallace line map above that points to the expanding landmass (which also does not take the possibility of a rising landmass or sinking landmass). So, one sure has to wonder what is gone from our observable record underwater in terms of its vastness, as groups would tend to frequent or outright live by water, and a 150m rise ate up a lot of ground now lost to observation.

Thank you for reading my book and commenting on it here, your feedback is appreciated. It is true we will likely never pin down the physical evidence of the first watercraft, this leaves it open for sceptics to refute almost every claim of stone-age sailing. There is strong resistance to any such activities prior to the time of modern humans emerging (which is a bit of a vague event in itself), in reality the acceptance of early sailing in the Mediterranean could also be dismissed in the same way it has been in Southeast Asia (the evidence if no stronger) but as it does not cause a major rewrite of hominins migrations it has been largely accepted as factual. This is really a show of bias.

The morphological variation in Australia is astounding, that it is so readily skipped over is really bizarre. We never see such diversity in Africa with two neighbouring populations being this different, and especially strange that the younger populations is the one with the most typically archaic features. I asked Wolpoff is he thought perhaps some of these were Denisovan hybrids and he felt that was a possibility - we do have strong circumstantial evidence placing Southern Denisovans east of the Wallace Line.

I would love to see the undersea exploration of the sunken region of Northern Australia and Sunda.

 

[Laura]

There's a parallel discussion going on about the Ica/Paracas skulls - Elongated Skulls: Ancient Species, very distant from human? - and it is sort of beginning to converge with this discussion so I am cross-posting here my post there from this morning:

Based on the articles posted above, which give more clear data about the DNA tests, they begin to look more reliable though the results are certainly not that of "aliens". Those of you who have read some of the books suggested in the "Into Africa Theory" thread ( The Forgotten Exodus: The Into Africa Theory of Human Evolution ), especially those works about sequencing ancient DNA, will see that the explanations are reasonable. What is annoying is the sensationalist and somewhat misleading way that Foerster presents the work. I don't think this is deliberate, he just doesn't seem to understand genetics.

Reading further about such skulls in the additional articles suggests that there is a definite connection between the Ica/Paracas skulls and European ones. The article about cranial deformation suggests strongly that the center of this "behavior", or more likely, the origin of this mutation, is in the Caucasus area, and that the individuals were elites.

Were the skulls as exaggerated in the beginning, or was this a result of population isolation (according to the usual ways this happens as discussed in the thread linked above) which concentrated the mutation??? How OLD was the mutation? Foerster, not being a professional in this field, and going about this the way he is, is not in a position to make those kinds of judgments.

Notice another interesting factor: that the practice of cranial deformation was present early in the Americas... that is certainly true, based on the evidence, but were ALL such skulls artificially deformed, or were some natural, as the Ica/Paraca skulls appear to be?

In David Reich's book "Who We Are and How We Got Here", (highly recommended), he notes on p. 177 in the caption to a map showing ancient dna concentrations:

Despite extraordinary geographic distance, populations in the Amazon share ancestry with Australian, New Guineans, and Andamanese to a greater extent than with other Eurasians. This may reflect an early movement of humans into the Americas from a source population that is no longer substantially represented in northeast Asia.

Here, I'm not suggesting that the populations Reich is talking about are the same as the Ica/Paracas skull people; clearly they are not based on what little is know about the DNA study and other info. But what I do mean to suggest is this: we don't know about all the early contacts between continents, so we need to stay open to any and all possibilities.

On the topic of the Maltese skulls, as noted, Carleton Coon makes the remark in his book that they were "thrown out" and only gives a reference to a very old publication. mkrnhr was able to get that for me. There are a few interesting things, but the paper does not report the disposal of the find.

mkrnhr also sent me the Galley Hill skull dating paper, so I'm going to attach both of them here for those of you who want to dig into this a little.

 

[Gaby]

mkrnhr also sent me the Galley Hill skull dating paper, so I'm going to attach both of them here for those of you who want to dig into this a little.

Here's an article that was published last year and has elements of the Malta burials paper. Notice that they are attributing the elongation of the skulls to artificial cranial deformation. From the pics posted, I can't really tell. Even if we take the artificial deformation for granted, there are a couple of anomalies which might suggest a genetic mutation of some sort: the extra crests around the foramen magnum and the anomaly in the temporal bone. The entire article is available on the link below, I'll just extract some quotes.

Human remains from Ali Kosh, Iran (2017)
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/322930502_Human_remains_from_Ali_Kosh_Iran_2017

Ali Kosh on Deh Luren plain was excavated in 1961 and 1963 by an American expedition directed by Frank Hole and Kent Flannery as a part of a larger regional project (Hole et al. 1969). Dated to c. 9500-8500 cal. BP (Hole 2000), Ali Kosh is an important Neolithic site located at the eastern edge of the Fertile Crescent (Figure 1), providing ample evidence of plant (cf. Moore 1982) and animal domestication (cf. Zeder 1999)...in May 2017 a small stratigraphical trench was opened by Hojjat Darabi with the intention of revising the chronology of the site and to gather samples for research on subsistence strategies (Darabi 2017)

During this recent small-scale excavation, a dense cluster of 13 human burials was found at a depth of roughly 4–5m below the surface. Due to time constraints they were not explored in situ. Several of the skeletons were cut with large blocks of surrounding soil and transported to the archaeological workshop at Razi University in Kermanshah.

In total, three blocks contained the remains of at least 11 individuals, although many of them were represented only by crania and/or mandibles while postcranial elements were under-represented. More specifically, block A contained one partially preserved skeleton (H2) and one cranium (H1), block B contained a cranium (H3) on top of three incomplete and disarticulated skeletons (H10, H11 and H12), another disarticulated cranium (H4), incomplete skeleton (H5) and disarticulated mandible (H7). e last block C included a skull (H6) with small remains of postcranial skeleton. Additionally, two mandibles (H8 and H9) were retrieved from other contexts and several dozen fragmented human elements have been identified in assemblages of animal remains. Additionally, one more skull excavated by Hole and Flannery in 1963 has been studied in the National Museum of Iran, referred to here as H13.

In general, human remains were relatively well preserved in hard clayish soil with the only exception of inner parts of the crania that in most cases were empty and therefore strongly weathered and incrusted by crystalline deposits of various size
(cf. Sołtysiak & Fetner 2017). All crania were distorted postmortem by pressure from the burial matrix resulting in element dislocations. Although the burials were not excavated in a systematic way, several artifacts were retrieved from the soil surrounding the human elements. In particular, two subadult individuals received several hundred beads: around the pelvis of H5 there were shell beads, a bigger green one close to the face and two fine big mollusc shells close to the elbow and right auditory meatus. Around the pelvis of individual H2 small shells were found (Figure 4). Finally, a fragment of a fine narrow blade and a few small shell beads were located close to the bones of H6. Single small shells and fragments of flint tools were also scattered elsewhere. Most skeletons were coated with red ochre.

Only limited insight into the funerary customs is possible due to the accidental character of the discovery. e bodies of all three individuals with preserved articulations (H2, H5, H6) were buried in squatting position, both limbs hyperflexed,
hands and knee joints close to face, feet and elbows close to pelvis. Such position perhaps involved some bundling with textiles or ropes, as all long bones were set together in vertical position between the skull and the os coxae. ere were also many
disarticulated bones and teeth, which were most likely the result of long-term use of the cemetery, with some burials opened after complete skeletonization and bones re-buried in secondary contexts. Primary burials in squatting position seem to be
not uncommon during the Pre-Pottery and Early Pottery Neolithic in the Near East (cf. Ortiz et al. 2013; Akkermans et al. 2006) and were also previously reported at Ali Kosh (Hole et al. 1969). e available assemblage includes 7 crania, 7 mandibles and postcranial elements from at least 7 individuals (Table 1). e most striking feature of all crania was their more or less pronounced artificial deformation that was evident in spite of post-mortem alteration and fragmentation of all crania. In all cases circumferential modification was evident (Frieß & Baylac 2003), resulting from application of a band wrapped around the cranium along the anterior parietal and occipital, forming a conical protuberance around lambda (Figure 5). In most cases crania were very elongated and only in H3 the shape had been only slightly modified, still with clear impressions of the band. Change of cranium geometry affected the skull base, especially the occipital condyles, which were very convex, with the anterior part at a high angle to the horizontal plane. Additional crests between inferior nuchal line and foramen magnum were present in at least two individuals.

Artificial cranial deformation was common in the Near East and especially in Iran during the Neolithic and Chalcolithic (Meiklejohn et al. 1992; Daems & Croucher 2007), although its pattern changed over time. Among crania excavated by Hole
and Flannery at least three female ones were artificially deformed (Hole et al. 1969), although in the female skull curated in the National Museum of Iran no clear evidence of deformation may be seen (Niknami et al. 2011). Artificial cranial deformation was also observed at the nearby site of Chogha Sefid (Hole 1977). e presence of this custom in the recently excavated assemblage at Ali Kosh is, as such, not surprising. Another cultural modification of the head observed at Ali Kosh was avulsion of the upper right first incisor in all adult males, but not in children nor adolescent individuals. Small sample size makes it impossible to say whether females were also affected, as the only adult female cranium in the sample belonged to an old individual with many teeth (incisors included) lost antemortem.... Frequency of cranial porosities was also rather low, with only one case (H6) of highly obliterated microporosity at several locations on the cranium. On the other hand, in two individuals (H1 and H3, both probable females) the temporal line was very pronounced, with clear vascularization above, suggesting some mechanical stress on the temporal muscle...

 

[BruceF]

On the matter of elongated skulls, which by coincidence I have been thinking about making a video presentation on (just this week), it should be noted that the oldest skulls I know of to be claimed as deliberately elongated (whether they were or not) come from Australia, at Kow Swamp. The skulls found at Kow swamp are as old as 13,000 years of age, far more ancient than any in Peru. Keep in mind my model for migrations in which people moved out of Australia taking their practices and beliefs with them, this would make Australia the logical source of the practice and or the original naturally elongated skull people.

We know already (as Laura has pointed out) that Australasian Aboriginals reached the Americas long before Asiatic Clovis people, some of the sites in Brazil have already been reliably dated to around 24,000 years while others that remain controversial may go back to 50,000 years. It may be that among these first Americans were some groups that were of the elongated skull variety, others of the pygmy variety (there are obvious remnants of pygmy people in S. America).

OR it may be that the elongated skull people of the Americas are from a separate population, there are other anomalies coming up in respect to the waves of migrants into that continent. I was intending to write a second book called Into America before my wife asked me to collaborate on the ET book, I will get back to that one as soon as possible.

Kow Swamp skulls are not only strange because of the elongation, they are weird in multiple ways, this is discussed briefly in my book.

 

[BruceF]

Can I possibly ask anyone that enjoys my book 'The Into Africa Theory of Human Evolution' to please consider leaving an Amazon review for others to see as being self-published and going up against a media blackout on my work (plus total ignorance shown by academics) it is a real struggle to get anyone to even know it exists, let alone worth reading. Any little bit of help is gratefully received in this respect, also if anyone has blogs where they might review the theory I again would bow a thousand times to you in gratitude! I would happily send a thank you gift to anyone that does have the ability to post a book review to any website anywhere beyond Amazon as there are almost none so far. This is the only community I know of that even discusses the book content, so I don't really have anywhere else to ask such a thing.

I hope it is OK to ask this here?

 

[Laura]

Can I possibly ask anyone that enjoys my book 'The Into Africa Theory of Human Evolution' to please consider leaving an Amazon review for others to see as being self-published and going up against a media blackout on my work (plus total ignorance shown by academics) it is a real struggle to get anyone to even know it exists, let alone worth reading. Any little bit of help is gratefully received in this respect, also if anyone has blogs where they might review the theory I again would bow a thousand times to you in gratitude! I would happily send a thank you gift to anyone that does have the ability to post a book review to any website anywhere beyond Amazon as there are almost none so far. This is the only community I know of that even discusses the book content, so I don't really have anywhere else to ask such a thing.

I hope it is OK to ask this here?

It is okay and I apologize for not having written a review. I've corrected that; it should be up shortly.

Meanwhile, do you have some good Kow Swamp skull images to share??? Along with the particulars? I guess you can see we like data.

 

[Laura]

Here's an article that was published last year and has elements of the Malta burials paper. Notice that they are attributing the elongation of the skulls to artificial cranial deformation. From the pics posted, I can't really tell. Even if we take the artificial deformation for granted, there are a couple of anomalies which might suggest a genetic mutation of some sort: the extra crests around the foramen magnum and the anomaly in the temporal bone. The entire article is available on the link below, I'll just extract some quotes.

Most interesting, Gaby, especially considering the location of the find. I'll go and read the article more carefully. I wonder if it is a result of deformation post burial or was it a feature, but that skull at the bottom shows a serious underbite. Funny that Carleton Coon mentions how fast this sort of thing would manifest in populations once they switched from hunting/gathering to agriculture.

 

[Neil]

Lastly, there is an anomalous material that rains down across Australasia, Tektite buttons, made of liquefied crystal. This specific material and its formation process are unique in the 4.5 billion years of Earth history. We have identified this as the exploded mothership which carried the engineers.

How does this tektite different from run of the mill tektite from cometary collisions? I wonder why the mothership exploded, if it existed. (No way to know) Guess I'm going to have to add Hybrid Humans to the reading list.

 

[Laura]

How does this tektite different from run of the mill tektite from cometary collisions? I wonder why the mothership exploded, if it existed. (No way to know) Guess I'm going to have to add Hybrid Humans to the reading list.

Do you have photos, including microscopic, of this material? More data?

 

[Persej]

I'm not sure if this belongs to this topic, but this might be interesting to you:

The genomic history of southeastern Europe

Farming was first introduced to Europe in the mid-seventh millennium bc, and was associated with migrants from Anatolia who settled in the southeast before spreading throughout Europe. Here, to understand the dynamics of this process, we analysed genome-wide ancient DNA data from 225 individuals who lived in southeastern Europe and surrounding regions between 12000 and 500 bc. We document a west-east cline of ancestry in indigenous hunter-gatherers and, in eastern Europe, the early stages in the formation of Bronze Age steppe ancestry. We show that the first farmers of northern and western Europe dispersed through southeastern Europe with limited hunter-gatherer admixture, but that some early groups in the southeast mixed extensively with hunter-gatherers without the sex-biased admixture that prevailed later in the north and west. We also show that southeastern Europe continued to be a nexus between east and west after the arrival of farmers, with intermittent genetic contact with steppe populations occurring up to 2,000 years earlier than the migrations from the steppe that ultimately replaced much of the population of northern Europe.

Genomska Istorija Jugoistočne Evrope | Anatolia | Neolithic

New Insights from Southeastern Europe

Reich's second new Nature paper, on the genomic history of southeastern Europe, reveals an additional migration as farming spread across Europe, based on data from 255 individuals who lived between 14,000 and 2,500 years ago. It also adds a fascinating new nugget -- the first compelling evidence that the genetic mixing of populations in Europe was biased toward one sex.

Hunter-gatherer genes remaining in northern Europeans after the influx of migrating farmers came more from males than females, Reich's team found. "Archaeological evidence shows that when farmers first spread into northern Europe, they stopped at a latitude where their crops didn't grow well," he says. "As a result, there were persistent boundaries between the farmers and the hunter-gatherers for a couple of thousand years." This gave the hunter-gatherers and farmers a long time to interact. According to Reich, one speculative scenario is that during this long, drawn-out interaction, there was a social or power dynamic in which farmer women tended to be integrated into hunter-gatherer communities.

So far that's only a guess, but the fact that ancient DNA provides clues about the different social roles and fates of men and women in ancient society "is another way, I think, that these data are so extraordinary," says Reich.

Ancient DNA tells tales of humans' migrant history