Out-of-Africa Theory Becomes More Convoluted

The old simple story that early modern humans migrated out of Africa 40,000 years ago and took over Europe from brutish Neanderthals just got more complicated.  A new theory mentioned in National Geographic News now proposes that they took a side trip to India first, 70,000 years ago.  After knocking off Heidelberg Man there, they moved west 30,000 years later and took over Europe.  This is the new story line proposed by Michael Petraglia and Hannah James of Cambridge.  Petraglia said, “I realized that, my god, modern humans might have wiped out Homo heidelbergensis in India.  Modern humans may have been responsible for wiping out all sorts of ancestors around the world.”

We’ll award that line Stupid Evolution Quote of the Week.  To interpret stories like this, you have to understand that it is all just a game.  The object is to get mentioned in National Geographic, preferably on the cover, by saying something just controversial enough to draw attention to oneself without ever throwing the whole enterprise of evolutionary paleoanthropology into doubt.