THEORIES OF MODERN HUMAN ORIGINS - THE PALEONTOLOGICAL TEST

The recent proposal based on interpretations of mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) allows for the unambiguous testing of two models about the origin of modern Homo sapiens. These are the total replacement ("Eve') and the continuity (multiregional evolution) models, both of which have clearly definable, completely different predictions about the pattern of past evolution, as well as different expectations about the distribution of certain grade (modernizing) and clade (regional, such as African, North Asian, etc.) features in the human fossil record. Using the prehistoric skeletal data of Australasia, North Asia, Europe, Africa, and the Levant, the conflicting predictions of these two models are tested by evaluating evidence for the existence of transitional samples and the persistence of morphological and metric features over time and space. The differences between the "Eve' and the multiregional evolution models are so profound it is impossible for both to be correct. These differences in theoretical expectations relate to the requirements of the Eve theory that a single source of all contemporary mtDNA variation exists and that this source is derived exclusively from a relatively recent African female (Eve). This article shows that while an extreme replacement interpretation is unsupportable, the mtDNA data can be reconciled with the fossil record within the context of multiregional evolution. -from Authors