Perhaps this category should be referred to as prehistorical views. Usually, when we hear that palaeontologists and archaeologists have extended the prehistory of the human species, we think of the Leakeys, Africa, Lucy and the Olduvai Gorge.
For once, such an announcement comes from closer to home. The Ancient Human Occupation of Britain Project has discovered a site near Lowestoft dating human habitation in Britain to seven hundred thousand years ago. This date is based upon the vole teeth discovered on the site, compared with later discoveries at Boxgrove and Westbury sub Mendip in Somerset.
The dates involved are much too early for carbon dating – effective only to about 40,OOOBC – but scientists have been able to calculate good approximate ages from the known ages of animal fossils found at the sites.
In particular, the research centres on teeth belonging to a genus of prehistoric watervole, known as mimomys. About 700,000 years ago these voles had rooted molars, similar to those of human beings, which grow once then get worn down through adult life. But by 500,000 years ago, the animals had evolved rootless molars that continue to grow – an advantage to creatures that eat tough vegetation.
The voles found at Boxgrove are from the later era, but the East Anglian ones have primitive molars, dating the site definitively to at least 700,000 years ago. Those at Westbury are of an intermediate form. “The dating still involves some guesswork, but the best estimate is about 600,000 years ago,” Professor Stringer said. Simon Parfitt, a fossil mammal specialist at the museum and at University College, London, who analysed the vole fossils, said; “We can put everything in a relative order, and Westbury could be 100,000 years earlier than Boxgrove. The Best Anglian finds go as far back as 700,000 years.”
Early Man’s reach extended further and earlier than we have anticipated. Who knows what else prehistory will throw at us.
Well that explains The Darkness then.
Those were early hominids, but they weren’t our ancestors. All modern humans are descended from the second wave that came out of Africa about a hundred thousand years ago. All the previous hominids in Asia and Europe are extinct.
As a supporter of the Multi-Regional evolutionary hypothesis, I must point out that Mr. Den Beste’s opinion is only one of two strongly supported “evolutionary narratives.”
Although I cannot say whether or not these particular hominids have living descendents, it might not be true that waves of newly evolved humans went out from Africa and replaced all who came before.
Evolution doesn’t happen in one spot. There’s nothing special about Africa in producing genetic mutation, and evolution is as likely in Anglia as on the slopes of Kilimanjaro. Beneficial mutations would happen randomly throughout Eurasia and Africa, and then spread out in all direction, merging with other populations. Think of raindrops on water, with all the ripples traveling across the pool and eventually merging. That’s our gene pool.
There is good evidence that at least some of the traits we consider human today evolved outside of Africa and then made their way in. There is also evidence that if Tribe A evolved to a higher level of fitness than Tribe B, the humans that lived in the region later were a blend (more A than B, but a blend nonetheless). Particular traits observed in a region (such as molar size or what have you) were still observed there even after the latest “wave” from Africa.
So, my point is that perhaps, just perhaps, those vole eaters from East Anglia do have some descendents living today, and perhaps as far away as Africa.
Steven den Beste – Yeah. The Africans thought, “Let’s go somewhere colder! Let’s go somewhere so cold, only the hardiest survive. And it’s difficult to grow food. So a mango no longer so predictably plops onto our heads as we take a midday break under the shade of a mango tree. And we don’t have to worry about bananas littering our path through the ice-packs. Sounds like a plan!”
Verity,
That was rude.
And personally, I prefer the a more blustery climate than Africa anyway. It’s bloody hot. No matter how cold it gets you can add another layer of fur, but the reverse is not true for heat. Perhaps those ancient hominids were also seeking a more reasonable climate.
Or maybe they were fleeing a drought, as Africa is prone to, or lions & hyenas, which Africa is also prone to.
Wait a minute. Now we’re descended from voles?
Good grief. That creation/religion thing is looking more attractive every day.
“I must point out that Mr. Den Beste’s opinion is only one of two strongly supported “evolutionary narratives”
Um, sorry Brock, but it is much more than that.
The Multi-Regional evolutionary hypothesis had some support amongst anthropologists for a while but it was always regarded as nonsense by evolutionary and genetics theorists. Widely separated populations will always diverge genetically. They will converge or co evolve in the same direction only if there is very high level of gene flow between them, and there was almost no gene flow between the different populations of H. habilis. SE Asia, Europe and Africa were simply too widely separated for this to happen.
Recent gene analysis makes it clear that the out of Africa hypothesis really is the only sensible explanation.
Although there is some evidence for H. sapiens sapiens and H sapiens neanderthalensis cross breeding, on the current state of knowledge Stephen Den Beste is pretty much right.
No Mr du Toit we are not descended from voles, they used voles as the dating method since carbon-dating is only good for 40,000 years back.
I don’t think that anyone is saying that we are still not descended from the African ‘Olduvai Man’ – there is after all a big difference from finding bones from someone who might have lived 700,000 years ago against finding bones from someone who might have lived 1.7m years ago, or 3.2m years ago, as in the case of the fossiled remains of ‘Lucy’, found in the Afar region in Ethiopia.
Brock – “Verity – that was rude”. Who to?
I just don’t believe the Africans sat around saying, “God, it’s hot! Maybe somewhere off the North Sea would suit us better.” Any more than I think people from East Anglia sat around saying, “God. it’s bloody freezing around here. Why don’t we go down the Med?”
Admittedly, before people started growing crops, there was nothing to keep them in one place, but I just can’t believe human being were roaming around vast distances randomly tens of thousands of years ago – especially as there was so little known about the world then and it must have frightening and awesome.
Verity,
Whether they were roaming vast distances or not simply doesn’t matter. Even expanding at the rate of a few hundred yards every generation will, given a millennium or ten, result in populations spreading over vast distances.
And yes, various hunting, gathering and herding cultures did wander around vast distances as individual and family acts. Australian aboriginals, Lapps, plains Indians and Eskimo are examples from recent historical times.
Steven Den Beste;
Not so. Have you not noticed the title of the post? Homo Anglia. It is not a great stretch to get from there to Essex Man who is still very much alive today.
Chris harper, not exactly so
So, really, it has to be deliberate migration. Just being pedantic 😉
The teeth belong to watervoles.
Since when are we related to watervoles?
I can’t see how that dates the human species back 700,000 years at all. Am I missing something?
Pi.
Julian,
Ok, so I was a bit tongue in cheek and understated the situation. Still, a movement of only a couple of miles a generation will spread pretty far in the time frames available, and any nomadic hunter/gatherer group will regard moving that far in a day as but a short stroll.
Don’t have a link, but it has been estimated that it took just a short thousand years to populate North America after a corridor through the ice became available.
I’m not going to get into this spat—I knew some of those guys, and they were a lot of fun to sit around with roasting a few watervoles and grunting dirty jokes. Ah, those were the days…
Of course there’s also a minor possibility that the dating-voles are an isolated survival of earlier forms. It’s not as if there is an available DNA clock in this case.
PI and Kim du Toit the voles were just found in the same sediment layer and thus were usable as a dating method. How thick can you get.
I thought the voles were a food source . Archeologists use … organic refuse all the time for dating sites. I knew one who spent an inordinate amount of time studying tiny fishbones looking for indentations (something about tool use).