Genetic Evidence
Genetic evidence from the late 1980s on the mitochondrial genome indicated that all living women can trace their maternal line of descent to a single female living in Africa about 200,000 years ago, the so-called Mitochondrial Eve. This led to a hypothesis that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa, with a small founder population of humans leaving Africa and eventually replacing all archaic humans then living elsewhere without interbreeding. Recent analyses of DNA taken directly from Neanderthal specimens, however, indicates that they contributed to the genome of all humans outside of Africa. The Homo sapiens who populate the world outside Africa all have Neanderthals among their ancestors. Denisova hominins also contributed to the DNA of Melanesians and Australians.
Read more about this topic: Multiregional Origin Of Modern Humans
Famous quotes containing the words genetic and/or evidence:
“We cannot think of a legitimate argument why ... whites and blacks need be affected by the knowledge that an aggregate difference in measured intelligence is genetic instead of environmental.... Given a chance, each clan ... will encounter the world with confidence in its own worth and, most importantly, will be unconcerned about comparing its accomplishments line-by-line with those of any other clan. This is wise ethnocentricism.”
—Richard Herrnstein (1930–1994)
“In fact, there is clear evidence of black intellectual superiority: in 1984, 92 percent of blacks voted to retire Ronald Reagan, compared to only 36 percent of whites.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)