Another Article on Polygenesis

My series on polygenesis–the idea that modern man evolved at different places and different times, rather than at one location in Africa from which early humans later spread out at a fairly recent time–has been dormant  for a bit, as has the series on the Fall of which it is a sub-series.  However, I ran across this article from the New Scientist which is worth noting.  The article discusses recent evidence that humans reached China one hundred thousand years ago or more–much earlier than the traditional “Out of Africa” theory holds.

It’s worth adding that there is increasing evidence (see this article, and the series that begins here, both at the news site Indian Country) that Indians reached the Americas long before what has been long thought to be their time of arrival a mere twelve thousand years or so ago.

These are more pieces of the increasing amount of evidence accumulating that modern man dispersed much longer ago than had been previously thought, and therefore that the thesis of polygenesis–that humans developed in different places over time–has merit.  This implies nothing about the unity of those living today–because of population bottlenecks, all living people share common ancestors.  However, it is one more blow against the traditional view of the Fall of Mankind, in which a primal couple sins and transmit that sin to all future people, all of whom are said to descend from them.  In the near future, I hope to return to a deeper investigation of the issues this raises.

Also part of the series Polygenism Revisited.