march of progress

Published in Anthropology News, September 2018

“Perhaps… it is time to move on from the imagery of trees with branches as a metaphor for human evolution and consider streams and rivers instead.” Sang-Hee Lee.

Where We Come From an article by Sang-Hee Lee (published in Anthropology News September 2018) promotes new research that proves neanderthals and early humans did interbreed. The following is an excerpt from the article:

“The origin of modern humans is one of the most popular and hotly debated topics in the history of human evolution research. Researchers have produced a thick literature, both scholarly and public. I want to take issue with the two statements contained within this dominant paleoanthropological narrative: first, the suggestion that there is an identifiable point in time and place to call an origin; and second, the related implication that there exists a definable entity called “modern humans.” These two statements are taken as premises and remained largely unquestioned until recently. New research and a new generation of researchers are challenging these presuppositions at the heart of the discipline, and evidence is mounting to suggest that modern humans do not have an origin. Instead, we may be looking at fuzzy boundaries and messy origins. These terms are not as clean, but they are more likely to get us closer to true story of human evolution.”