evolutionary history of modern man
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Evolution of modern humans
The origin of modern humans has probably been the most debated issue in evolutionary biology over the last few decades.
Where did we come from?
“The exact origin of modern humans has long been a topic of debate.
Our evolutionary history is written into our genome?. The human genome looks the way it does because of all the genetic changes that have affected our ancestors. The exact origin of modern humans has long been a topic of debate.
KEY FACTModern humans originated in Africa within the past 200,000 years and evolved from their most likely recent common ancestor, Homo erectus.
Modern humans (Homo sapiens), the species? that we are, means ‘wise man’ in Latin. Our species is the only surviving species of the genus Homo but where we came from has been a topic of much debate. Modern humans originated in Africa within the past 200,000 years and evolved from their most likely recent common ancestor, Homo erectus, which means ‘upright man’ in Latin. Homo erectus is an extinct species of human that lived between 1.9 million and 135,000 years ago.
Historically, two key models have been put forward to explain the evolution? of Homo sapiens. These are the ‘out of Africa’ model and the ‘multi-regional’ model. The ‘out of Africa’ model is currently the most widely accepted model. It proposes that Homo sapiens evolved in Africa before migrating across the world.
On the other hand, the ‘multi-regional’ model proposes that the evolution of Homo sapiens took place in a number of places over a long period of time. The intermingling of the various populations eventually led to the single Homo sapiens species we see today