Now let's sort out the time, events and process of the debate between the two hypotheses:
Darwin, a British biologist, first put forward the hypothesis that human beings evolved from apes and probably originated from the African continent in his book Origin of Species published in 1859, but no human fossils supporting this hypothesis were excavated at that time.
As early as 1856, some human skeleton fossils were dug up in the Neanderthal Canyon in Germany, but their position in the theory of evolution has not been affirmed. Later, more fossils similar to Neanderthals were dug up in many parts of Europe.
It was not until 1864 that they were identified as Homo erectus, living about 654.38+10,000-50,000 years ago, and they were given a new species name: Neanderthals. Therefore, most biologists in the world believe that human beings originated in Europe and have a history of more than100000 years at most.
1929, Pei Wenzhong, an archaeologist from China, excavated the first complete skull fossil in the Gulong Cave in Zhoukoudian, Beijing. It was confirmed that they lived about 700,000-200,000 years ago and were later named "Beijingers". Therefore, most biologists in the world believe that human beings originated in Asia and extended the history of human origin to more than 500,000 years ago.
1974, the team of American paleoanthropologist Donald Johnson dug up a relatively complete human skeleton in Ethiopia, Africa, and determined that they lived about 3.3-2.8 million years ago. Later, she was named "Lucy Ape", so most biologists in the world believe that human beings originated in Africa, extending the history of human origin to 300 years.
Subsequently, ancient human fossils were continuously discovered in Africa. The earliest humans appeared in Africa 6-7 million years ago. Fossils have prolonged the history of human origin again and again, and confirmed Darwin's genius prediction again and again: the distant ancestors of human beings really originated in Africa.
1984, British anthropologist Chris stringer analyzed and judged the data by computer, and the data came to the conclusion that all human beings in the world today are descendants of Homo sapiens in Africa. And put forward the "substitution hypothesis" theory of going out of Africa twice.
In the same year, Wu Xinzhi, an academician of China Academy of Sciences, and many other scientists questioned the hypothesis that the origin of human beings should have evolved from Asia, Europe, Africa and Oceania at the same time.
1987, geneticists such as Allen Wilson of the University of California put forward a brand-new viewpoint by analyzing the DNA of women of different races around the world. Today, all human beings on earth come from a female ancestor who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago. Her descendants went out of Africa about 6,543,800 years ago and spread all over the world. Replaced all ancient humans outside Africa. This is the "Eve Hypothesis" theory in Africa, which further affirms the "African Origin Hypothesis" theory of human beings.
By 1998, some geneticists further proved that the "Eve hypothesis" in Africa was established and supported the view that "human beings came from Africa".
(It shows that African Homo sapiens left Africa about 654.38+10,000 years ago for the Eurasian-African triangle, and then headed for the southeast, northeast and Oceania of Asia about 60,000 years ago. Replaced all human beings in the world. )
In the same year, after studying archaeological fossils for many years, Academician Wu Xinzhi put forward a new viewpoint of "continuous evolution of network hybridization", which further clarified the theory that human beings originated in many regions and interbred with other continental races.
Its main evidence comes from fossils discovered in archaeology. There are more detailed fossil evidence chains in dozens of locations in China, from Australopithecus, Homo erectus, early Homo sapiens to "late Homo sapiens", such as:
About 2 million years ago, Wushan people in Chongqing
About 6.5438+0.8 million years ago, Yuanmou people in Yunnan.
About 1 15000 years ago, Lantian, Shaanxi.
A Beijinger about 500,000 years ago.
Nanjing people about 350 thousand years ago
A native of Changyang County, Hubei Province, about 200,000 years ago.
About 200,000 years ago-6.5438+0.5 million years ago, Dali, Shaanxi.
About 1.9 million years ago-1.5 million years ago, he was born in Hexian County, Anhui Province.
About135,000 years ago-129,500 years ago, Maba people in Guangdong,
About 6,543.8+200,000 years ago-6,543.8+0,000 years ago. Xuchang of Henan province
About 6.5438+0.3 million years ago-70,000 years ago, Liujiang, Guangxi.
It was about 6.5438+0.2 million years ago-80,000 years ago, from Daoxian County, Hunan Province.
About 6.5438 million years ago-50,000 years ago, Yunxi, Hubei.
About 6,543,800 years ago-50,000 years ago, Lijiang, Yunnan.
About 50,000-37,000 years ago, Hetao people in Inner Mongolia:
About 42,000-38,500 years ago, Beijing was an "idyllic caveman";
About 35,000 years ago, he was born in Ziyang County, Sichuan Province.
About 34,000-27,000 years ago, there were "Neanderthals" in Beijing. Wait a minute.
These human fossils prove that ancient humans in China have obvious continuity of "physical characteristics" and are a complete and clear evolutionary chain of ancient humans. The evolution process from primitive humans to modern humans is continuous, and the evolution of human beings in China has never been interrupted. This further proves that it is not true that ancient humans in China were replaced by Africans.
In 2008, an important new discovery was made in Denisova Cave in Altai Mountains in southern Siberia. A little finger bone fossil of a 5-7-year-old girl was dug up, and some decorations and jewels were also found. It was later identified as a new human species-Early Homo sapiens, which was named Denisova about125,000-40,000 years ago.
In 20 10, the team of geneticist Svante Papo of Max Planck Institute of Anthropology in Germany reconstructed the genome sequence of Denisova people based on their archaeological fossils, and compared it with the genomes of Neanderthals and modern people all over the world. The results show that Denisova and Neanderthals.
At the same time, it shows that people from Asia, Europe and most other parts of the world all contain 1.5%-4% Neanderthal gene, especially melanesians even carries 4%-6% Denisova gene. This result shows that African Homo sapiens exchanged mixed-race genes with two different ancient human species, Neanderthals and Denisovans.
In 20 14, American scientists published an article in Science magazine, saying that 20% of Neanderthals' genes were preserved in modern people's genes.
A variety of scientific and technical analysis shows that modern Homo sapiens had mixed-race gene exchanges with ancient humans in Europe and Asia. Therefore, the African origin hypothesis school changed the purely replaced Eve hypothesis into the assimilation hypothesis, that is to say, it indirectly recognized Academician Wu Xinzhi's viewpoint of "multi-origin evolutionary hybridization hypothesis".
Some people wonder, since they are all descendants of mixed-race, why do we have to say that modern people are descendants of Africans, not Europeans or Asians?
We'll talk about it next time.
You can watch the same video in this number one place:
The hypothesis of multiple origins of human beings (Ⅱ)