The well-preserved skull at the left was found in Germany and is believed to be that of an archaic Homo sapiens woman who lived approximately 250,000 years ago. She has a large cranium with a high forehead and less massive brow ridges than are typical in Homo erectus; similarly, the eye sockets are larger and more angular than in Homo erectus.The badly damaged skull shown in the top center is from Steinheim, Germany and is of approximately the same age. In contrast to the skull on the left, it has massive brow ridges more reminiscent of the older species, H. erectus. The skull at far right of roughly 200,000 years in age is from southern Africa and was originally classified as Homo erectus. This skull has certain Neanderthal-like features as well. These specimens thus remind us that in nature the lines between species are not absolute, and individual specimens may well represent intermediate forms.
If Homo sapiens developed gradually and in parallel out of widely dispersed Homo erectus populations in Africa, Europe, and Asia (as the physical evidence here suggests), the races are quite old, emerging from the original dispersals of Homo erectus populations 700,00 to l million years ago. In this case, physical or fossil evidence suggests one hypothesis and other forms of evidence suggest another. Reconstructions of our ancestry based on the extent to which the DNA of various groups around the world has diverged from a common origin point suggests a very different hypothesis: that Homo sapiens evolved once, in Africa, and radiated or migrated from that point to the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, replacing Homo erectus populations. According to this view, which rests on the small amount of divergence or variation in our DNA, the races or regional variations in human populations, are relatively recent--only 250,000 years old.
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