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From: Orin Wells <>
Subject: Re: [DNA] How old is Y-Chromosome Adam?
Date: Thu, 30 Dec 2010 09:03:49 -0800
References: <AANLkTikwdqMnD_7GhV2qq7SAnveR_oSc_tUMLEy_PrM+@mail.gmail.com>
In-Reply-To: <AANLkTikwdqMnD_7GhV2qq7SAnveR_oSc_tUMLEy_PrM+@mail.gmail.com>


A recent discovery may already have been discussed on this list and I
missed it. This is certainly going to cause many to re-think both the
"ancient out of Africa" theory and just how long ago "Adam" may have
lived as well as where.

The dates listed in the article referenced by Robert of 300,000 years
and 575,000 years may not be so far off as some would think.

In Qesem cave near Rosh Ha'Ayin, 10 miles from Ben-Gurion airport east
of Tel Aviv, a team of international archeologists under the auspices of
Tel Aviv University have discovered 8 teeth. Not so unusual except
these teeth have been estimated to be about 400,000 years old and are
the teeth of Homo Sapiens aka modern man.

The study was funded by the government of Spain, the American Museum of
Natural History, the Israel Science Foundation and philanthropic groups,
including the Irene Levi Sala CARE Archaeological Foundation and the
Leakey Foundation.

Along with the teeth -- the parts of the human skeleton that survive the
longest -- the researchers found evidence of a sophisticated early human
society that used sharpened flakes of stone to cut meat and other
impressive prehistoric tools.

Until this discovery it had been believed by scientists that man evolved
no more than 200,000 years ago in Africa and migrated north between
150,000 and 200,000 years ago. Possibly as late as 70,000 years ago.
This discovery will now cause scientists to reconsider as it indicates
man may have originated in the Middle East. Of course we do not know
how this will mesh with bible accounts. Did Adam live more than
400,000 years ago?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1341973/Did-humans-come-Middle-East-Africa-Scientists-forced-write-evolution-modern-man.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

And you thought it was difficult trying to get a grip on ancestors 6,000
or 70,000 years ago. Just try to trace your ancestors back to this point!

On 12/30/2010 7:58 AM, Robert Hughes wrote:
> How old is Y-chromosome Adam?
> Dienekes has a thoughtful post in his December-30-2010 blog about
> finding the age of Y-Chromosome Adam with a little help from Tim
> Janzen.
> Dienekes writes in part:
> The presumed shallow time depth of the human Y-chromosome phylogeny is
> one of the main arguments of the recent Out-of-Africa theory. One of
> the major things I found while working on my Y-STR series is that
> point estimates from Y-STR variation are associated with huge
> confidence intervals, because of uncertainty about factors such as
> generation length, population history, mutation rates, even if the
> mutation model behaves "perfectly" in symmetrical stepwise fashion.
> More at the link below.
> Link: http://dienekes.blogspot.com/2010/12/how-old-is-y-chromosome-adam.html
> Regards, Robert
> When I told my doctor about my memory loss, he made me pay in advance.
>
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