Journey of Mankind.

1. Moon
   June 5th, 2007 at 10:49 am

   Is this the latest thinking on migration of ancient populations? I don't think it is, but I'm not a scholar in this area.

2. dithie
   June 5th, 2007 at 12:02 pm

   gender-neutral language, plz?

3. [sigh]
   June 5th, 2007 at 2:17 pm

   Most of us are smart enough to know that "mankind" means men and women. Sheeze!
   Remember, men and women are equal right, so "mankind" doesn't discriminate.

4. astanhope
   June 5th, 2007 at 4:06 pm

   How could this be true? God only created the earth/universe 6000 years ago.

   Where's the Garden of Eden?

5. biltmore
   June 5th, 2007 at 4:50 pm

   Thanks [sigh] ... I was just about to blow a gasket that someone actually thought mankind was a reference to "men".

   astanhope, I can only hope that your post is meant to be funny ... as I've just about had it with crazy & ignorant creationists.

6. Dave
   June 5th, 2007 at 9:09 pm

   You mean there was climate change before the evil western world decided to dump billions of tons of carbon into the atmosphere? Somebody call Rosie!

7. Another Jake
   June 5th, 2007 at 9:17 pm

   I don't know what i think about this map right now. These maps are based on genetic data... most of which I tend to trust, but there are a good number of strong assumptions made.

   It has at least one serious problem:
   Recent studies have shown that our most recent common ancestor was alive some time from 5,000 years ago to 50,000 years ago (this map says 150,000, but I've seen some of this data and tend to agree more with the more recent dates). Different methods give different numbers, but they're all recently quite small numbers of years. By "recent common ancestor", I mean the single person (or couple really) who begat everyone on the planet. Our "Adam" so to speak, though scientifically, it doesn't mean he and she were the only he and she alive at the time... just that only their family line survived. Anyway, if our heritage is that young, then a map like this would be making very significant assumptions about our history.
   In other words, you can not extrapolate genetics beyond our common human ancestor, so if the study that found our ancestor to be only 5,000 (or even 50,000) years ago is right, then judging back 150,000 years is not going to produce accurate results. Again, this study goes with 150,000 years as our common ancestor, but that number has been hotly debated in recent years in favor of small numbers.

   Well, one thing is almost certainly true however, and that is that We all began somewhere in, or just as likely near, Africa. The genetics just screams it.

   And for comfort to those who are religious, "in or near Africa" also includes the bits of the Middle-east that are thought to have possibly contained Eden. It's not outrageous at all to think people started there and moved south for a bit.

8. Another Jake
   June 5th, 2007 at 9:26 pm

   Oh, the bits about climate and other earth events though? Definitely Neato.

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