DNA Diaspora: Humanity may share tangled genetic roots
By Bruce Bower
The scientific debate over the nature of human evolution has taken a new, genetically inspired twist.
Ancient humans migrated out of Africa in at least two major waves, and human groups in Africa, Asia, and Europe have interbred for the past 600,000 years, says geneticist Alan R. Templeton of Washington University in St. Louis.
Templeton’s conclusion clashes with the influential theory that modern Homo sapiens originated in Africa around 100,000 years ago and then colonized the rest of the world. In this scenario, humans replaced now-extinct European Neandertals but did not interbreed with them.