If the conclusions drawn from this research are correct, if Homo erectus was forming settlements 400,000 years ago, then on what basis is H. erectus considered a different species from H. sapiens (us)? It takes a lot of intelligence, and probably spoken language, to do what this article claims H. erectus was doing. Biologically speaking two populations are of the same species if they can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. We don't know that H. erectus was "reproductively isolated" from H. sapiens and the evidence now is that it probably wasn't. Isn't it about time that we recognized that the evolutionary paradigm for human evolution needs to be revised:
The accepted timescale of Man's evolution is being challenged by a German archaeologist who claims to have found evidence that Homo erectus - mankind's early ancestor, who migrated from Africa to Asia and Europe - began living in settled communities long before the accepted time of 10,000 years ago.
The point at which settlement actually took place is the first critical stage in humanity's cultural development.
Helmut Ziegert, of the Institute of Archaeology at Hamburg University, says that the evidence can be found at excavated sites in North and East Africa, in the remains of stone huts and tools created by upright man for fishing and butchery.
Professor Ziegert claims that the thousands of blades, scrapers, hand axes and other tools found at sites such as Budrinna, on the shore of the extinct Lake Fezzan in southwest Libya, and at Melka Konture, along the River Awash in Ethiopia, provide evidence of organised societies.
He believes that such sites show small communities of 40 or 50 people, with abundant water resources to exploit for constant harvests.
The implications for our knowledge of human evolution - and of our intellectual and social beginnings - are "profound" and a "staggering shift", he said.
Yes, they are. The implications are that however long humans have been on the earth they have been the same species they are today.
RLC
