Very interesting - especially considering that convergent/divergent evolution of humans was a topic of debate when I got my degree (the vogue view being that Homo Sapiens managed to develop both in Africa/Fertile Crescent and India/China at roughly the same time.

Very interesting, especially considering that convergent vs divergent evolution of humans was a topic of debate when I got my degree (the vogue view being that Homo Sapiens managed to develop both in Africa and the Fertile Crescent and India to China region at roughly the same time.

DAMMIT!!!! I didn't double post. I got the 500 error, then reposted. Should I have checked the site first?

Yup. Quirk of the site. It's always done that, so we don't take multiple postings personally :)

The multi-regional hypothesis has come under heavy fire since then, due mostly to DNA testing. Said testing has revealed, for example, the further you get away from Africa, the less diverse the gene pool gets. Were H. sapiens to have evolved in a lot of places all at once, there would not be such a heavy genetic "arrow" pointing at that continent from all directions.

Above comment triggered two overly-broad regexps for catching spam. These have been revised, so hopefully it won't be as fussy as it has been lately. Still with 450+ rules, these sorts of things will happen.

I seem to remember hearing that as well. But at the time, it was open speculation as there were genes that were present in one population that seemed to be completely absent from others, along with certain phenotypic differences that hadn't been explained.