Who do you think we are? Stephen Oppenheimer may be able to tell you.
Where did the modern human race originate? And how did we disperse throughout the globe? These questions form the basis for the BBC series The Incredible Human Journey, which this weekend features genetics expert and Prospect contributor Stephen Oppenheimer. Indeed, much of the series draws upon Oppenheimer’s 2003 work, Out of Eden: the peopling of the world, previously featured in Prospect.
To coincide with Sunday’s programme, Oppenheimer has agreed to address a limited number of questions on the journey and the research upon which it was based (as he did previously for Prospect on his 2006 book The Origins of the British). So if you feel Sunday’s show leaves any stones unturned, or if you have any burning questions about the birth of humanity, now is you chance to be heard–leave your questions below, and Oppenheimer will reveal all.
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I am so relieved! I have, throughout this series, wondered why the great Oppenheimer, who had done much more detailed research, had not appeared!
He must now devise his own series and imitate Attenborough!
I don’t understand how humans apparently arrived in Australia c60,000 years ago so soon after they left Africa, if I understood (and remember) correctly. The implication seemed to be that humans evolved independently in SE Asia as well as Africa, is that right?
Well I don’t suppose you are like to be reading this, Michael, but I think that the short answer is that the Australiam aborigines didn’t bother going through Asia. They went directly from Africa on boats – possibly unintentionally!
And no – the DNA evidence shows that all of the humans alive today evolved as homo sapiens in Africa. There was no seperate Asian evolution. That was just Chinese wishful thinking.