Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - February 26, 1989, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press february 1989 Page 16 by John Noble Wilford new York times new Fossil discoveries and genetic evidence have fuelled a re sounding debate among anthropologists Over the timing and circumstances of the last major event in human physical the emergence of the anatomically modern Homo one which is gaining holds that modern humans evolved in one place almost invariably identified As then migrated elsewhere in response to various regional Condi gradually developed slight racial in the other stoutly defended by some prominent modern humans Are seen As arising virtually simultaneously and independently in differ ent places in Europe and no one is disputing the substantial evidence that the earliest human ancestors evolved in with the apeman two million to three million years and that some of their More adventurous descent Homo spread through the warmer regions of the old at is where and How their archaic Homo the fateful transition to thoroughly modern there is no that All modern races Are members of the same Homo with the same fundamental genetic findings Challenge theory but new Fossil findings in an israeli showing that modern looking Homo Sapiens lived in the Middle East As Long ago As Are being cited As support for the out Africa proponents of this theory say these Cave people were most Likely the descendants of original modern Homo Sapiens who had migrated from according to this the find Ings also threaten to displace the Neander a Type of archaic Homo from a Central place on the human family the whose Fossil remains were the first human like ones to be in lived across in the Middle East and As far East As Uzbekistan in Central Asia from about to years when they mysteriously Digap parallel species they were the Cavemen of popular stooped and but some scientists in recent decades had come to think of them As much less primitive beings and Likely close perhaps even direct of modern but fossils from another israeli Cave show that neanderthals inhabited the area As recently As years raising doubt whether they could have been the ancestors of modern Homo Sapiens who were present years proponents of the out Africa hypothesis contend this discovery supports their View that neanderthals were a distinct and parallel species that came to a dead end played no role in modern human Christopher Stringer and Peter an palaeontologists at the British museum of natural history in writing last year in the journal fuelled the controversy by asserting that the collective evidence now favors a recent african origin of Homo unbending advocate nothing of the counters Milford a professor of anthropology at the University of who is an unbending advocate of the Multi regional the african he overlooks marked Pale ontological evidence of anatomical features of neanderthals and other regional archaic Homo Sapiens that persists in Early modern indicating considerable interbreeding and hence Sug Gesting that the two branches could not be too apparent similarities Between the cultural aspects of the neanderthals and the anatomically modern humans also testify to a close Wolpoff for the two groups used similar Stone tools and practice ritual burials of their in an assessment of the conflicting Fred a professor of new evidence spurs debate Over emergence of Homo Sapiens shaking the ancestor or dead end researchers Are debating whether an archaic form of Homo were ancestors of anatomically modern a subspecies that died out or an entirely different some differences can be seen in these two cranial shape the neanderthal forehead slopes Back at a greater Angle than in modern there is More room for brains in Back for the neanderthal archaic Homo modern Homo Sapiens Date of emergence is ancient More in front for the jaw neanderthal jaw and Teeth Are evolutionary shrinkage of jaw and Teeth brow Ridge neanderthal Skull has characteristic prominent brow absent in typical modern Eye socket neanderthal Skull has bigger Eye nose size of base of nose is much larger in neanderthal anthropology at the University of Tennes see at agreed that reasonable transitional fossils and archaeological Samf pies such As tools exist outside for this and other he and colleagues in a study to be published later this that Multi regional evolution is the Best nation for modern human but Smith cautioned that the data so far Are not sufficiently unequivocal to warrant dogmatic assertions by either Side in the people Are going said Ofer a professor of old world paleo lithic archaeology at Harvard commenting on the growing the debate came to a boil last year with a report that modern looking Homo Sapiens lived in the Middle East As Long ago As years years earlier than had been the Date was established by a technique called which is mainly used to Date Flint found in the a Fazeh Cave near Nazareth in Israel was heated to release the Energy of electrons trapped inside since the Stone chips were last burned Long presumably when they fell from the hands of toolmakers into a analysis of the Light emissions deter mined when the burning last and since the skulls of modern humans were found in the same it was concluded that these people had occupied the Cave at the same the dating was conducted by a team of French and israeli scientists headed by Helene a physicist at the Institute for Low level radiation in if sur most scientists have accepted the reliability of the this was Good news for the out of Africa if modern humans evolved in the oldest fossils with modern Fea Tures would be expected to be found in or near some such fossils have been excavated in South at the Border Cave and Klasges River Mouth and have been dated at about but Many anthropologists dispute the Validity of these findings and say it is difficult to put a Date on the earliest modern humans in Africa any More precise than somewhere Between and even a Leader of the out of Africa conceded that it remains unclear Why it then apparently took years for the a Fazeh people to spread into Europe and Eastern and Smith noted that there is no known compelling reason population pressures or marked changes in technology or food Supply for african populations to have left their Homeland about years for that Wolpoff Why As sume that the a Fazeh people originated in Africa if that Date is it Means that Eden May not be in he it might also be right Back where the Bible according to the Model proposed by Wolpoff and the Early Homo rectus hominids spread out of Africa More than a million years opposing theory then regional groups living in relative isolation slowly evolved into several archaic versions of Homo one of these being there must have been some Gene flow from mixing of these regional anthropologists or else they might have evolved into distinct the opposing theory holds that the modern species developed in Africa and moved into the rest of the people such As the neanderthals were driven to out Africa theorists have gained Valu Able support from molecular biologists who Are adept at tracing genetic their reported two years showed that every person living today can Trace his maternal ancestry to one woman who lived in Africa to years Allan Wilson and Mark Stoneking of the University of California at Berkeley and re Becca Cann of the University of Hawaii deduced the african eve by studying a set of mitochondrial passed Down Only from mothers to their they examined these inherited genes from native africans and people in the United states whose ancestors were Afri european or aboriginal aus finding a greater number of mutations in the genes from people of african de the scientists concluded that Afri cans have been diversifying longer represented the earliest modern Branch of the family in a computer analysis of the mutation they determined when the last com Mon ancestor of All people had lived in Stringer and in arguing their Africa origin put great store in these but other researchers have produced results indicating the common ancestor might have been Israel find critical there is still much disagreement among the experts about what the genetic data can and do Tell us about modern human Smith and his colleagues a second discovery in at Yebara Cave at is critical to the there scientists found skeletons identified As neanderthal and dated at some anthropologists Point out that the timing makes it difficult to explain How the neanderthals could have evolved into mod Ern the fact that neanderthals and Modem humans probably coexisted there and else where in Eurasia for thousands of years casts doubt on any ancestor descendant relationship and makes it More Likely that the two were separate examination of the Yebara skeletons by Yoel a professor of Anatomy and human evolution at Tel Aviv revealed striking differences in the Struc Ture and orientation of the sockets into which the thigh Bones they face sideways More than in modern Homo which Rak and associates attributed to differences in locomotion and posture related these and other anatomical he convinced him that neanderthals were a separate whatever their biological the Yebara neanderthals and the a Fazeh modern humans were leading lives of remarkable Alli fun missives new use for fax owners by Beth Ann Krier los Angeles times Beverly Why Are All those Home fax machines around Here purring away late at night stockbrokers passing hot tips on to Blu Chip customers movie execs swapping script outlines into the night would you believe Homework according to fax machine Many of the people who own the devices and have teenagers who understandably wish to remain Anonymous Are Likely to have their machines tied up at night with school assignments being faxed Back and even those kids who do their Homework unassisted Are eager to use faxes to create electronic study parental my daughter is just waiting for somebody in her class to have a Parent bring a fax machine said Bill president of Public fax in they always forget Shell Call up a Girlfriend and try to figure out How to do math you Ever try to do math Over the phone its All part of the growing fax initially introduced As a business facsimile Send and receive copies of documents Over Telephone lines in suddenly being employed for an expanding array of personal uses everything from playing chess to executing practical jokes to sending Holiday numbers grow the number of fax machines in the country has grown to Mil according to estimates of analysts at a High tech Market research and consulting firm in san most of those machines Are still in where business applications Are expanding rapidly and becoming far More doctors now fax prescriptions to fire department personnel fax blueprints of buildings to firefighters at fire the machines also have enlivened the formats of radio stations eager to court those who listen at the office especially since the Arbitron ratings were recently expanded to Monitor of fice listening numerous stations have invited audiences to communicate with deejays via of fice fax such As Emmr in have even asked listeners to fax us your body on abcs Ken Bob a morning show in the los Angeles listeners have been asked to fax in such things As stupid instructions that accompany the fax format be came so popular the duo formed a special club for waxing silly with office listeners via footprints faxed Mccue observes that a Klamath Public fax outlet does a husky business with local morticians with a need to get interment papers signed on new years one of his Public fax employees gave birth to a baby at after the baby footprints were they were faxed to to the baby who received the prints within an hour of the but As practical jokers have los Angeles times photo deejays Bob left and Ken show some Lestha perfect fax reproduction of documents makes the medium appealing for forgeries of All an Indianapolis car Salesman tells of what happened when he accidentally left a set of family photos behind at one car Dealership before moving on to one of his former col leagues Cut the photos apart so that the Salesman head was atop the body of his Young sitting nude in a it was my second Day on the new Job when the picture came Over the Rick Moonshower All of a sudden the women upstairs came Down the stairs the photo had a note id like you to meet your new annoying missives other personal missives Are not so much obscene As they Are Sim ply at based ten Speed press and Celes tial Art publishing publicity director Dayna Macy bemoans the fact that the organization receives daily faxes from a set of authors who shall remain name this stuff makes people feel like there doing some and you cant hide from it Treyve got you by by Federal express and the last bastion Treyve got you by she you cant even hide under your desk any theres a fax on top of ;