Tuesday January 9 3:44 AM ET
Australia Challenges Out-Of-Africa Evolution Theory

By Paul Tait

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian scientists said on Tuesday they had analyzed
the oldest DNA ever taken from human remains, and that the results
challenge the theory that modern humans evolved from African ancestors
alone.

Researchers at Australian National University said they had analyzed DNA
taken from remains unearthed in 1974 at Lake Mungo in the state of New
South Wales. Dating in May 1999 put the age of the skeletal remains at
between 56,000 and 68,000 years.

ANU anthropologist Alan Thorne said that neither ``Mungo Man's''
completely modern skeleton nor its DNA had any links with human ancestors
from Africa found in other parts of the world.

``Neither of them (the skeleton or DNA) show any evidence that they ever
were in Africa,'' Thorne told Reuters. ``There's modern humans in
Australia that have nothing to do with Africa at all.''

The findings, revealed in The Australian newspaper on Tuesday, challenge
the prevailing ``out of Africa'' theory of evolution because ``Mungo Man''
has a genetic line which has vanished yet his skeleton is completely
modern.

The ``out of Africa'' theory holds that modern humans evolved from a
common homo erectus ancestor in Africa.

Homo sapiens then left Africa and spread across the world between 150,000
and 100,000 years ago.

The ANU researchers say that because Mungo Man is modern anatomically, yet
has a vanished DNA line, it means at least one group of homo erectus's
descendants evolved outside of Africa.

Under the counter ``regional continuity'' theory which Thorne supports,
modern man evolved from homo erectus in several different places -- what
is now Africa, Europe, east Asia and west Asia -- followed by
interbreeding between the regions.

``Everywhere was becoming modern at roughly the same rate,'' Thorne said.
``As they are today, genes were flowing from Shanghai to Paris, from
Singapore to Cape Town.''

Genetic Fingerprint

DNA is a kind of genetic fingerprint unique to every individual and which
transmits hereditary characteristics.

The ANU research says that Mungo Man's mitochondrial DNA contained
different sequences of the four chemicals which form DNA to that which has
been found in other remains. Mitochondria are the energy packs within
cells.

The previously oldest human DNA tested came from Neanderthal remains -- a
45,000-year-old specimen in western Germany and 28,000-year-old remains
from Croatia.

While the genetic footprint was different, ANU evolutionary genetecist
Simon Easteal said Mungo Man would have looked very much like modern
humans.

``This individual has facial features, has morphology that is essentially
modern, that wouldn't stand out in a crowd today,'' Easteal told Reuters.

``If he was part of a wave of modern people that had come out of Africa
and spread, eventually reaching Australia, then his mitochondrial DNA
would reflect that,'' he said.

Thorne said the dating of Mungo Man meant there was no doubt that
ancestors of Australia's Aborigines came to the continent from Asia about
70,000 years ago -- some 30,000 years earlier than was thought.

``There's no question that somewhere in southeast Asia is where watercraft
got invented,'' Thorne said. ``The first oceanic crossings were to
Australia.''

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