The 7 innovative civilization, theory & criticism

Common elements in Mesopotamia, Indus and Egypt.

Monumental architecture:

• Religious belief, gods (tempels, bath house, pyramids,)*

• Appeared near rivers (flood banks and fertile)

• Written language (Hieroglyphs, trading not readable though, cuneform)

• Social Hierachy/ leader (pyramid, slaves, kingslists in stonecarving, different statuses, government)

• Exchange of goods (mesopotamia network) - get resourses they can't produce where they live
  BUT NO SUCH THINGS AS FINANCIAL PROFIT! Didn't do it for profit.

• Agriculture - irrigation system (bevattningssystem)*

*Civil Loyalty

All of a sudden huge building. They orginize differently.

Orginizing people to get irrigation system. Alla they are build on an irrigation system. They have brought togheter 100 of people, constructing project. Enought food then to make all of the stuff above happened.

Without orginizing people, wouldnt have that.

People see them selves as citi citisens now, how people see them seleves changed. The civil loyalty. People see themselves as a part of a city than a tribe.

From tibe to city

Innovative civilization PP

The first cities

Innovation or diffusion

In cronological order:

• Mesopotamia in iraqe
• Nile in egypt
• Indus in india paquistan
• Huhang he in eastern china
• Mesoamerica in modern mexico
• Andies in west coust south america
• *Niger central west africa

These 7 are special because they appear out of nowehere, original, not influenced by any other civilization. Very first cities are in mesopotamia. They are totally Unique!

Other civilization had been difused, like the greks. They're influenced by mesopotamia and egypt.

*get the map on the PP*

Theory and criticism

• Analysis is based on taking these 4 theories and testing weather they fit our civlilazation!

• The cosmo-magical city

 he Tried to find a pattern

The center of all these acient city these's a religius center!

Before the cities excisted, people would have visitet that location. A great meeting for the hunter-gatherer people. Would meet here like 1/year. Had a ceremony and place had religiois significanse. They were fertile, fresh water (these nice places) and you met all the other poeple in the area there, they got a religious significans!

While they're there meeting other groups they exchanged siblings (?)

These religious center performed some kind of magic. Not pulling a rabbit out of a hat, but perfomed some kind of show to predict the future. The magic tried to commiunicate with the cosmos, with the gods. Performing magic to communicate with the gods.

Not only had they religious centers, they seemed to controll all economic and administral activity. Contolls pretty muc everything in that city.

Administrivy buildings, not only religoius center but controled also! In research!

• Lewis mumford

Agrees with weathlys theory, but argues that the cities as they grow they would overlapp one an other. That would create compitition, wich would lead to warefare. That goes from the very firt cities until today. The cities grow they grow together, and they go to war together. Part of the theory. It you finns the prcens or war theres proof of contines warfare, then mumfus does fit.

The type of warefare, because of the relious, the warfare horrible. The power and religion makes a distructive mix

The religios is worse than the other kinds because if you fight for religious belief you tend to be fanatical (9/11 exemple) mixing religio and war is not a good thing. At this time you'll hear about cities that are defeated and population completely exicuted.

• Gerda lerner

She argues the beginning of cities start the segregation of women. The upper paeolithic woman had high statues, but here women loose out. Because momfurds idea (cities lead to warefare) and warefare ipotant part, men contoleld the political power. When you defended your cities successfully, when they return they get status! That's men, and their power raises as they can fight. Women loose power.

• Karl marx

Political philosofer. Before political philosofer, historican analyst

Citie society starts to split up to different groups. Everyones a gatherer, hunter and so on. But now people specialize in different taskt. People now work with e.g. metal the whole day. (not farming in morning and metal in evning) only one task! Priests, administrators (people that can write), slaves. Society now have splitted into different groups.

He also says these different groups had to be conflicting!

Evidence of conflict!

The Natufians - world first farmers

The earliest agriculture originated from the Middle East - The Fertile Crescent to be more specific. It’s geographically from Israel to Iraq. It originate at that location because they discovered a huge family of plants, the grasses. This gave a vast supply of grain.

A tool invented by the Natufians was the sickle. Archeologist found traces of wild grass on them and therefore they think these tools were used to harvest and cut grass is big amounts.

Because of the ice age, the earth became more fertilizable that provided more resources. So the Natufians didn’t only adapt by making new tools – they also instead of travling around all the time now settled down in one place! They no longer had to “follow the food”, but could make food at one place!

In The Fertile Crescent around 1000 families lived in this area with approximately 25-50 people in each village. 

One person could now in 3 weeks harvest enough food for a family for an entire year.

Another advantage with grain compared to other food was that it did not decay and it last for decades if you kept it dry! You could now store your food for a longer time!

But they did not only live on cereals. They also lived on many animals like gazelle, goats, wolf, fox, crab, hare, cat and many birds.

So the Natufians had mortars to treat the grain, but what’s fascinating about their mortars is that they were  decorated. The mortars were not just lumps of clay; they had a form of structure and shape. They also had carvings and a sheer size – the size is another proof for their settling as bigger more complex things made out of rock is not easy to carry with you. They were more complex in a way that they had several holes that they mashed the seed in.

For storeage they first had leather bags. Later, they also stored their grain in a big circular building. They digges the walls 2 m down in the ground and stored the food there for many people (for many people shows a signs of cooperation and thinging in a more civilized way.

It’s hard to know socially how the the Natufians had it, but it is believed that they had a more giving than individual perspective in things (once again how they stored their food) because now they had small groups that relied on each other.

Tragically the Natufian way of life only lasted for 2 500 years. The glaciers came back and turned the fresh water to ice, the number of animals decreased and simply made the world colder and more dry. This was called The Younger Dryas and was an environmentally catastrophe.

The Younger Dryas forced the Natufian to make a change. Since the environment changed they had to abbandon their settlements. They separated into small groups and started to look for a new resettlement since the wild plant and food they once relied on weren’t there anymore.

But luckily they found a new place - a fertile plain called Lake Galilee in the Jordan valley. This becomes the test of human adaptation as they will attempt to survive here. When the Dryas eventually is over – their location is becoming warmer and perfect for farming. They’ve now invented a whole new way of life.

It’s hard to say if farming was easier than hunter gathering since this now made it easier for them to settle down, have larger families, storage food and have a more advanced civilization – but on the other hand archeological have found evidence of hard work. Knee and shoulder bones were now heavily deformed and they had strain injuries.

In this new location they believe that food such as nuts were hard to reach. There were wild nuts growing in the surrounding hills, and the Natufians were located around the water (the water was the main reason they decided to resettle there). However archeologists have found burnt seeds in their fireplaces. The seeds found burnt are though bigger than the natural varieties. Therefor the Natufians must have choosen and collected the best grains in shape, size, structure  and then planted them near where they lived. By doing this they made it much easier to harvest and build up population. The cereal are much more productive, however they are also more time counseling. This made their lives less carefree.

They also have an even larger kit of specialized tools (for their harvest process).

Remember, the most important to remember and learn from this post is that THEY NOW HAVE SETTLED DOWN! For reals. They now have small communities and more children. To explain why they have more children is simply because they now can afford to feed more people (and more people equals more help to harvest). Before hunter gatherers had to carry their kids wherever they went when they moved around all the time, so they simply could have no more kids than they could carry.

But more people demand a more organized structure – this is when leaders were born and needed! With socially institutions and large communities – the society now needed leaders to emerge control.

Some other special things with these people are they burials – their rituals and beliefs are now gone. But they had a ceremony. The dead bodies (often died by injury) were buried in the houses. They dug a hole in the ground and burried them under the fire place. It was a sacret place. They placed a huge stone on top of the body, added the treasures of daily life. The huds found a new meaning and were constanly repaired. 

They also made ornaments like beautiful necklaces made out of shell and carved teeth

To sum up: 

The Natufians simply made human progress possible! They change the way of life. They had everything they need in one place, food to rely on for a long period of time. In other words, there's a reason to stay at one place now. People now build shelters that would last for years.

They also took one step further in technology by:

Inventing the sickle for harvesting,

Used smooth stones for sling shot, three stones connected by cords, spire heads to hunt.

Gazell toe bones for ornaments

It lasted 10 000 BP to 8000 BCP after the Younger Dryas. 

There were now experimental gardens as the climate is warm again, which later develop full grade gardens.

This all happened because after the ice age there was a lot of water that sank into the ground and made the ground fertilizable. Because of this they developed e.g. tools so they could take advantage of these new resources and people now people choose agriculture!

Their lives changed as they instead of living a normadic or seminomadic life they settled for one place and started farming. More advanced houses and tools were made so they stayed at the same place. However not only did the material thing changed, but also our personalities and behaviors. We for example started to protect out ground more from enemies, we started to have people in charge (leaders) to have a functional society, hierarchy. If this wouldn’t have happened, one might assume that we still today would adapt ourselves to the surrounding instead of the opposite.

Some final Pros and Cons with what the Natufians did:

Pros: community size, leaders, private property (pottery, metals, textiles), control food supply practiced all over the world.

Cons: harder work (damaged bones) so they’re deformed by the labor they have to do, changed and damage the environment in the whole planet and lead to inequality and war.

Women - higher status?

It is said that during this time, the women had a higher status and more power.

Let's take a deeper look into that!

Men:

• It is assued that the men were the hunters, because of their physical capability. The hunting brought in mainly meat that supplied 30% to the collection of food. Because of the hunting, they had periodically traveling - they sepperate from the main group to hunt.

Women:

Cecause the women were the ones carrying the babies, they shouldn't be put in danger. Therefor the women were the gatheres!

• Gathering brought in 70% of the food supplies. Examples given are grains, pulses, wild vegetables, wild fruits, shell fish (High in protein and Omega3, good for the barin!) and fire woods!
• Women always at center of community - Because of the mens periodically traveling - the women had to make the decisions in the community!
• Child rearing, passing of cultural traditions! They decide what cultural decisions they want to pass on and shape the next generation!
• There was also an absence of conflict because there's no economic benefit of that.

One more piece of evidence:

Venus of willendorf 

About 30 000 BP. This is the most famous image of a human. These are nomadic statues! What's even more fascinating is that all these images that are found during this time are in the shape of a woman. It's an icon of prehistoric art. 

Venus of lespuge -  Excisted about 30 000 BP to 10 000 BP. 188 of these statues have been found!

They all have certain charachteristics in common:

• All Female
• Featureless faces
• Thin arms over breasts
• No feet
• Protruding genitals
• Large breasts and hips

Some featues of the sates can be analyzed. The facelessness  of the figurine for example gives them an  anonymity, which suggests that it may have been  not just a statue of one women - but representing all women during this time.  

I also belive the arms resting on her breasts are suppose to give a calm, confident feeling. For instance, if a man was to be sculptures during this time I think it would have been made with some indication of their hunting (like more aggressive or holding a weapon)

The fact that it doesn't have any stabil feet to stand on might suggest that these statues were carried around with the humans.

As earlier mentioned, women has been seen as more powerful during this time because of e.g. their influence on the children and supplying more food than the men.

So going through trouble of making women instead of men might show they had more power. So from the evidence given in this post, I therefor belive that women during this time had a higher status than the men.

Stone Age Paradise

50 000 BP - 10 000 BP

During this time, there's e.g. different roles of gender, economic system and society. However, it has been called the stone age paradise. 

Stone Age ParadiseWhy idealized the Stone Age? Simply because it has being pointed to be a paradise!

• Absense of major conflict (no evidence of war that took place) If it happened, it would have been mass graves, dead bodies left behind, burried. You would have find evidence of that. No human injury. Very little evidence of major conflict in the Stone Age.
• But logical! Hunter gatherer, nomadic, and semi nomatic - what would they gain by fighting with each other? --> Nothing!

Nomadic - you don't live in the same place the whole year., you travel e.g. with the animals to another place. 

Semi nomadic - live on 2 places, one in the summer and one in the winter.

Sami people is an example os nomadic living people - the follow their reindeers.

When do we start fighting? --> When they stop being nomadic and start agriculture, and want to gather more land! A matter of life and death to defende that piece of land!

• Egalatarian Society
• People are equal (--> hint the burrials)

• Female Power
• It is women that has the highest status.
• Hunter gatherer 

• Economic system!!! Something unique to the stone age, doesn't happen today and probably not in the future.

The late Stone Age

As we talked about in the earlier post, there's dirrefent theories of the human evolution. But, something happened and a weird behavior that appeared 50 000 BP.

Let's dig deeper into that!

50 000 BP is a part of the stonge age --> upper paleolithic (late stone age)

Characteristics of the stone age:

·         Economic system based on hunting and gathering. Plants or hunt animals.

·         Due to the hunting and gathering we move around a lot to follow the animals or specific plant. So we are either nomadic (you don't live in one place, you travel e.g. with the animals to another place. You don't live in the same place the whole year.) or semi-nomadic (lives on two places, one in the summer and one in the winter.)

·         People made tools out of stone, wood (and later bone)

·         Absence of:

o    Pottery  -they take clay and make animals of it to decorate it (artistic use) but NO PRACICAL USE!

o    Metals - not avaialble yet either, don't have that technology

o    Farming - don't plant crops, don't have any animals that they demasticated (don't have any agricultiral techonology)

o    Domesticated animals look abbove

There's been a mathematical formula for the community units, how they lived.

                                                                                 25 (1/19 of a tribe)

A family of five can’t provide for themselves, so they go together with other people to supply everything they need. But when they reproduce, they form a Tribe (a tribe is a community of 475 -19 groups of 25) so they switch pepple inbetween these to not harm the DNA.

Collonize on another planet, (NASA for ex. to make healthy DNA) must have 5x5x5 people (125!)

There's tribes today such as the sand people of South Africa --> They didn't need to change or adapt or use new techniqe and therefor just stayed the same.

The great leap forward: behaviour revolution

50 000 BP homo sapiens modern changed - behavior revolution (or the great leap forward) 
BIG change.

5 areas in which the behavior change occurs:

·         Rapid Technological Advancement (which continues develope)

·         Burial

·         Art - being produced for the first time

·         Self decorated - for the first time

·         Religion - Most controversioal

Technology:

• Mousterian - 

Neandethals and Homo Sapien Modern used these tools.

Relatively easy to make : flint and another stone and strike it. You "Nap it" and a little bit of flint breakes of until it's a sharp blade. About 20  napps, takes a few minutes to make. General purpose tools - one tool for many different tasks.

Moustiran tools - stayed around for 90 000 years. THE SAME for 90 000 years. Doesn't develope.

• Aurignacian 

This is MUCH more complex! It's can't be the same animal that made it! Something has occured in the brain to make this new technology! Didn't change first for 90 000 years, and then really advanced.

It's about 100 napps - delicate little cuts, took hours or even days to produce!

They are more specialized - different jobs, different tools! A whole renge of tools and use tool kits (!!!!!)

One brilliant thing - eargonomic (thought about to make it easy and comfortable to use)! Not only practical use with a sharp blade - but it's also a handle or such to make it easier to hold.

These you don't use once and throw away (like the one before)  - you might even pass these on because it's so much work behind it. ESCPECIALLY you pass the knowledge how to make it on! It's a skill.

HUGE jump forward! 90 000 years the same and THEN change!!! HUGE leap forward!

It doesn't end here, we get more and more advancement!

• Solutrean 

There's a whole new techique in manifacturing these. You dont only nap - you use pressure! You can produce really shaprt, really light thin blade. (thinner than your finger)

More complexer.

A brilliant idea, A HANDLE ATTACHED TO THE AX! Somebody  invented that! Once they do that - even more efficient! Not only handles on ax heads - but spears! Attaching a blade to a wooden handle making it a spear.

• Magdalenian 

Finally - the magdalenian!

The great innovation is they don't use stone. They use bone - and bone has to be carved. In order to carve it requeres a great deal of skill which probably is passed on for genereations - and you need a set of tools to carve and make these new tools.

More afficient fisherman! FISHERMAN! As a harpune or even fish hook on a fish line.

Amazing feature  - not only practical use but they decorate it!!!!!!!! Suggest a great deal of sofistication!

---> these ideams makes us see our selves and our behavior.

The important thing in this is that it doesn't just develope one - it changes and continues to change!!!

Upper paleolitical burials:

A man was found in Russia - the band around his head made from beans - stung onto lether stings and several of them on his head. Also beads across his cheast, ancles, armes and so on.

When first excavated - thought it was high status (rich, important) 
But when they dig up other graves from same area - they all have these beads. All people from this community has beads. CHILDREN has even more beads than the adults. So owerwhealmingly - stonge age burial suggest it isn't anyone with high status. They all (graves) are uniformed - there's no one that sticks out.

A drifferent  part of the world would have a differend decoration, but community the same. Very little sign of status!

All burrial throught Europe and Aisa all contain grave goods! Burried with purpuse, items, or decoration, or food, animal or part of animal (BUT GOODS!) burried with them!

They all also contain red ochre - it's a natural die that you find in earth - licquid form of iron (to dye clothes and the skin and so on) but all stone age burrial contained red ochre. Powder form and put it over the humans (ritual thing)

This means it's a equal society (probably believe in after life.)

There are 3 exceptions - 2 are shammon (religious) and have different burrial pattern than the others. 
BOTH of them are female!

Femal religious figures! Overwhelmingly thought, they all are uniformed.

Art:

Cave painting or portable art (=scratched into stone or bone or wood or shaped clay or scratching into clay - and it's small enought to carry with.)

Portable art is the oldest - they spend every day making tools, same skills is required to make tool as it is making portable art.

Talanted work of art, capture of movement are really impressive. It's very few examples of human in the cave paintings, most are of animals - HORSE most common figure! They theorised that it was the most common. It's the right size for a human to hunt, it's not agressive. Doesn't have horns on the head to hurt you.

They put a hand on the stone, put red orchre in the mouth
and spit on the hand so the hand was formed in to the wall-

Self decoration

Red ochre is used - produces a nice color - on the skin and in your hair. Solid evidence is that they used beads - got a hole drilled in it so you can have a tread through.

Every community different type of beads. Diffrent regions use different type of beads - Shells, precious stone from mountain for ex.

But shell beads in the mountain and  precious stone from mountain on the cost --> they traded their beads with each other.

Upper paleolithic religion

Controversial! Occurs in the mind, so it's diffiult to proof. A bead means they self decorated themselves. But we can't prove a bead was for a religios purpose.

Making sense of their wold:

·         Anthropomorphic imaginary - Animal acting in a human way

·         Animal woreship - Takes a lot of time and effort - must be religious.

·         Animism - all object has some kind of spirit in it.

·         Apotropia - things that protect you from evil - e.g. the turky's "evil eye" - put on the airplanes to protect the planes from storms. "Dream cachers" caches all the bad dreams.

·         Ancestor worship - a group of stone age people in the middle east - build hoods they lived and sleept in half the year, and in the center of the hoods there's a grave. They just dig a whole and continue to live on the grave. Continued for several 100 years --_ but then they. Continued to burry in home and then they dig up the skull and display the scull in the living room

Questionable theory

·         Assumtion

·         Anthropological studies (is the best theory. They go there and study their living. "maybe that's how they thought"

Where do we come from?

For this post we're going to discuss the story of human evolution, the two conflicting theories, the latest discoveries, new evidence that changes history and human characteristics changed.

First, let's discuss the different types of evidence that are used to prove where we come from:

Primary evidence 

·         Skulls - Comes directly form the creature during the time that's investigated. All the measurements, skull capacity, height of the animal are all primary evidence, 

Example given: World War II

o    Soldiers diary - (written during that time)

o    T.ex. concentration camp - Created during that time

o    Fotos, films (as long as they are made during that time!)

Seconday evidence

·         Theories - someones opinion on historical quesion , answers, analyses of source. One looked at the  primary evidence and made a theory.

Now let's go to the 2 major theroies!

There's different species that we're going to look at and discuss:

• Australopithecus
• Homo habilis
• Homo erectus
• Homo sapien archaic
• Homo sapiens neanderthalensis
• Homo sapiens modern

Primary evidence:

• Astralopithecus 

First to walk on two legs! Even though scientests says it walks a bit like a penguin (not one foot in front of the other like us) - so is it still standing up! They are only found in Africa (The Rift Valley to be more specific) by their skull location. Because the location is geologically unstable (the ground moves) evidence have been uplifted to surface. It seems like they originate from there because of its plant life and fresh water. 

• Homo hablis 

They live in the same area as Astralopithecus, but this species walk like us (one foot infront of another). It also has a lager brain, it works in groups, it hunts (small animals) and scavengers in groups!
Please note: IN GROUPS!!!! 

• Homo erectus 

 This species is the most successfull man in our family - they excisted for a million years! It's the first spieces that comes out of  Africa (to Asia, Indonesia and even Europe). They survuved longer than our spicies have so far. But how did they manage to survive for such a long time? Well it had one really good adaptation - body temprature! By sweating it could controll it's body temperature. This is different from many other animals (I mean try to put a polar bear in Africa) So in hot sun it could still go hunting and go on journeys without any bigger problem! Besides they no lobger have to  pant, they have more construvtive activities like talking! They're probably first to use language!

• Homo sapien archaic 

This species is very much alike Homo erectus - it depends on which paelotologist you ask if erectus and archaic is the same spicies because it's very difficult  to spot differences. These have broader fore-heads, while erectus have flatter. Archaic lived in Europe and because of the sunlight, it didn't need that forehead against the sun (Archaic found in China had more direct sunligt and  the forehead developed kept the sun out of the head.) One big thing is that paleontologists say that next to Archaic there's stone tooles, and the tooles are formed to be  held by hands! Therefor it's a debate since some paleontologists say it must be an other speices than the one before. However, another argument some paleontologists have said is that the ones in China didn't need  tools - they had bambu for e.g. cutting blades and bambu rot and therefore no proof. However, one can say they're petty much the same spieces.

• Neanderthals 

They're close to our species. They seem to have adapted to cold climate (during a period that was a lot colder than  today.) They lived along the edges of glaciers in Europe. It's body is adapted: shorter arms and shorter legs to preserve heat, nose is flatter and broader to control temperature. Another thing is that they healed themselves - if they'd get injured (like a cut), they didn't die but the wound healed. They also seemed to care for each other - if you broke a leg the group would look after you with food, water and warmth untill your leg healed. Another interesting piece of  information is their skull size which is bigger than ours. Does that mean that their brains were bigger brain than ours? Were they more intellegent? But neanderthals became extinct because of the glacier. When the glaciers go back and it becomes warmer - homo sapien modern steps in.

• Homo Sapien Modern 

We are homo sapien modern! Our spicies have lived 200 00 years so far. 

Those are our primary evidence, let's take a look at our secondary evidence!

Seconday evidence (to analyse primary evidence!) :

2 THEORIES:

·         OUT OF AFRICA

Erectus evolves in Africa and head in to Asia.

Archaic originated in Africa and head in to Europe.

When erectus archaic went out of Africa they extinct.
And left in Africa alone now Homo sapien modern evolves. Then later on they migrated out to the rest of the world.

·         MULTI REGIONAL

Erectus evolves in Africa, head in to Asia.

Archaic originated in Africa too, head in to Europe 

BUT they don't extinct! They evolve there!!! So a Europiens, asians and Africans are homo sapien modern. This is seen as a racist theory.

In other words: Three seperated spieces with different local climated and therefor they adapt differently but still bond together  to one spieces.

Analysis of the 2 theories and some new evidence...

Multi regional theory is the oldest theory - produced in Europe (written in germany in 1880's.) It was used by nazis people. So the theories can be used politically.

The out of Africa theory - From the 1960's and originated in the US during the civil right movement. The African American people want to remove  segregation and used this politically to promote liberals and equal rights.

Year 2000 there was some new aspects and evidence applied to the debate where we came from: DNA! They extracted DNA from the earliest  homo sapien modern found, 200 000 BP, DNA from Africa. Then they looked at population around the world, and looked  for same pattern in Europe and Asia. The result was that this African DNA has a good percent found in euorpeens and asians! The pattern is found around the  world!

But this wouldn't end the debate, they had to consider another factor. The pattern of Homo sapien modern (originate 200 00 BP) changed suddenly in 50 000 BP.

At 50 000 BP - We started to a weird behavior! We started to decorate ourselves with jewerly, art, religious images, sofisticated tools and more.

They always looked like us, but suddenly acted differently. An uniqe behavior around 50 000 BP. They also think in a religious way like burry people with things (as if they had an after life) and the tools suddelny jump ahead in it's advanceness.

Where we come from, THIS BEHAVIOR must be included! These things makes us human!


Archaeologist have lately also found new pieces of evidence that changes out history!

Latest piece of evidence:

1.       Homo floresiensis (hobbit) - it's smaller than all the other species

A hobbit skull compared to a humans

2.       Neanderthal interbreeding 

3.       Homo denisovan - totally new speices discovered in Russia

A tooth and a finger were found in Russia.

A big chunk of our DNA comes from Africa (95% seems to come from there) but we can see that neantherthael contributed some DNA (4%). We also have Homo denisovan DNA in us.
We can't say that the out of Africa theory is true (there's others spieces from Africa that evolved and survives long enought to meet homo modern from africa, like the tree spiecies named above)

A COMBINATION of both theories is the best solution!

So maybe the best conclusion is that we come from Africa, but what happened at 50 000 BP makes us humans today.

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