SCIENCE / MEDICINE : Flaws Found in ‘Eve’ Theory

UC Berkeley biochemist Allan Wilson’s theory that all living humans descended from a single African “Eve” who lived a relatively brief 200,000 years ago was strongly disputed here. “There are serious and obvious flaws in the Eve hypothesis which do not fit the hard fossil and archeological record outside of Africa,” said anthropologist George G. Pope of the University of Illinois.

Along with University of Michigan anthropologist Milton H. Wolpoff and others, Pope argued that modern Homo sapiens slowly evolved worldwide from a common ancestral species, Homo erectus , living in Africa 1 million years ago. He challenged the view that Eve’s descendants predominated by driving all other primitive peoples into extinction.

“It is very difficult to believe that Homo erectus, which had adapted to the tropics and to cold climates, suddenly and totally went extinct with no trace,” Pope said.

Wolpoff and Pope said that fossil evidence contradicts the Eve theory’s conclusion that modern humans evolved from an African ancestor within a short 200,000 years, and that all non-Eve fossils represent dead ends. Wolpoff said there are physical resemblances between 750,000-year-old human fossils in North and South Asia, Australia, Indonesia and Europe, and people living in those areas today.