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Source: Dad talks about science
Author: Wu Xingchuan
In recent years, some "historical research" has become more and more incomprehensible.
First of all, Zhihu big V "Li Zi Hanquan" posted a photo he took when he visited the Three Gorges Museum in Chongqing:
The photo shows that a certain "popular science" column in the museum actually seriously proclaimed that "the discovery of Wushan people is a promotion to the 'Asian theory' of human origins." ”
Then another Zhihu answerer, "Junshan Silver Needle", also found that in the new edition of the Historical View Textbook (2024 Edition), Homo erectus people such as Beijing people, Lantian people, and Yuanmou people are called the early ancestors of the Chinese nation.
In addition, "Junshan Silver Needle" also found that in the article "70 Years of Development and Achievements of Archaeology in New China", there is also a statement that "ancient humans represented by Peking ape man are indeed the ancestors of modern Chinese".
I haven't found the new version of the textbook on historical outlook, and I haven't made a conclusive conclusion, but this article is still easy to find, and sure enough, the article was first published in the 4th issue of "Historical Research" in 2019, and the author Wang Wei was also published in the Chinese Academy of History and the China Archaeology Network.
In recent years, there has been a discussion about the "East Asian origin theory of modern humans", and some researchers have published some papers.
However, it must be pointed out that this kind of unconventional "theory" is at most a hypothesis compared to the complete and clear "African origin theory" in the mainstream scientific community, and neither theory nor evidence can justify itself.
However, in such a context, it is really inconceivable that the "new edition of the textbook on the concept of history", the popular science column of a certain museum, or the regular historical journal should regard this hypothesis as a final theory for publicity, popularization, and even teaching.
At present, the mainstream scientific community recognizes the "African origin theory of Homo sapiens", which has a large number of archaeological discoveries and molecular genetic studies, and has found a relatively complete series of evidence from Australopithecus (4.2 million years ago-1 million years ago) to Homo habilis (2 million to 1.5 million years ago), and then to Homo erectus (2 million to 200,000 years ago), and then to Homo sapiens (200,000 years ago).
It can clearly map the migration path of early humans (Homo sapiens) around the world.
Map of early Homo sapiens migration paths (numeric unit: millennia)
As can be seen from the figure, starting from about 200,000 years ago, early humans started from eastern Africa and gradually migrated to the whole world, reaching western and central Asia about 7-65,000 years ago, and spreading to the east and west respectively, reaching East Asia and Europe around 45,000 years ago.
Homo erectus migrated much earlier than Homo sapiens, taking the Peking Man found in Zhoukoudian as an example, a kind of Homo erectus that lived in this land about 700,000-200,000 years ago, and they have the same common ancestor as our Homo sapiens ancestors, but there is no inheritance relationship.
As you can see in the figure below, Homo sapiens is slightly to the left in the upper right corner, written as Homo sapiens in Latin, Neanderthals to the right, and Homo erectus, who lived earlier in China.
Obviously, whether it is Peking Man, Lantian Man, or Yuanmou Man, the Homo erectus to which it belongs is not only not our ancestors, but even a more "primitive" branch than our Homo sapiens.
In other words, to say that the Peking ape man is the ancestor of the Chinese is not only suspected of forgetting his ancestors, but also setting himself back one level in the process of evolution.
Nationalism has been gaining momentum in the country in recent years, but this culture should not be infiltrated into academia and education.
If they lack biological knowledge, it is fine, but if they are only opportunistic and blindly pandering to their own interests, they cannot be based on academics and education, and what awaits them can only be the ridicule of history and the contempt of future generations.