[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"doc-detail-45539-en":3,"doc-seo-45539-105":28,"detail-sidebar-cat-0-en-105":89},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":6},0,"success",{"doc_id":7,"user_id":8,"nickname":9,"user_avatar":10,"doc_module":4,"category_id":11,"category_name":12,"doc_title":13,"doc_description":14,"doc_content":15,"file_id":16,"file_url":17,"file_type":18,"file_size":19,"view_count":20,"is_deleted":4,"is_public":21,"is_downloadable":21,"audit_status":21,"page_count":20,"language":22,"language_code":23,"site_id":24,"html_lang":23,"table_of_contents":25,"faqs":26,"seo_title":13,"seo_description":14,"update_tm":27,"read_time":11},45539,16904993612988,"Olivia Brown","https://ap-avatar.wpscdn.com/davatar_a8503ba1806abce46bf441b54a3ca4cd",8,"Research & Report","Beyond Multiregional and Simple Out-of-Africa Models of Human Evolution","The text argues that both classic multiregionalism and a simple out-of-Africa model are outdated for explaining human origins. It highlights how genetic studies refute key multiregional predictions and notes that most non-African ancestry still derives from Africa within the last ~100,000 years, with Neanderthal and Denisovan contributions remaining relatively small. Fossil, Middle Stone Age, and palaeoclimate evidence support mosaic, polycentric developments across Africa, implying strongly structured metapopulations and more reticulate evolutionary models than simple trees.","comment  \nBeyond multiregional and simple out-of-Africa models of human evolution  \nThe past half century has seen a move from a multiregionalist view of human origins to widespread acceptance that modern humans emerged in Africa. Here the authors argue that a simple out-of-Africa model is also outdated, and that the current state of the evidence favours a structured African metapopulation model of human origins.  \nEleanor M. L. Scerri, Lounès Chikhi and Mark G. Thomas  \nFor decades, polarized debates  \nabout human origins have swung between two major models. Classic multiregionalism viewed the majority of our ancestry as being spread across the Old World over the past one to two million years, and emphasized regional continuity. The recent and simple out-of-Africa (SOA)  \nmodel proposed an expansion out of Africa in the past 100,000 yr from a single region in Africa. Testing these models has undoubtedly improved our understanding of recent human origins, but with ever-richer archaeological, anthropological, genetic and palaeoecological data available, are they still useful? We argue that these formulationsnow constrain progress in human evolutionary studies and call for a shift to structured metapopulation models.  \nA more realistic framework  \nGenetic studies have repeatedly falsified classic multiregionalism. However, various aspects have returned under different guises, for example, refs. 1,2, and thus it requires repeating: genetic data do not support an origin of Eurasian peoples primarily from locally evolving Homo populations over the past one to two million years, with a limited contribution from later African arrivals. Neither did humans ‘leave’ Africa; humans expanded their range, like other mammalian species and hominins before them. Recent findings estimating 1.5 to 2.8% genetic contribution from Neanderthals to non-African peoples and 0.3 to 5.6% contribution from Denisovans to East Asian and Oceanian peoples do not change this3. The remaining ~91.8 to ~98.5% of the ancestry of people not living in Africa today still derives from Africa, probably in the past 100,000 yr (Fig. 1) . Under a strict biological species concept, other large-brained nonAfrican hominins in that time period could be seen as variants of our own species. But origins imply ancestry, and our ancestry is primarily African. Fossils are unlikely to change that view.  \nHuman genomic diversity and percentage of Neanderthal plus Denisovan ancestry in modern humans  \nLand areas are resized based on mean genomic heterozygosity  \n0 8 Interpolated surface of percentage of Neanderthal plus Denisovan ancestry in modern humans  \nFig. 1 | Cartogram with resized land area representing modern human genetic diversity and colour representing Neanderthal plus Denisovan ancestry. Mean regional genomic heterozygosity3 from 300 individuals was calculated for an adaptation of the United Nations geoscheme regional groups. These values provided the basis to distorting their respective land areas using a density equalizing approach22 to cartogram creation as implemented in the ScapeToad software package (version 1.1) . The sample point locations were distorted based on the same deformation grid before interpolating the sum of the percentage Neanderthal plus Denisovan ancestry3 using a standard inverse distance-weighted approach. Finally the interpolated grid and cartogram were reprojected to the Mollweide projection. Credit: James Cheshire and Mark G. Thomas  \nThe Homo sapiens lineage is widely thought to have separated from other Homo metapopulations—usually termed‘archaic hominins’ —at least half a million years ago4. Notwithstanding the cladistic ambiguity of the term ‘archaic hominins’  \n—which is typically applied to both contemporaries and predecessors of  \nH. sapiens—this is an unusually short time period for any neat split to occur in a longgeneration time taxon5,6. Contemporary humans are what remains of an ancient and complex variation in only one of its poss","cbCaipA3omwYfYQY","https://ap.wps.com/l/cbCaipA3omwYfYQY","pdf",920673,3,1,"English","en",105,"# Polarized debates about human origins\n## Two competing models and their limitations\n# A more realistic framework\n## Genetic evidence and ancestry composition\n## Reticulate models and gene flow\n# Africa-focused evidence\n## Mosaic fossil patterns and polycentric emergence\n## Palaeoclimate dynamics and structured populations","[{\"question\":\"Why do the authors consider the classic multiregionalism model outdated?\",\"answer\":\"Genetic studies repeatedly falsify classic multiregionalism by not supporting an origin of Eurasian peoples primarily from long-term local Homo populations in the last one to two million years. The authors also emphasize that other large-brained non-African hominins during that period are unlikely to overturn the primarily African ancestry signal.\"},{\"question\":\"What does the text say about the simple out-of-Africa model?\",\"answer\":\"The authors argue that a simple out-of-Africa expansion from a single African region is also outdated. They contend that available evidence better supports a structured African metapopulation framework rather than a single-region model.\"},{\"question\":\"What lines of evidence support a structured metapopulation model focused on Africa?\",\"answer\":\"The argument integrates genetic contributions, fossil patterns that appear across Africa in a mosaic-like fashion, polycentric origins suggested by Middle Stone Age developments, and palaeoclimate dynamics showing shifting habitable zones and changing connections over deep time.\"}]",1783461078,{"code":4,"msg":29,"data":30},"ok",{"site_id":24,"language":23,"slug":31,"title":13,"keywords":32,"description":14,"schema_data":33,"social_meta":84,"head_meta":86,"extra_data":88,"updated_unix":27},"beyond-multiregional-and-simple-out-of-africa-models-of-human-evolution","",{"@graph":34,"@context":83},[35,51,66],{"@type":36,"itemListElement":37},"BreadcrumbList",[38,42,46,48],{"item":39,"name":40,"@type":41,"position":21},"https://docshare.wps.com","Home","ListItem",{"item":43,"name":44,"@type":41,"position":45},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/","Document",2,{"item":47,"name":12,"@type":41,"position":20},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/research-report/",{"item":49,"name":13,"@type":41,"position":50},"https://docshare.wps.com/document/beyond-multiregional-and-simple-out-of-africa-models-of-human-evolution/45539/",4,{"url":49,"name":13,"@type":52,"author":53,"headline":13,"publisher":55,"fileFormat":58,"inLanguage":23,"description":14,"dateModified":59,"datePublished":60,"encodingFormat":58,"isAccessibleForFree":61,"interactionStatistic":62},"DigitalDocument",{"name":9,"@type":54},"Person",{"url":39,"name":56,"@type":57},"DocShare","Organization","application/pdf","2026-07-13","2026-07-07",true,{"@type":63,"interactionType":64,"userInteractionCount":20},"InteractionCounter",{"@type":65},"ViewAction",{"@type":67,"mainEntity":68},"FAQPage",[69,75,79],{"name":70,"@type":71,"acceptedAnswer":72},"Why do the authors consider the classic multiregionalism model outdated?","Question",{"text":73,"@type":74},"Genetic studies repeatedly falsify classic multiregionalism by not supporting an origin of Eurasian peoples primarily from long-term local Homo populations in the last one to two million years. The authors also emphasize that other large-brained non-African hominins during that period are unlikely to overturn the primarily African ancestry signal.","Answer",{"name":76,"@type":71,"acceptedAnswer":77},"What does the text say about the simple out-of-Africa model?",{"text":78,"@type":74},"The authors argue that a simple out-of-Africa expansion from a single African region is also outdated. They contend that available evidence better supports a structured African metapopulation framework rather than a single-region model.",{"name":80,"@type":71,"acceptedAnswer":81},"What lines of evidence support a structured metapopulation model focused on Africa?",{"text":82,"@type":74},"The argument integrates genetic contributions, fossil patterns that appear across Africa in a mosaic-like fashion, polycentric origins suggested by Middle Stone Age developments, and palaeoclimate dynamics showing shifting habitable zones and changing connections over deep time.","https://schema.org",{"og:url":49,"og:type":85,"og:title":13,"og:site_name":56,"og:description":14},"article",{"robots":87,"canonical":49},"index,follow",{"doc_id":7,"site_id":24},{"code":4,"msg":5,"data":90},[91,95,99,103,108,113,118,121,126,129,133],{"id":21,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":92,"show_sort_weight":93,"slug":94},"Story & Novel",90,"story-novel",{"id":45,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":96,"show_sort_weight":97,"slug":98},"Literature",80,"literature",{"id":50,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":100,"show_sort_weight":101,"slug":102},"Exam",70,"exam",{"id":104,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":105,"show_sort_weight":106,"slug":107},5,"Comic",60,"comic",{"id":109,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":110,"show_sort_weight":111,"slug":112},6,"Technology",50,"technology",{"id":114,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":115,"show_sort_weight":116,"slug":117},7,"Healthcare",40,"healthcare",{"id":11,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":12,"show_sort_weight":119,"slug":120},30,"research-report",{"id":122,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":123,"show_sort_weight":124,"slug":125},9,"Religion & Spirituality",20,"religion-spirituality",{"id":124,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":127,"show_sort_weight":124,"slug":128},"World Cup","world-cup",{"id":130,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":131,"show_sort_weight":130,"slug":132},10,"Lifestyle","lifestyle",{"id":134,"doc_module":4,"doc_module_name":44,"category_name":135,"show_sort_weight":104,"slug":136},19,"General","general"]