03.15.08
Evolution Overdrive (the eonic version)
Conversation: Evolution OverdriveVolume 61 Number 2, March/April 2008
The human genome is changing faster than ever
While it is of tremendous interest to study the genetic compoent of ‘recent’ evolution, the fact remains that human evolution began to go in a different direction in the wake of the Great Explosion (ca. 50000 years ago), especially with the Neolithic/Rise of Civilization. And this is driven by a different form of (macro) evolution visible in the dramatic, and decisive, evidence of the so-called Eonic Effect.
(Courtesy John Hawks)
Human evolution has been gathering speed for the past 50,000 years,
and today natural selection may be changing the human genome faster than ever according to John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin and author of the best paleoanthropology blog on the web (johnhawks.net/weblog). Hawks led a study that examined genetic variability around the world and found that adaptive mutations have been accumulating at an increasing pace as the world’s population grows. Hawks spoke with ARCHAEOLOGY’s Zach Zorich about race, breeding with Neanderthals, and Zach’s lousy education.
When I was in school I learned that human evolution had stopped because our population is too large.
Yeah, they were all wrong [laughs]. A lot of people were saying that, especially in the 1960s and 70s there were a lot of anthropologists who studied the past who said look, 30,000 years ago modern humans are essentially in place and we know that people in the world today have ancestry that goes back at least that far. Australians have ancestors 30,000 years ago in Australia…so the idea that you could have rapid global changes across the last 30,000 years seemed unlikely. What people were not considering is the demographic change. There are so many more people that the chances for really favorable strong mutations becomes very high. That’s an old idea. Its something that Darwin pointed out, if you have lots of individuals you could have rare mutations that were advantageous. But people didn’t put it together with the human historical and archaeological record of population growth.
www.archaeology.org/0803/etc/conversation.html