This just in. It´s a bit speculative at this point, but personally, I think discoveries like this one will be proven to be true. First, I think the human story is far older than we think, so of course “modern humans” left Africa earlier than current research suggests. Second, I´m not even sure whether Africa is the cradle of humankind. Maybe, maybe not. Anatomically modern humans mixed with Neanderthals in Europe and Denisovans in Asia. Apparently, they also mixed with a hitherto unknown human species in Africa – Africans have unknown genes postulated to come from such a lineage. These genes are *not* found among non-Africans, suggesting either that the migration out of Africa took place before Africans started to date and mate our unknown evolutionary cousins…or humans didn´t emerge in Africa in the first place. Not that I really care. I have no problem being a honorary Afrikan, just as I don´t have any problems having Neanderthals in my family tree (although I probably would have preferred, say, peregrine falcons, LOL). Besides, the term “unknown human species” is a bit of a misnomer, since Neanderthals, Denisovans and African Hominin X must have been the same species as Homo sapiens by definition, otherwise they wouldn´t be able to mate with each other and produce viable fertile offspring…
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