Three men

Physical Anthropology of Mankind

Story of the Three Subspecies of Modern Man.

Ice Ages are important events in the history of ancestral and modern mankind. Weather changes force game and man to migrate into areas that might be much different that we see today. The last ice age had began about 100,000 years ago causing a change in the habits of mankind that had developed in the previous interglacial warm. Even the topography changes. The Sahara desert greatly enlarged. Seas receded -- the Red Sea was smaller and Persian Gulf disappeared ; Indonesia was part of the Asian land mass ; Borneo and Australia were one. Asia and North America were joined. (Bering Sea)
What is a subspecies? It has the characteristics of the species, but differs slightly from isolation by geography or over time.
1 . Homo Sapiens Idaltu -- Elder Man. Africa, stone blades, language. 160,000 -- ?? BC
During the Late Pleistocene, the human population was reduced to a small number of breeding pairs – no more than 10,000, and possibly as few as 1,000 – resulting in a very small residual gene pool. Survival of any species is always precarious and early man was not a common creature. (earliest site) San Bushmen may be the oldest surviving tribe of early man that developed language and tools beyond chipped stone. Pygmy populations in central Africa and Indonesia also need to be studied as well as the various tribal cultures of native Australians.
A group migrated into the Middle East about 100,000 years ago (Mount Kafzeh) that survived for a time, then disappeared by 70,000. Survival of modern man has always been tenuous, as with all species, they come and they die out for myriad reasons. Neanderthal lived in this same area, yet continued to survive for tens of millennia.
There were at least two types of ancient man still in existence and widely spread when modern man was establishing his place.

Home Erectus (1,000,00000 to 100,000 years ago) in various subspecies. Lived in Africa and Eurasia. (homo erectus)
Homo Neanderthal (300,000 to 24,000) . is considered a European species, but also had camps in Central Asia and Middle East. (Neanderthal Range). An inbred cousin of mankind, not a direct ancestor.
In addition, Homo Floresiensis, (100,000-12,000) an early hominid of Hobbit size, was a separate species of early human that survived until recent times isolated on the Indonesian island of Flores and likely died out from volcanic eruption.

There is recent genetic proof that ancestral types of man mingled with the modern lineage of mankind. There were no doubt individual mating, from greeting rituals or rape, if not other, 1%-2% of neanderthal has been found in European races and not African. Neanderthal man was adapted to life in the cold and moved to the far north as the ice expanced -- and away from modern man who was expanding -- after the last ice age until his line died out. There is an Asian version of Neanderthal called Denisova.
About 60,000 years ago, a small group of Elderman, possibly less than 100 individual moved "out of Africa, across the Red Sea and followed the coast across SW Asia to India and south on to Australia and north to Siberia. These seem to have been a coastal people and their magical appearance in distant lands is explained by their fossils being underwater. The last ice age had began about 100,000 years ago with seas receding -- the Red Sea was smaller and the Persian Gulf disappeared -- so their journey was shorter than it would appear today.

2 . Homo Sapiens Cro-Magnons: 40,000 -- 2,000 BCE
The second successful wave out of Africa was about 50,000 years ago. He started as a slim African who was forced to migrate during droughts caused by global cooling and developed survival skills over ten thousand years or more and ended as a strong white man. This second wave out of Africa moved north into the Middle East and moved rapidly towards good hunting in central Asia. Some followed earlier man into India where his kind overwhelmed the earlier peoples. Many moved into Asia and China by 45,000. It took another 10,000 years for him to meander across the rich hunting plains of Kazakhstan to Europe about 35,000. During this period, mankind had changed. (map of Asia)

Some of these people made second migration out of Africa, about 40,000, when forced by drought from global cooling, moved north into the Middle East then in all directions, the Balkans and along Mediterranean, Russian Steppes, and down to India and on to China. Then from Asia, slowly meandered across the rich plains of Kazakhstan, they arrived in northern Europe about 35,000. While most of Europe was being populated , the Neanderthal moved off to the less desirable north. At the height of the last Ice Age, 20,000, Cro-magnon had retreated to enclaves in the Iberian peninsula, Italian peninsula, the Balkans, back to Africa, to Indochina, and India. With the return to warmth starting about 15,000, they rapidly repopulated Eurasia.

A 2003 study on Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA, published by an Italo-Spanish research team led by David Caramelli, concluded that Neanderthals were far outside the modern human range, while Cro-Magnons were well in the average of modern Europeans. mtDNA retrieved from two Cro-Magnon specimens was identified as Haplogroup N mostly found among modern populations of the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia,
Of modern nationalities, Finns are closest to Cro-Magnons in terms of anthropological measurements.
The flint tools found in association with the remains at Cro-Magnon have associations with the Aurignacian culture.
The Aurignacian culture is an archaeological culture of the Upper Palaeolithic, located in Europe and southwest Asia. It dates to between 32,000 and 26,000 BC. The Aurignacian culture is considered by some archaeologists to have co-existed with the Périgordian culture of tool making. Stone tools from the Aurignacian culture are characterized by blades (smoothed, rather than flakes). Created cave art and complex statuettes.

Was it Idaltu with a head start to Australia. Cro-Magnon followed. There are many tribes of different cultures among the Austrailan aborigines, some may have remained relatively the same. Study is required. Was it Idaltu or was it Cro-Magnon moving quickly that first crossed to North America?. This is not settled. Perhaps both, but Cro-Magno DNA suggests that only a small party, like maybe ten, provides the makeup of the earliest AmerIndians.

3 . Homo Sapiens sapiens -- Modern man : 10,000 -- date
Modern man developed from herding together with agriculture, settled life in towns, spread throughout the world and absorbed all previous men. Modern man is taller, lighter framed, then earlier men, higher domed head, but of no more brain size than earlier types.

4 . Homo Sapiens noblist -- Future man.
Evolution does not stop. Elder man had 100,000 years. Cro-Magnon, 40,000, or less than half of his predecessor. Current man has been around for 10,000 and is may be over half way towards the next stage. Elements of the next subspecies may be recognized any time now -- taller, lighter framed, larger brain cavity, but paunchy? Some of us may already fit in the new category.
Traits that encourage survival, that means childbearing, seep into the bloodlines and are passed on to future generations. Traditional considerations are changing. Some of modern life is vastly different than that in the past. For example, the weak no longer die off, modern society spends greatly to assure survival of all including those that would have not survived in prior ages and the weaknesses of these individuals remain or expand in the gene pool. The ablest now tend to have fewer offspring -- college graduates barely reproduce there own numbers. Things that were once considered genetic strengths such as freedom from defects, a hunter's eyesight, physical strength/stamina/coordination, and intelligence have become more scarce. Socially, physically, and economically unsound groups have an expansive birth rate. The pattern of rural people having many children was developed when child death rates were high and young hands were required to help on the farm. The culture of city life sees too many children as an economic hardship -- families newly from the farms and immigrants have not yet adapted this aspect of modern life. There is a desire by many religions is to seek increase in membership by childbirth. In addition to birth rates, improvements in health, nutrition and sanitation create greater life spans than ever known before. However, only conditions related to child bearing age are important to future generations.
Personally I see little hope for a noble species of mankind on earth. Selective eugenics as common in agriculture and husbandry is seldom practiced in humans. Nazi attempts of large scale improvements were short lived, while Rothschild-style approved marriages are few; and royal practices have not shown much benefit (regression towards the mean?). Until the last century or two, spouses were typically born within 6 miles and a few men (alpha males) provided most of the genetic makeup of a village. Exceptions include such things as the army of young warriors of Genghis Khan and others that have spread progeny over large areas in the past.
One future of an advanced subspecies may rest with other planets where only superior specimens can afford to be transported to create a new society with new standards of morphology, and therefore a new subspecies of mankind.

A quote: Evolution of New Human Species
Juan Enriquez, CEO of Biotechonomy and founding director of Harvard Business School's Life Sciences Project and author of "The Untied States of America"

"Be it by genetic or mechanical engineering, we humans are bound to change (if we don't simply go extinct), Enriquez figures. "99 percent of species, including all other hominids, have gone extinct. What is interesting today ... is that we are taking direct and deliberate control over the evolution of many, many species, including ourselves. ... As the branches of the tree of life, and of hominids, continue to grow and spread, many of our grandchildren will likely engineer themselves into what we would consider a new species, one with extraordinary capabilities, a homo evolutis."

Evolution Today.
We see that divisions of mankind into subspecies is somewhat arbitrary, yet exists, even if difficult to quantify because all gradients of old and new exist in time and place. The next subspecies is probably contained within the current one. The social elite of every city and culture think of themselves as above the common folk and may be representative of the ancestors of those that will dominate a next stage. Yet, the last sub-species is present at the same time as the next until it is absorbed, dies out, or becomes fewer in number as the next become predominate. There are isolated examples of each stage that are, except for culture, within the normal statistics of the current. Note however that the dominate culture today places great importance to the well being of all people. Whereas in the past, cultural groups that could not compete as well and did not absorb would tend to decrease in number. The opposite is true today. The culturally less successful are encouraged to remain diverse and tend to produce disproportionately larger populations and redefine the statistics of the current, reducing physical and mental averages. The current culture, if maintained this way for the next few thousand years (or decades), almost precludes evolution as we have know in the past 150,000 years. In fact, the earth may see mankind return to a predominately and statistically earlier physical state of mankind.

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