A revolution in the study of human evolution is under way thanks to the invention of techniques that enable DNA sequencing of not only modern humans, but also ancient humans. Modern humans (Homo sapiens) and archaic humans called Neanderthals (H. neanderthalensis) shared a common ancestor in Africa but diverged in different geographic areas. When modern humans migrated out of Africa and dispersed around the world starting about 100,000 years ago, they overlapped with Neanderthals in Europe. This scenario is best described as a. species living in sympatry following allopatric speciation b. species living in sympatry following sympatric speciation c. species living in allopatry following allopatric speciation d. species living in allopatry following sympatric speciation

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Accepted Answer

Hi everyone, let's look at our next question, it says, identify the correct statement about the evolution of modern humans. And let's just look over our answer choices really briefly and we note that we have choice d saying all statements are correct. So there's a possibility that all of the top three choices are correct. So let's look through our answer choices. Choice A says both neanderthals and anatomically modern humans were initially thought to have evolved from homo erectus. Well this is true. So I'm going to I'm not going to select this are correct answer, since we have the possibility that all are correct. But make a little note there. Um It was initially thought that both neanderthals and modern humans evolved about 200 to 300,000 years ago from homo erectus homo erectus emerged about 1.8 million years ago and spread throughout Eurasia. But more recent fossil discoveries have led the belief that neanderthals and modern humans. So say homo sapiens. Since that's modern humans shared a different so not home erectus, common ancestor in africa and that neanderthals or the ancestor of neanderthals migrated out of africa and ended up in europe. Well, the ancestor of homo sapiens remained in africa for a long time. Then eventually much later almost sapiens migrated also out of europe. I mean out of africa spreading out throughout the world and ending up encountering neanderthals when they reach europe and when they encountered them, they intermixed, they interbreed with each other. So we see now that the two lines, the ancestor of homo sapiens and ancestors and neanderthals diverged at this point with neanderthals being in europe ancestor of modern humans remaining in africa and diverging from each other and then re encountering and mixing with each other later. So let's go onto Choice B. Here. It says modern humans evolved from an ancient ancestor that lived in europe. Well this is not correct there. The ancient ancestor that they evolved from was in africa. So Choice B is not correct. That also means choice D. Can't be correct since we know that not all the choices are correct. And then Choice C. Says modern humans evolved independently of neanderthals. Well this is not correct because they shared a common ancestor back in africa. So they did sort of diverge when they moved into different geographical areas but originally had a common ancestor in africa. So Choice C. Is not correct. So the correct statement about the evolution of modern humans is that both neanderthals and anatomically modern humans were initially thought to have evolved from homo erectus. See you in the next video

Verified Solution

Key Concepts

Allopatric Speciation

Sympatric Speciation

Sympatry and Allopatry