Tommy, thanks for your posts. I think we are largely in agreement with
the results
1. Neanderthals (and possibly Homo erectus in S.E.Asia replaced fairly
slowly, and as a result probably of differentials in population growth
rates over thousands of years. Unlikely hybridisation between various
Homo groups (Neanderthals in Europe, late erectus in Asia and H.sapiens
out of Africa.)
2. Probable arrival of Australian Aboriginal people into the continent
more than 40,000 years ago, but less than 90,000 years ago (with a time
from 70-60,000 most likely.
3. A possible polygenetic appearance of language not ruled out.
Probably likely in the case of different Homo species, less likely in
the case of Homo sapiens.
4. An possible early movement of Homo sapiens east out Africa before a
later one moving north into continental Eurasia.
> I presume You are thinking of recent finds from Zaire, however dating
is
> controversial there too. The Howiesons Poort blade culture in South
Africa
> looks rather "Upper Paleolithic" and certainly falls quite early in
the
> last glacial cycle, but it is very isolated and has no obvious link
to much
> younger similar toolkits.
> South East Asia is a great mystery since there are hardly any
Paleolithic
> remains of any kind known from there. Early toolkits must have been
very
> largely non-lithic (bamboo?) there.
Yes I was thinking of the Zairean finds. There is also the evidence of
body decoration extending well back in the Swazi hematite mines too,
including the finds of perforated necklace teeth.
Concerning whether Australian was an independent centre of language or
not, I know Stephen Wurm at the Australian National University (one of
the leading linguists working in this field) has discovered deep
structures underlying Australian and Indo-Pacific language families.
Phonemically these languages have a number of features in common (eg
avoidance of frictives etc), that is also found in Austronesian. I
know of claims that the Anadamann Islanders are Indo-Pacific language
speakers, but know of no work linking them yet to any of the groups in
Papua New Guinea. Indeed the whole Indo-Pacific language phylum is
still needing a great deal of work. Worm's reconstruction of the
Trans-Papuan phylum is ground breaking, and I know work is under way
with the Pama-Nyungan but in both places there are the troubling
presence of small isolated phyla which don't seem to fit anywhere.
There are underlying deep structures (eg. Aboriginal phonemes are
common throughout the continent, but Pama Nyungan seems a more recent
structure (despite a fairly fortuitous correspondence between
"Carpentarians" and "Murrayan's" proposed more than 50 years ago)).
Regards
John