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The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa

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I found reading The Real Eve a little difficult to stick to, getting lost occasionally among all the letters identifying this group and that group. Hanging in there, though, was worth it. Most of the literature I've read recently has accepted the theory that species H. sapiens and its immediate Homo ancestors originated in and spread from Africa. Although other scenarios have been proposed from time to time, the Mitochondrial Eve study topped off the debate so that it is now taken almost as a given. What was less contentious throughout most of the discussion is the route by which the various species of our dynasty took to arrive in Europe, which was usually through the Levant to Europe and Asia. In The Real Eve Dr. Oppenheimer gives very cogent reasons for believing otherwise.

Following genetic studies conducted recently by a variety of researchers including himself, the author puts together for the reader an intriguing tale of a southern exodus across the Red Sea to Yemen and from there to coastal Asia, where the Beachcombers as he describes the culture, spread from India to the Americas and when climate permitted to the Levant and Europe. What makes his theory so forceful is the interwoven elements of genetics, archaeology, paleontology, geography and paleoclimatology with which he creates it.

What I found most fascinating was Dr. Oppenheimer's critique of the American adversarial style of archaeological and anthropological studies. His description of an entrenched elder generation vigorously fending off the encroachment of an energetic younger generation that is trying to make a name for itself by overturning respected theories is not far off the mark. Reputation means academic power and control of grants and tenure. With cut backs in government finance of education and research, these plums are harder to come by than they were, and he-and it's usually been a "he" in these situations-who controls the department controls the future of the fledgling wannabes. I saw this type of professional skirmish in action myself while studying history some time ago. The reader can see it in action by simply following the course of the debate over the peopling of the Americas that has occurred in the literature of the past 50 years. Dr. Oppenheimer gives a blunt overview of it in his book.

What is most admirable about the discussion-despite its confusion for the lay person-is the fact that the author tends to stick with genes rather than individuals. Other authors try to depict individuals like Oppenheimer's Nasreen or Cane as people to capture the reader's imagination. While this is entertaining, it also creates the false idea that "A" Nasreen lived and breathed when in fact a particular gene sequence rather than a person is what is being followed. Human beings are masses of genetic sequences which we reshuffle with each generation. I found myself getting caught up in this mystique of an individual Eve when I first started reading literature on the subject, and it took a while to get the concept clear of personalities. I think the sense of gene flow is more apparent in this work than in others I've read.

Calling Stephen Oppenheimer a "young turk" may be a bit thin. However, his iconoclastic assault on the dogma of human global diaspora is challenging. Without overstressing it, he uses the title to trash even older dogmas. To his credit, he refrains from personal assaults as he lays out the evidence genetics provides in tracing our prehistory. In all, he manages to show how a new science is providing answers to old questions. Where did modern humanity rise? How and when did it spread over the planet to occupy nearly every available niche? What kind of future does this imply for our species?

None of these questions is easily resolved, as Oppenheimer stresses often. With earlier answers based on the imperfect fossil record, on which many fine careers have been built, offering new responses takes courage. In anthropology, the response had better have good evidence in support. His support is impressive, reaching back through time and space to our earliest origins in Africa. From there he demonstrates that our Eurocentric view of ourselves needs serious revision. Humanity reached Europe late in our migrations. European humanity didn't invent "art", agriculture didn't arise in the Fertile Crescent spreading to girdle the globe, and Native Americans likely settled the Western Hemisphere prior to the last great Ice Age.

Oppenheimer relies on two newly-developed tools in his analysis: mitochondrial DNA and mutations in the Y chromosome. Mitochondrial DNA [mtDNA], the marker handed down from mother to daughter, has already pointed to a common ancestor to us all. Living in Africa about 150 thousand years ago, she's been [regrettably] dubbed the Mitochondrial Eve. The author deplores this appellation, but accepts its nearly universal usage. The Y chromosome, passed on to sons, is a firmer marker for location, if less precise in time. He uses both to trace a new migration route for humanity. The route is along the southern shoreline from Africa, across India's triangular coastline to Southeast Asia and Australia. He reminds us that the Australian Aborigines have the longest uninterrupted heritage of all humans. Yet, he notes, they are the same as the rest of us in all important features.

The coastal route, guided by mountain ranges and ice incursions, resulted in some unexpected revelations about that European viewpoint. Instead of creeping around the eastern Mediterranean to populate Europe, these migrants, "beachcombers" in his word, entered from the Asian steppes to the east. Already inhabited by the Neandertals, this invasion ultimately displaced the indigenous population - a depressingly familiar story. Marshalling the research done over the past few years, including the genetics, the rise and fall of the seas due to ice trapping the water, and tying it to the available fossil evidence, Oppenheimer revises a century of theories. It's an exemplary summary of current research while pointing out the work remaining to be done.

To many, the most interesting chapter is the contentious field of "the Peopling of the Americas". It is here that Oppenheimer introduces some of the disputants. The issue of who emigrated to the Western Hemisphere is tightly meshed with when it occurred. The "Clovis point" stone tools, long considered the benchmark in palaeoanthropology, is sharply challenged by both fossil and genetic evidence. The genetic picture is made up of four basic branches traceable, according to the author, to Japan and eastern China. These people, he stresses, didn't flow into North America from there, however. Instead, they took up residence in a "temporary continent" - Beringia - that formed when the ice lowered sea levels.

Oppenheimer's knowledge of the research processes is clearly imparted to readers. He explains how the new science of phylogeography starts at a "twig of the molecular tree" and can trace back through time and place on a map. The map shows our wanderings, and he gives us the maps to illustrate them. He supplies diagrams of the molecular relationships acting as guides. To complete the picture, he also provides environmental charts showing how migrations were guided by changing climate. It's a vivid, complete picture, with few flaws or omissions. In fact, the only complaint i can offer about this book is the references, which are integrated in the Notes at the back of the book. To garner a list of his sources, you must read the Notes as closely as you do the main text. It's not a chore you should shun, but the cross-referencing is tedious. A tiny blemish, it detracts nothing from the book. [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]

Oppenheimer's book is without doubt the best of the genre that has emerged that is reporting upon the results of the Human Genome Diversity Project. Focussing exclusively upon the male Y chromosome and the female Mitochondrial DNA, it enables us to trace not just our own parentage, but that of every human on Earth. Combining paleoclimatic data as well, Oppenheimer goes a step further than "The Seven Daughters of Eve" and "The Journeys of Man". Its only weakness is that Oppenheimer seems too hung-up on his Flood = Sunda Shelf = Austronesian thesis (but it doesn't protrude too much). He also is very critical (not completely justifiably) of the linguistic work of Greenberg and Ruhlen.

For those of you wanting to "Know Thyself" this is definitely up there with Carvalli Sforza's The History and Geography of Human Genetics".

Regards

John

This is by far the clearest and most exciting book out of the many on this subject over the past several years. The author is a crystal-clear thinker and presenter, and actually manages the feat of communicating a sprawling argument hingeing on genetic markers into an argument that was almost as suspenseful to me as a good novel. The data on Asia are still controversial and the archaeological data is scanty, and at this point the nature of the evidence does make the author miss a step or two in terms of his usual lucid clarity. But that's only one chapter, and hardly opaque, and then he quickly regains his footing. If you only read one book on the history of mankind and our migrations, I would recommend this one -- Oppenheimer thinks and teaches at the same time, a rare skill.

And beware the first reviewer's posting -- it is based on gut-level cavils obviously harbored before opening the book, and has nothing whatsoever to do with this fantastic piece of work, which has nothing to do with politcal correctness and is very closely argued (rather than being based on points not even "dabatable"). By my viewing, the "woman" supposedly on the cover is a man, for instance...

One by one many of the traditional orthodoxies of Anthropology have been challenged based on new perspectives from cutting-edge scientific methodologies. Paradigms, such as those preached by the long standing Meadian camp, have lost much of their stranglehold on the science of cultural comparisons, although many factions within the field of Cultural Anthropology still adhere to their utopian ideals. While these proponents coddle their long-held and long-mislead research traditions, many forward thinking individuals have begun using evolutionary thought coupled with the genetic record to help understand not only modern human behavior, but also to reconstruct ancient human migrations. It is therefore not surprising that in Steven Oppenheimer's book The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey Out of Africa, the gauntlet has once again been thrown down in challenge to such traditional scientific dogmas.

By tracing human lineages through maternal and paternal genetic markers, mitochondrial (mtDNA) and non-recombining Y-chromosome (NRY) respectively, and combining this data with archeological, linguistic, and paleoclimatic evidence Oppenheimer follows the initial failed migration of modern humans from the savannahs of Africa 120,000 years ago through their final steps into the Americas. This is accomplished by tracing the founding `Adam' and `Eve' DNA lines and their polymorphic offshoots first successful steps out of Africa 80,000 years ago through the different landscapes and climates of the rest of the world. Throughout this journey he sets out to challenge some of the traditional assumptions of ancient human migrations and does an adequate job of at least making the reader contemplate current belief systems, even if he cannot always support his key notions.

The first assumption he challenges is the route by which modern humans left Africa. The widely accepted, Eurocentric, notion is that humans left Africa through a northern inland route that put them on a direct road to populating the European continent. Contrary to this perspective, Oppenheimer suggests that due to the expansion of the Saharan desert 100,000 years ago modern humans could not have left Africa through this route. Rather he proposes a southern beachcombing route across the Red Sea's `Gate of Grief'. This challenge is the central theme of his book, as in its wake also dilutes the notion that modern humans were not fully "modern" until they reached Europe and initiated the Upper Paleolithic Cultural Revolution. His proposed southern route also helps to explain why modern humans, being blocked by mountains, did not reach Europe until 50,000 years ago; even though they had traveled much further and reached south eastern Asia and Australia by 70,000 years ago via a direct beachcombing route.

This initial exodus also helps to explain the noticeable bottleneck and rexpansion evidenced in the DNA of we moderns. This bottleneck, he suggests, was caused by the Toba volcanic eruption in India which wiped out all but approximately 10,000 humans about 74,000 years ago. He proposes that after leaving Africa those humans that didn't make a beeline for Australia, were vulnerable to Toba because they were hunkered down around India for thousands of years prior to expanding to Europe and Asia. After the rexpansion humans spread throughout Europe via two main routes, Asia via three, and the Americas via the continent of Beringia, which remained an open corridor for many thousands of years prior to the last glacial maximum (LGM).

This last point is important to Oppenheimer's final trek into the Americas. Based on genetic dates, increasing archeological evidence, and linguistic understanding of the Americas he makes the bold statement that it could be "Pre-Clovis Only". In his view humans first crossed into the America's from Beringia between 22-25,000 years ago, prior to the LGM. From this invasion they spread quickly into Eastern North America and reached Chile in South America more than 13,000 years ago. He suggests that the reason the majority of artifacts in the America's are dated as less than 13,000 years ago is because the glaciers from the LGM destroyed the preexisting sites. This claim makes such strong intuitive sense, it's a wonder that more people have not hit upon it.

While Oppenheimer's book does a good job of combining the different forces that contributed to the directionality and timing of the migrations of modern humans, it is lacking in some respects. Throughout the book he chooses to only use dates that support his arguments, and fails to report if these dates are calibrated or uncalibrated. Further, many of the dates he uses have been directly challenegd by other scientists, prior to this books publication. It is obvious that Oppenheimer himself has his own biases and agenda as he argues for rigorous scientific methodology, yet in many cases he ignores the conflicting information of such strong methodological studies. This leads to two conclusions the reader may draw: Either Oppenheimer does not fully understand the arguments of those papers he ignores, which is possible as he does cite them in support of other arguments in which they agree with his perspective; or he fails to report the dates and findings of those papers because they refute his arguments. Whichever explanation may approximate verisimilitude his sins of omission cannot be ignored, and such inconsistencies eventually slow down his journey and lead to numerous occasions of him contradicting himself in statements made only a few pages apart.

Another annoyance that gnaws at the reader throughout the book is Oppenheimer's inconsistent use of nomenclature for the different mtDNA and NRY haplogroups. He begins the book talking about the `Adam' and `Eve' founding "out of Africa" genetic lines, and proceeds to name some of the branching lines based on biblical, historical, and geographical concepts, e.g. Seth, Cane, Abel, Nasreen, Manju. However, at times he switches between his nomenclature and that used by various other scientists that have previously named these defining polymorphisms. While his purpose of naming things was supposed to simplify reader comprehension oftentimes it just leads to confusion as oftentimes he switches nomenclatures seemingly based on a whim.

Overall, Oppenheimer does the job he set out to do. His challenges to the status quo and makes the reader think about what exactly science truly understands about the emergence of modern humans. He offers fresh perspectives based on eve-increasing understanding of the genetic record, and ever strengthening genetic dating techniques. He also offers a book that can be easily read and understood by experts and laypeople alike. His biggest downfall is that the expert may challenge him based on the inconsistencies outlined above, while the layperson may fail to questions what he is being told allowing Oppenheimer's own view to become its own dogma in their misinformed circles. His effort at synthesizing all the different lines of evidence is a valiant one. However, the inconsistencies may cause one to feel the Oppenheimer is trying to hard to force data to fit his model, which is one of the problems of the already existing dogmas of science.

The front and endpapers of this book sum up the author's theory of the origin of modern man and his expansion to nearly every corner of the world. Homo sapiens originated in Africa and spread north and east along the coasts of the Indian Ocean and then split into groups that migrated in every direction. His evidence is primarily mutations in micochondial DNA found in the descendants not of a single woman, Eve, but rather a "core of 2,000 to 9,000 Africans who lived around 190,000 years ago.

The author's precision in explaining the far distant past in that sentence may cause angina among more cautious scientists. Certainly, Oppenheimer expresses his ideas confidently -- more confidently perhaps than the evidence supports. In addition to mtDNA, however, he also calls on archaeological, linguistic, and climatic evidence to support his theories.

The author is plausible and persuasive and the story he tells is fascinating. Along the way he pokes holes in treasured theories such as the ones that the European sub-species of Homo sapiens invented art, language, and other markers of civilization and that man arrived in the New World only about 12,000 years ago. (Australians were painting walls as early as Europeans and man probably arrived in New World at least 20,000 years ago.

I can't pretend to understand all the many DNA charts and explanations that the author uses to support his theories although the maps are excellent. I was especially interested in his illuminating discussions about the impact of the Ice Ages on the spread of mankind and his pointed discussions of vested interests and conventional wisdom among archaeologists. All in all, "The Real Eve" is a very good book to read about our distant ancestors and their travels.

Smallchief

In a trail blazing work prominent geneticist Stephan Oppenheimer has
convincingly argued that all the non African peoples of the world have
descended from the first Out of Africa Eve mtDNA strain known as L3
and the first Out of Africa Y chromosome line labeled as M168.
Moreover, South Asia and in particular India has been a major location
of flowering for L3 and M168 as they spread through out the rest of
the world about 90,000 years before present. The story according to
Oppenheimer (2003) is as follows. The African people carrying L3 and
M168 left that continent across south Red sea across the southern part
of the Arabian peninsula towards Pakistan and India. On the maternal
side the mtDNA strain L3 split into two daughters which Oppenheimer
labels Nasreen and Manju. While Manju was definitely born in India
the birthplace of Nasreen is uncertain tentatively placed by
Oppenheimer in southern Iran or Baluchistan. Manju and Rohani (should
be Rohini), Nasreen's most prolific daughter both born in India are
the progenitors of all non African peoples.

The story on the paternal side is a lot more complex. M168 had three
sons, of which Seth was the most important one. Seth had five sons
named by Oppenheimer as Jahangir, H, I, G and Krishnna. Krishnna born
in India turned out to be the most prolific of Seth's sons. Krishnna
through his son Ho, grandson Ruslan through Polo, and great grandson
M17 through Ruslan, played a major role in the peopling of South
Asian, East Asia, Central Asia, Oceania and West Eurasia (see
Appendix 2, p. 374-375 of Oppenheimer 2003). Oppenheimer (2003) has
this to say about M17 and his father Ruslan:

"For me and for Toomas Kivisild, South Asia is logically the ultimate
origin of M17 and his ancestors; and sure enough we find highest rates
and greatest diversity of the M17 line in Pakistan, India, and eastern
Iran, and low rates in the Caucasus. M17 is not only more diverse in
South Asia than in Central Asia but diversity *characterizes* its
presence in isolated tribal groups in the south, thus undermining any
theory of M17 as a marker of a `male Aryan Invasion of India', (p.
152)."

"Study of the geographical distribution and the diversity of genetic
branches and stems again suggests that Ruslan, along with his son M17,
arose early in South Asia, somewhere near India, and subsequently
spread not only south-east to Australia but also north, directly to
Central Asia, before splitting east and west into Europe and East Asia
(p. 153)."

Reference:

Oppenheimer, Stphen (2003), "The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey ouf of
Africa," New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers.

I have read a few books on this subject and have been an anthropolgy/archaeology "hobbyist" for much of my life. I found this book quite enjoyable and informative.

The charts and photographs were extremely helpful, as well as the introduction and epilogue, which caught me up to the current theories of the day.

Some of the detailed discussions were a bit over my head and tended to slow the book down somewhat, but the end of chapter summaries were particularly helpful in this regard. I found Mr. Oppenheimer's writing to be good and it seemed like he was trying to be instructional and keep things moving. Overall he did an excellent job.

I would recommend this book to others with an interest in this topic. There will be some tougher parts to read, but challenging your mind and vocabulary is part of the fun of reading.

There is a lot of good science in this book, but it is ultimately over-shadowed by the author's bad manners. Can he be such a serious researcher, himself, to treat other researchers in-so-cavalier a fashion? You can present arguments against a fellow scientist's beliefs without, also, questioning his or her integrity. Or, imply that he or she is just a racist.
The author does makes some strong and compelling arguments. One of his most interesting points was to cite the work of Mark Baldwin. Mr. Baldwin's theory, coevolution, proposed that behavioral change preceded genetic change, which would then occur to optimize the new behavior. That is the best explanation I have read for how evolution works.
However, the author's work is punctuated with irritability, cajolery, and a certain amount of confusion. He will assure you that the mitochondrial DNA and/or Y-chromosomal DNA evidence easily supports certain events as occuring at a certain time, but then will fail to explain why. Sometimes, you can figure out why, by yourself, but other times you end suspecting that the so-called evidence doesn't actually make the case. He should review his work with regression analysis. And, he writes some hard to figure out sentences.
It doesn't seem to occur to him that the comparatively simplistic genetics of mitochondrial and Y-chromosomal DNA is a limiting lense through which to view all of human pre-history, even genetic pre-history. Frankly, for him to seriously contend or imply that linguistic historians, population geneticists, archeologists, and anthropologists should just give up their studies in the face of gender-specific genetics is embarassing.
This isn't a bad book, but it might have been a better book if the author could have brought himself to recognize that almost all contemporary scientists adhere to very high personal and professional standards. Also, that most of us who read popular science books are very open to reasoned argument.

The main point of Oppenheimer's book is to show that our species, Homo sapiens, evolved in Africa and that all non-African humans throughout the world today are descended from one group of Homo sapiens who left Africa 85,000 years ago.

But Oppenheimer also engages in another debate which I find very interesting. This is the question of when fully modern human brains and behaviour first appeared.

Anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) first evolved in Africa between 150,000 and 200,000 years ago, when they branched off from an earlier species of Homo. But until recently it seemed that sophisticated tools and art did not appear until 40,000 - 50,000 years ago. This led scientists like Jared Diamond and Richard Klein to claim that there must have been some sort of biological, genetic change at that more recent date which altered the structure of the brain, thus leading to fully modern behaviour, possibly through the development of language. This supposed dramatic change (which is invisible and unprovable) has been called the "Big Bang", the "Human Revolution", or the "Great Leap Forward".

Oppenheimer does a great job of shooting down this theory. Firstly, it assumes that behavioural change must be determined by biological change. But why does cultural change have to imply a change to the brain? It is more likely that the brain had become "modern" when Homo sapiens first evolved, and that the later cultural change took place for non-biological reasons. (After all, the development of farming 12,000 years ago, of cities and writing 5,000 years ago and of industry 200 years ago were also "Great Leaps Forward", but no one believes that these were the result of genetic changes to the human brain.)

Secondly, Oppenheimer shows that evidence of art and sophisticated tools has now been found which dates from much earlier than the time that the "Great Leap Forward" is supposed to have happened. For example, engraved pieces of ochre have been found in Africa dating from 75,000 years ago, and decorative beads have been found dating back 100,000 years.

Oppenheimer argues that language developed much earlier than the supposed "Human Revolution", and that humans were already fully modern when they came out of Africa. As he writes, "...humans came out of Africa already painting."

Not only are we all descended from African ancestors, but those ancestors, 150,000 years ago, were probably just as intelligent as we are now.

Phil Webster.
(England)