Subject: Re: Peking Man
Date: Tuesday, May 23, 2017 19:15
Dear W
Thank you for very interesting email.
This is from Chinese Sources – and adds to the debate:
Red Deer Cave People 马鹿洞人 (蒙自人): Unknown Humans Discovered in China
You probably remember Alice Roberts in China – where she stated that the Chinese Authorities taught (in schools) that Chinese people evolved from Homo Erectus in China – and do not share the ‘Out of Africa’ lineage shared by the West? I cannot find any evidence for this thinking today, on the Chinese language internet, with every theory pointing toward the ‘Out of Africa’ thinking. I also remember Chinese researchers attempting to prove a ‘non-African’ origination for Chinese people. I think around 5000 DNA samples were taken from men across China – and every single one possessed the ‘Out of Africa’ DNA marker. However, it is my understanding that ALL hominids developed in Africa and migrated-out at various times. Modern humans stem from a migration around 50,000 years ago (of perhaps just 200 individuals), and spread across the world (encountering different types of hominids that had migrated out of Africa at earlier dates) – but the Chinese thinking might contend that Chinese people evolved from an earlier migration ‘Out of Africa’ – from a completely different evolutionary line of descent (from the rest of modern humans).
Until proven otherwise, I think there is evidence for this. However, we must be eternally vigilant for Eurocentricism and political bias in Western sources, designed to continuously work to undermine Mainland Chinese science simply because it is not ‘European’ or emanating from a capitalist regime. One distinguishing feature of a Socialist society is that its education system ‘rejects’ any and all notions of ‘nationalism’ – because it is this ‘nationalism’ which imbues ‘racism’ – and that was used by the West in the past to keep China in a subjugated state. It is the West that uses nationalist racism against China (and not the other way around – as suggested by the otherwise interesting article). My view is that we do not yet know everything about our ‘human’ past, and that we must not assume too much (either way), but quietly gather evidence and attempt tentative interpretations. If it turned-out that ALL human life somehow developed in China (or just the ‘Chinese’ lineage of it), I would be very happy, but even if it is eventually proven that we all just just wandered ‘out’ of Africa, this pleases me also, as both models serve to ‘break-up’ Eurocentric notions of racial superiority. It is ironic that it could possibly be true that two ethnicities of human beings (i.e. the Chinese and the Africans), both historically oppressed and persecuted by Europeans, would turn-out to be far older in origination, and to have built advanced cultures very early on!
Best Wishes
Adrian
From W – On Fri, May 19, 2017, at 18:47:
Dear Adrian,
You might find the attached link to be of interest. We’ve talked about Peking Man before, and some Chinese scientists think that modern Chinese people evolved directly and exclusively from Peking Man. The attached article was only published last year, so it’s the most recent update on the theory.
Kind regards,
W
http://www.nature.com/news/how-china-is-rewriting-the-book-on-human-origins-1.20231
SANGHA KOMMUNE (SSR) 