re: #178 engineer cat

The results show that early modern humans present in the Beijing area 40,000 y ago were related to the ancestors of many present-day Asians as well as Native Americans. However, they had already diverged from the ancestors of present-day Europeans.

That Europeans and East Asians had diverged by 40,000 y ago is consistent with dates for the first archaeological appearance of modern humans in Europe

iirc, there were three species of humans living in africa and eurasia at that date: homo sapiens sapiens, homo sapiens neanderthalensis, and homo erectus

No, probably not.

First, we have to deal with the lumper/splitter issue in biology. It is no longer clear to me that the idea of “Homo sapiens ssp. sapiens” makes sense, or to split up any of the post-H. heidelbergensis species the way we do.

40,000 years ago we know the following exist from their remnants:
(1) anatomically modern humans in West, North, and East Africa, as well as Eurasia and parts of Oceania.
(2) culturally modern humans, apparently from their tools.
(3) “Neanderthals” remaining in a few spots.
(4) “Denisovans” in south Siberia, a close relative to the Neanderthals.
(5) H. florensiensis, some sort of small statured hominin on at least one island in Oceania.

As is the case with all of archeology and paleontology, our discoveries can never be thought of as comprehensive of what existed at the time.