>>8240
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2012/06/bonobos-join-chimps-closest-human-relatives
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2111602/DNA-study-gorilla-shows-far-similar-scientists-thought.html
>After sequencing their genetic code, experts have found that 15 per cent of a gorilla’s DNA is closer to humans than a chimp’s.
In other words, there was a population of different, but closely related, ape species in Africa. One strand became bonobos, one chimps, one gorillas, and another became proto-humanity. We were closest to proto-bonobos, but we also had some genes unique to the proto-gorillas.
Now, as the home of the great apes, Africa benefits (and suffers) from lots of paleontologic attention. I'm not surprised that several earliest common ancestors of modern humans have been found there.
However, it is pure magical thinking to believe this process was one way, that all common human ancestors originated in Africa. Undoubtedly, some new common ancestors must have evolved outside of Africa, their descendants spread back into Africa, and a new common ancestor, with that extra-African mutation long ago merged in, then spread out from Africa again.
How many times did this cycle repeat? God only knows, but surely it happened more than once.
To suppose that all evolution from apes to homo sapiens sapiens happened in Africa, and radiated out, must have a powerful explanation. Why, from homo erectus (found in Georgia and China) to homo sapiens (earliest fossil found in Morocco), did evolution never walk backwards into Africa?