LISS.398A TECHNOLOGY, ENVIRONMENT and HUMAN ADAPTATION:
PART I EARLY PEOPLES in
the NEW WORLD
LISS. 380: EVOLUTION AND DIFFUSION
Modern human beings,
Homo sapiens sapiens,
came to occupy most parts of the earth over a time
period of 5 million years through complex process involving both biological evolution and spatial
diffusion. Wherever populations of living things are found, the process of biological evolution driven by
random mutation and natural selection produces anatomical changes resulting in different biological
species. Wherever they originate, new species may move to other locations interacting with and perhaps
displacing or genetically intermingling with pre-existing species in these locations.
Thus, one might account for the present spatial distribution of
Homo sapiens sapiens
by one of
two "pure" models:
-
multiple parallel, roughly simultaneous, isomorphic evolutionary changes in widely distributed
populations;
-
single series evolutionary changes in a single population with subsequent diffusion and displacement;
or by a "hybrid" model involving a combination of both pure processes.
Which of these models best accounts for the available data is currently a matter of dispute among "the
experts". The account sketched here follows the "series-diffusion-displacement" model.
Colorado School of Mines
Division of Liberal Arts and International Studies
Dr. Joseph D. Sneed
jsneed@mines.edu
