现代人类起源新说与“北京猿人”的归属

The New Idea of Modern Human Origin and the Classification of Beijing Homo erectus

最近有学者提出北京猿人等直立人不属于人的范畴 ,这是对人类起源的认识存在误区造成的。现代人类有多地区起源和单一地区起源这两种假说 ,分子生物学新近研究的结果更多地支持单一地区起源说 ,但它仍存在诸多缺陷。即使由分子生物学支持的单一地区起源说是可以成立的科学假设 ,北京猿人等直立人仍然是处于人类演化过程中的旁支 ,而不应被排拒出古人类的范畴。单一地区起源说表明要修改的 ,只不过是北京猿人等直立人不是现代中国人的直接祖先而已。

The new molecular study on DNA formulates the so-called Eve theory which advocates that modern human beings originated in Africa about 0.20Ma B.P. and their descendants later migrated to China as well as other parts of the world. As a result some scholars claim that all of the Homo erectus including Beijing Homo erectus in China before that time do not belong to the realm of human beings. The writer of this paper holds that the idea is caused by misunderstanding the origin of early and modern mankind.There are two main hypotheses about modern human origin: uniregional and multiregional evolution . The 'Eve' theory mainly supports uniregional evolution hypothesis but there are many shortcomings in molecular study. If the uniregional evolution hypothesis was right, Homo erectus would be an aberrant extinct branch in human evolution. Even if Beijing and other Homo erectus are not the direct ancestor of modern Chinese people, they still belong to the realm of human beings.