This is some cool stuff. And, I can see it being used as kind-of support for what I keep hearing: that we sapiens-types evolved not in a single push from heidelbergensis or so, but in both Africa and Asia from erectus. Just, as with these spiders, we ended up so much the same that we then mingled up and became what we are today. Really? I do think we found ourselves in Asia when we came up out of Africa, but I kind of doubt we’d evolved to be that similar—though, yes, with primates, if two lineages share a common ancestor within the last couple million years, they can mate and produce fertile offspring. So, I mean, yeah, Peking Man, Java Man, they were of course there. And it’s kind of hard to argue they weren’t somewhere in the mix that’s now us. Just, they’re maybe a step before the Denisovans, I’m thinking (which are now, like Neanderthals, in us, as we’re very Borg: we assimilate).
Anyway, it’s all wonderfully confusing and endlessly fun to argue. And, I only really meant to be pasting this in, as it’s super, super cool:
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