by Denis Montgomery
CHAPTER THIRTEEN - SEASHORE MAN AND AFRICAN EVE
A Search for the Origins and Evolution of Humankind in Africa
2006

from DenisMontgomery Website
 

There is a magic that continually emerges around the period of about 40,000 to 35,000 years ago.

There had to be a particularly significant global event at about that time, lasting several thousand years perhaps. The flowering of creative aesthetics touching all of mankind’s activities began then, exemplified in the rock-art, jewellery and decorated tools they have left us. It is the usual order of time that I use to define the beginning of the African Late Stone Age in which this artistic creativity was developed.

That is also when the Neanderthals of Europe and the Middle East disappeared from the fossil record. For many years in my reading and thinking, and listening to archaeologists talking, 35,000 to 40,000 years ago kept cropping up as a kind of evolutionary watershed. I knew that something extraordinary happened about then.

The universal culture jump to the Late Stone Age everywhere and the extinction of the Neanderthals could not have been coincidence. By then, Neanderthals had weathered several ice-ages. So climate does not seem to have been a major factor. But, other mammals had also been affected and some subspecies disappeared although there was no mass extinction. Indeed, it seemed that some species had seized opportunities.

As the ‘out-of-Africa’ scenario was proposed in scientific circles during the 1980s, I was comforted that my reasoning was being demonstrated by a growing volume of evidence. However, no clear explanation was available. Increasingly I thought about some strange worldwide mutation or genetic imperative but could not imagine what it was.

And then, on 21st December 1991, I was astonished to read a report by Adrian Berry in the London Daily Telegraph and I quote it in full:

The ozone layer was destroyed 35,000 years ago in a disaster which lasted 2,000 years. At that time, people were nomadic hunters, and it helped rather than slowed human evolution.

 

The cause was the closest supernova explosion in known history - the disruption of a star 150 light-years away - which ripped away the ozone layer and bombarded Earth with violent shock waves of cosmic rays. Evidence comes from the discovery of the element beryllium-10 in the Greenland and Antarctic ice caps. Prof Grant Kocharov, vice-chairman of the Cosmic Ray Council of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, said:

“The explosion must have unleashed violent showers of cosmic rays which smashed into nitrogen and oxygen molecules in the atmosphere, producing beryllium-10.”

He and colleagues at Arizona University found beryllium-10 in ice that formed about 35,000 years ago.

Dr Paul Damon of the University said:

“From the density of the beryllium we have calculated that the supernova must have been within 163 a distance of 150 light-years, a number in miles of only 900 million million.”

Mr Ian Ridpath, editor of the British journal Popular Astronomy, said:

“For several months, the exploding star would have been brighter than the full Moon. It would have been painful to the eye to look at. It would have cast shadows and turned night into day.”

Dr Paul Murdin, director of the Royal Observatory at Edinburgh, said:

“It is possible that the surviving relics of the explosion may have formed what is now one of the most beautiful objects in the sky, the Veil Nebula in the constellation of Cygnus.”

The physical effects on our ancestors would have been cataclysmic.

“In successive shock-waves that would have lasted for more than 100 human generations, the Earth would have been bombarded both by cosmic rays and by ultraviolet radiation from the Sun as the ozone layer was ripped away,” he said. “Those who were prone to cancer would have died prematurely, but descendants of the survivors would have developed immune defences.”

I spoke to Adrian Berry who told me that he had detailed conversations with the scientists concerned from which he had summarized his brief quotes. I looked for some confirmation elsewhere of a close supernova in astronomically recent time and was pleased to find it from a study of radio waves.

I.S.Shklovskii and Carl Sagan in Intelligent Life in the Universe (1966) wrote:

There is one other curious circumstance which may be related to supernovae. For a decade, an unexplained detail has remained in our picture of the distribution in the sky of cosmic radio noise. ...

 

A hypothesis of the English radio astronomer Hanbury Brown and his colleagues concerning the nature of this anomaly [a ‘tongue’ of isophotes, of similar luminosity, in our Milky Way galaxy] deserves special attention. They believe that it may be the radio envelope of a supernova which exploded very close to our solar system several tens of thousands of years ago.....

I was much excited by this. It seemed that an extraordinary cosmic event had occurred which could have precipitated major changes to life on Earth about that magical watershed of time.

***

Dr. Paul Murdin, quoted in 1991, was correct in suggesting the Veil Nebula was the remnant of a supernova, but subsequent observations with the Hubble Telescope and instruments designed to observe specific radiation have given better information.

The Veil Nebula is indeed the remnant of a supernova, but it has been determined that it occurred at about 15,000 years ago and was about 2,500 light years away. This is very far in terms of an effect on life on our planet.

This supernova is generally known as the Cygnus Loop. But it is interesting that the constellation of Cygnus was noted for a number of large stars which usually terminate in supernovae and in 2001, F. Mavromatakis and R.G.Strom published their proposal that there were two supernova remnants in Cygnus Loop. Uyamker, Reich, Yar, Kothes and Fürst published a paper, Is the Cygnus Loop two supernova Remnants?, in the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics in 2002.
 

There seemed to be no indication available of age or distance of this possible second stellar explosion and there may have been no connection with the event which concerned me. I was now beset by doubts, but there was the evidence of the beryllium.

Something strange and apparently random had occurred which had caused the surge in cosmic radiation, first brought to my attention by Adrian Berry’s article.

Regarding beryllium, much work with deep ice cores in Greenland and the Antarctic continued after 1991, and research is intense. The focus of investigation into evidence provided by ice-cores is these days finely tuned to the problem of global warming which is politicized and for which funding is available.

Beryllium 10 is an important marker in this particular research because its existence in precipitation has correlation to sunspot activity, which in turn is related to the power output of the sun and its warming effect on the Earth. From time to time I trawled through the Internet seeking references and found the paper, A tentative chronology for the EPICA Dome Concordia ice core by Jakob Schwander and others in Geophysical Research Letters v.28 no.22 of 2001.

Although the examination was principally concerned with recent observations of various types to establish the accuracy of dating in ice cores, one of the bench-marks used was the ‘high peak’ of beryllium 10 deposition dated to 41,000 BP. Elsewhere, I found a date of about 40,000 BP with variation of 2,000 years noted.

I found an older report from the American Geophysical Union’s Earth in Space in November 1995 which was useful though vague confirmation, briefly stating:

Beyond their use as dating tools, ice cores convey specific geochemical information. Variations in 10Be concentrations are caused by factors other than accumulation changes. The existence of peaks in 10Be around 35 and 60 kyr B.P. have been attributed to increased production of 10Be.

The additional reference to a peak of Beryllium 10 at ± 60,000 BP, which indicated an unusual event could have had relevance to earlier advances in creative thinking and expression on which the revolution of 40-35,000 years ago was based. If this earlier peak was evidence of an event with a wider ‘footprint’, then it could also have had relevance to the very beginning of creative activity at about 70,000 BP as shown by the Blombos cave site.

The whole matter of subtle mutations, reinforcing environmental pressures, aiding or provoking jumps in culture, coinciding with extraordinary periods of extra-solar or cosmic radiation bore deeper examination.

Scientific support was sparse, but my intuitive thinking about some kind of mutation-driven, speeded-up intellectual evolution between say 80,000 and 30,000 years ago remained active.

The logic seemed overpowering, but the physical data seemed to be wisps of cobwebs floating just outside my reach, brushing at my fingertips.

A severe blast of extra-solar or solar radiation would have caused extinctions amongst marginal species throughout the range of life. Hairless humans would have suffered and those who lived outside the tropics, the ones who were ‘white’, would have suffered most from strange solar peaks, if not catastrophically. The demise of the Neanderthals could have been accelerated quite simply because they were pale-skinned.

Dark-skinned races of Africa, tropical Asia and Australasia would have been least at risk from unrestrained ultraviolet radiation, but those bursts of cosmic radiation must have caused random mutation in all lifeforms.

If the Cro-Magnons had not yet become ‘white’ 165 they would survive when Neanderthals succumbed. Intense, unobstructed ultraviolet light killed those Neanderthals most subject to it and there would have been genetic defects affecting subsequent generations. The species was weakened and unable to withstand the challenges of the colonizing Cro-Magnons, or combat new parasitic diseases.

It was also reasonable to speculate on the effect of a cosmic event on the Sun. Perhaps the cosmic ray or particle bombardment in some kind of shockwave upset the Sun’s own surface nuclear reactions, electro magnetism and gravitic balance, creating a chaos of minor cycles which was sufficient to affect our climate and surface stability.

Cosmic dust entering our solar system has extraordinary effects on our sun; increasing its energy output, changing the wavelength of its radiation and provoking great flares.

Probable drastic climatic surges, caused by extraordinary seismic activity from rapidly melting glaciers and icecaps, inter-acting with the cosmic onslaught, some very short-lived as the atmosphere sought stability, no doubt resulted in the disturbance of many species. Ice core analysis shows that the end of the last ice-age about 12,000 years ago was extraordinarily abrupt, probably taking place in a matter of decades.

There were more detected coincidental extinctions amongst larger mammals at the end of the last Ice-age than at any time during the two million years of the Pleistocene.

The demise of larger variants of common species (such as mammoths, rhinoceros and cats in the northern hemisphere, the giant horse in Africa and a giant kangaroo in Australia) and the widespread expiration of herd herbivores in Eurasia and the Americas were undoubtedly caused by these sharp geographical shocks to a greater extent than any increased hunting by expanding Late Stone Age human populations.

Late Stone Age people, and their predecessors, had been hunting these prey animals for many millennia before their sudden disappearance at about 12,000 years ago. If hunting caused their extinction, then there must have been a most extraordinary increase of human populations! Elephants and plains antelopes in Africa survived in vast quantities until the invention of the breech-loading rifle and the motor vehicle. I have never believed the popular conventional explanation held by anthropologists, lacking knowledge or proper understanding of the effects of abrupt climate change, that hunting caused their extinction.

The London Daily Telegraph gave me another piece of information which was relevant to extra-solar radiation. Robert Uhlig in late 1996 wrote an article based on interviews with Prof. Aman Dar of the Space Research Institute of the Technikon University in Haifa and Dr. David Schramm of the University of Chicago. Following the apparently cyclical reoccurrence of disasters resulting in mass extinctions, they had investigated probable local phenomena which could be the cause.

Rather than subscribe to the idea of a regular invasion of comets or meteors, such as the one at Chicxulub in Mexico which must have been the final straw for the demise of the dinosaurs, they thought that supernovae, or the collision of binary stars, close to us may have been a cause of a number of extinctions.

The merging of stars or nearby supernovae explosions would not account for all the extinction events, of course, but could be the cause of some.

Robert Uhlig went on to write:

Prof. Dar said this theory [meteor crash] did not explain the great leap in biodiversity following the mass extinctions. He argued that the vast amount of radiation produced by a neutron star collision explained why 166 the number of animal and plant species increased so quickly after mass extinctions.

Dr. Schramm said of Prof Dar’s theory on the probable effect of star explosions and their influence on Earth:

“We do know that there is at least one known pair of neutron stars [near Earth] which are spiralling closer together and will indeed collide.”

I would say that the ‘great leap’ in biodiversity also happened as the natural result of nature abhorring a vacuum, but an increase in biodiversity may result from accelerating mutations caused by external radiation.

There is no doubt that our small and insignificant planet is occasionally buffeted by extraneous radiant forces, randomly, that enhance or retard evolution of life.

Other reports from deep drilling in ocean floors were concerned with the discovery of layers of iron isotopes which show evidence of there being a close supernova or other cosmic event sometime in the last 5M years, perhaps at the beginning of the Pleistocene, 2M years ago.

The lack of time definition is typical of the problems scientists still encountered in pinpointing past events of this kind. Although I am discussing another context here, it is notable that it is at the beginning of the Pleistocene that the Homo range of hominids first appeared and the Australopithecines began fading away to extinction.

Other estimates place the supernova which caused the iron isotope deposits to have been only 100 light-years away which could have caused massive extinctions and mutations and suggest that if it occurred at 5M years ago it could explain the extinction of some hominid species and the emergence of new variants. I also took note of other work on the effect of sunspot activity on mammal genetic mutations through the effect of changing electro-magnetic fields in the sun, which in turn create fluctuations in radiation into nearby space, which in turn create responses in the electro-magnetic structure of our planet.

The effect of electro-magnetic change and cyclical fluctuation of solar radiation on foetuses, and particularly on the delicate genetic activity occurring at the moment of fusion of a mammalian sperm and ovum, is a fascinating study. However, it is not yet known precisely what effects the Earth’s magnetism has on higher lifeforms. The Earth’s magnetic polarity has reversed several times in the past and observations detect a weakening at the present time which is presumed to be leading towards a reversal.

Maurice M.Cotterell in The Mayan Chronicles (1995), co-authored with Adrian G.Gilbert, explored unconventional and ‘alternative’ research into the effects of solar radiation and solar magnetic influences.

Using Mayan mathematics and their complex calendar, Cotterell explored research carried out by a number of scholars on the cyclical activities of the sun and Earth and their correlation to known climatic and population changes in the recent ten thousand years.

***

The last ice-age came to an end about 12,000 years ago.

Massive flooding (and the advent of the ‘wet’) resulted from the extraordinarily rapid melting of the vast glaciers and ice-caps. Ocean levels rose hundreds of feet within a few years. No doubt, the flood myths that every old culture retained were stimulated by these comparatively recent disasters.

This period of change was not different to many others in the last two million years of the Pleistocene, but its effects were being imposed on a different kind of mankind. No wonder the last 35,000 years have been the most eventful in our descent, if already anatomically modern mankind 167 had been bombarded by cosmic radiation.

The mutations had not changed the skeletons and general anatomy of humans, but it had affected their brains. Inside their brains lurked a different kind of mind. Many speculations about these millennia could be sharpened into focus.

In recent years, Professor Richard G. Klein of Stanford University had been a lone voice amongst scientific authorities proposing mutation for the cultural revolution exemplified by the explosive flowering of rock-art and other aesthetic developments. He used the example of computers to explain this evolution, explaining that Late Stone Age people’s brains had somehow become “re-wired” or re-programmed, or its operating system had been upgraded, while the hardware remained the same. I like this simile.

His arguments have been attacked and his thesis had been muddied by ‘creationists’ seizing on the concept as being further evidence of intervention by a Supreme Being. But, Klein has been unable to give an explanation for this mutation and the “re-wiring” of brains, and his hypothesis has been seen as a lame duck.

The ’Cygnus Event’, or similar, provided the possible explanation he needed. I contacted Prof. Klein and his colleague, Prof. John Parkington of the University of Cape Town, an authority on the Late Stone Age, but was unable to get their attention to my ideas.

The ozone layer gradually re-established itself, of course, because Earth’s lifeforms were not catastrophically damaged and Gaia repaired the ravages of the radiation. It was a jolt, but not as serious as the cosmic super-events, or conjunction of several events relatively close to each other, which caused mass-extinctions like that of the dinosaurs.

All of this was, of course, of great importance to my proposal for a mutation in mammals and the extraordinary cultural revolution to the African Late Stone Age at about 35 - 40,000 years ago. But, the proposal had to remain speculation until clear evidence became available. I was unable to find more published information and my attention was diverted elsewhere.
 

***

In late 2005, on a whim, I contacted Adrian Berry whose article in the London Daily Telegraph had started me off on this speculative track away back in 1991.

He had become a much-published scientific writer and author and had a regular column in the journal, Astronomy Now. His interest was stirred and he wrote a follow-up piece in Astronomy Now of March 2006. From this article I received an email from Andrew Collins, another successful scientific author with wide-ranging interests.

He generously gave me much information he had acquired during his own researches and directed me to important sources. We met and talked in 2006.

My enthusiasm for my proposals was abruptly re-awakened. Firstly, as I had already discovered, Collins pointed out that the supernova in the Cygnus Loop had been shown to be recent and too far away to have had any effect on Earth. There may have been another supernova in that part of space, but there was no firm evidence.

Technical advances, the Hubble Space Telescope, other satellites designed for observing cosmic radiation and terrestrial observations from several different observatories had made a great difference between the often ill-defined information available in the 1970s and 80s and current published knowledge.

No doubt, there was even more advanced information available and not yet published, and there would surely be more to come.

The increasing awareness of artificially induced global warming was enabling much greater resources of funds and personnel to be devoted to the exploration of ice cores in Greenland and Antarctica, and the huge capital 168 investment in telescopes of different types around the world and above it demanded that they be properly used for advanced research. Now, is an exciting time.

That a supernova in the Cygnus Loop could not have caused the coincidental mutation in humans and other mammals at ± 35,000 years ago was a disappointment, but other more important and specific alternatives were immediately presented. My proposal was more valid than before. Three scenarios as important as my original proposal were available.

Not only that, but the possibility of a more general hypothesis emerged to engage the strange coincidence of universal cultural ‘jumps’ all around the world.

Cygnus X-3

Andrew Collins generously gave me the draft of a paper he had prepared, and provided numerous references.

Whereas a supernova has to be very close (within probably 150 light years or less, as discussed earlier) to provide sufficiently powerful cosmic radiation to affect the molecules of the genes in sperms or ova, and thus cause mutation, other possible sources have been discovered and identified. Close supernovae are extremely rare and their peak of radiation lasts a short time in the region of months.

But other extraordinarily powerful sources radiate gamma waves and particles at speeds approaching that of light.

These sources may be neutron stars or black holes in a close binary relationship with red super-giants or the massive and hot Wolf-Rayet stars which generate clouds of gas particles and radiation.

These clouds are collected and projected in a concentrated narrow jet of enormous energy by the neutron star or black hole partner at right angles to its rotation plane, and they are active in varying strength for hundreds of thousands of years. They are increasingly identified in our own galaxy and others throughout the near universe.

As our galaxy ponderously rotates and its spiral arms change shape, in a time-scale of tens of millions of years, the jets from neutron- and black hole- binary systems swing achingly slowly in relation to our own solar system. It has been determined that Cygnus X-3 is one of these binary systems in our own galaxy which lies at a distance of 30,000 light years.

The power of its ‘blazar jet’ touches Earth. Andrew Collins prepared a paper in 2006 explaining his support of Cygnus X-3 as a critical source of cosmic radiation affecting Earth. He refers to a number of scientific observations and enters into discussion of astrophysics, some of which I have omitted.

I quote from a portion of it:

Cygnus X-3 is today known to be a high mass X-ray binary, consisting of a compact star, either a neutron star or a black hole, and a companion star, most probably a Wolf-Rayet with huge weight loss.

 

Discovered in 1967, Cygnus X-3 has been monitored across the electro-magnetic spectrum, from X-ray to infrared, radio, optical, gamma (ã)-rays and cosmic rays. It is one of the brightest galactic X-ray sources, and is the outright brightest during radio flares associated with the production of relativistic jets. ...

Cygnus X-3 (RA 307.6 dec 40.8) has been identified as a source of highenergy ã-rays of an extremely energetic nature. Indeed, their initial discovery in the 1970s was responsible for a complete reassessment of particle acceleration in compact stars. As early as 1973 the SAS-2 satellite reported ã-radiation with a narrow phase interval of 4.8 h, noted separately in connection with x-ray and infrared observations of Cygnus X-3, estimated to be at 11.6 kpc.

 

This periodicity is caused either by the eclipsing of the compact star by its companion, or the precession of a relativistic jet (Hillas, 1984). Cygnus X-3 is also thought to be a sporadic 169 12.6 ms pulsar (Chadwick, 1985) with ã-rays produced at or near the maximum (phase 0.6) in the 4.8 h X-ray cycle (Bowden et al, 1992). ... ...

 

The extremely energetic ã-rays from Cygnus X-3 were early considered to be ‘the products of interactions between even more energetic particles within the source, mainly protons’, leading astrophysicists to conclude that Cygnus X-3 was ‘the first astronomical object to be identified with reasonable certainty as a source of cosmic rays’, i.e. any cosmic radiation above 10 ev (Cordova, 1986), or, 8 indeed, a ‘cosmic accelerator’ (Dar, 1986). Moreover, ã rays from Cygnus X-3 indicated that ‘only a very small number of sources of like nature would be required to produce most of the observed high-energy cosmic rays.’(Cordova, 1986).

Among the suspected method of production of ã-rays were two popular models. Either they were protons accelerated by the electric field induced in the accretion disk held in the magnetic field of the neutron star, or they were accelerated by shocks in the matter accreted on to a neutron star or black hole. ...

... it was concluded that Cygnus X-3 accelerated particles to at least 1016 eV (i.e. PeV and over), and that if these were electrons, then protons might reach a higher level still (Hillas, 1984). Indeed, at Kiel the EAS reached energies near 1018 eV (Cassiday et al, 1989; Sommer and Elbert, 1990).

At the same time two underground nucleon-decay detectors set up originally to observe proton decays, Soudon (Marshak et al, 1985) and NUSEX (Battistoni, 1985, Baym, 1985), reported excessive muon fluxes either with a time modulation of the 4.8-h period of Cygnus X-3, or coincident to its daily transits.

 

The flux from single-muon events was greater than several orders than that expected from high energy photon flux, suggesting most probably either a primary of unique characteristics, dubbed the ‘cygnet’, or a new mechanism for very efficient muon production in high energy photon-initiated air cascades (Dar, 1986). ...

There seems little doubt that Cygnus X-3 is an exceptional source of cosmic radiation both of the range which is well understood, but of a new type, the ‘cygnets’, which demand further study.

Perhaps there are more kinds of electro-magnetic forces and sub-atomic particles which have yet to be identified and which bombard Earth from enormously powerful sources.

Collins and others point out that Cygnus X-3 is not in any way unique. A number of similar binary systems have been recorded. The relevance of Cygnus X-3 is that its blazar jet happens to be aimed directly at us.

The term ‘blazar’ applies to a stellar source with a jet pointing our way.) Andrew Collins dramatically described it to me as:

“Looking down the muzzle of a gun!”

It has to be remembered that there are other sources of cosmic radiation including that produced by intergalactic gas and dust and, most obviously, from our own cosmic source, the Sun.

The Sun is itself influenced by strange gravity forces, cosmic radiation and intergalactic gas and dust. There is nothing at all simple about the constituents of the Universe; it is its laws that are simple Nevertheless, knowing that my ‘Cygnus Event’ was not a near supernova, but perhaps something of even greater significance, does not end my quest for a solution to the enigma of ± 35,000 BP.

Indeed, new doors were opened, for the bombardment from Cygnus X-3 did not occur during a short and specific time, as would that from a supernova, but has been going on for a long time, maybe as long as 700,000 years, with fluctuations caused by its own position in the galaxy and the effects of other activity on it.

We concern ourselves these days with the ‘wholeness’ of life on Earth and the validity of the Gaia Theory when worrying about global warming. We tend to ignore the fact that the ‘whole’ of our home galaxy and thence to the outer limits of the Universe is interactive. Andrew Collins has spent years investigating alternative hypotheses for important events in human pre-history.

His work is described on his website, www.andrewcollins.com, and he is publishing a comprehensive examination of the significance of the Cygnus constellation in his book The Cygnus Mystery in October 2006.

Beryllium isotopes

At the beginning of this chapter, and this train of investigation, beryllium was the isotope which was important to discovery 10 y of cosmic radiation effects in Greenland and Antarctic ice-cores.

Other isotopes, such as beryllium 7.8 , are also used to detect them. Andrew Collins directed my attention to a paper presented by Professor Aden Meinel of the Department of Astronomy at the University of Arizona, during the TAG Conference at Sheffield University in December 2005.

Prof. Meinel and his colleagues had been researching several relevant avenues and in his paper he published several graphs illustrating results from ice-cores. He showed, for example, that the cores confirm the fluctuations of temperature which have caused the warm interglacials and severe ice-ages between the generally cool state of the Earth during the Pleistocene.

His graph taken from the Vostok site in Antarctica very roughly shows warm peaks at about 430,000BP, 320,000BP, 130,000BP and 15,000 BP, and cold troughs at about 330,000BP, 260,000BP, 135,000BP, 110,000BP, 80,000BP, 56,000BP and 22,000BP.

These approximate dates estimated from a small graph more-or-less coincided with those known for some years from ocean sediment and other particular data. [see the details in Appendix 1 .]

What Meinel’s graph showed, however, is that the average planetary temperature proceeds in a series of irregular jumps downwards after each high peak and that every warm period starts with an abrupt upwards leap. All the jumps both up and down appear abrupt and there are no long periods of stability. Of course, one is dealing here in thousands of years and my use of ‘sudden’ and ‘abrupt’ must be interpreted accordingly.

Elsewhere I have commented on evidence that severe icy conditions have begun with great abruptness which were caused by random terrestrial events such as massive volcanic explosions (e.g. Toba at 74,000BP) and the impact of large meteors and comets (e.g. Chicxulub at 65M years ago).

There are two sources of temperature change: random catastrophes such as volcanoes or meteors and change in the quantity of energy received from the sun. The abrupt melting of ice at the beginning of the present warm interglacial has been detected at the end of the last Ice-age, but it was several thousands of years before the climate changed and the Sahara dried. C

atastrophic floods resulted from the melting, but the Earth has great inertia and the force which causes acute atmospheric temperature change is followed by the expenditure of energy in warming or freezing ice-caps, stabilizing the ocean currents and climatic structures of winds and rainfall in the atmosphere.

An event which instantly freezes mammoths in Siberia or melts the northern hemisphere glaciers in decades must be followed by a sustained increase or reduction of energy for centuries and millennia for a generally warm or cold period to follow.
 

This inertia of the Earth creates what seems to be endlessly long periods of stability to humanity with a life-span of a mere seventy years. If it were otherwise, our core-ancestry would not have survived, but it also explains that the principal of ‘survival of the fittest’ has validity in the most basic behaviours of our planet. There has to be sufficient time for this evolutionary process to work on many generations in lifeforms.

In passing, it may be remarked that the changes in average atmospheric temperature recorded as being caused by artificial global warming at the present may seem quite trivial when compared to the changes of up to 10ºC illustrated in the ice-core data between warm peaks and cold troughs. But there is a mighty difference between the culture and economy of Late Stone Age people 15,000 years ago and our 21st century urban civilization.

A rise or fall in ocean levels of a hundred meters and the desertification of savannah in a hundred years is accommodated by a hundred million nomadic hunter-gatherers with not inconsiderable loss of life, but it is sustainable. For the 6.5 billion people on Earth today, 80% close to oceans and seas, half of them in cities and most dependent on mechanized industrial agriculture for survival, it would be true disaster.

Professor Meinel’s paper proceeded to discussion on detailed analysis of the ice-cores and the importance of beryllium isotopes. He wrote:

It was during this work [ research on intrinsic luminosity of the sun ] that we became aware of something in the archives that caught our attention and that led us to today’s topic. What caught our attention were two additional data archives.

1) the data on the annual variations flux of cosmogenic beryllium during the last 200,000 years

2) the data on the annual accumulation of ice, both measured at the same depth in the ice core

Meinel correlated beryllium deposits, which is a measure of cosmic radiation, and temperature evidence and found no agreement. Cosmic radiation and atmospheric temperature variation were not precisely related. He wrote:

There is no apparent correlation between cosmic rays and the course of temperature. There are many gaps in the cosmic ray data archives where a core segment simply was not measured for its beryllium content, especially where a sampling showed nothing interesting was happening.

 

... [ but ] There are two separate epochs in the cosmic ray record. The flux remains essentially constant until about 80,000 years ago whereupon the nature of the curve dramatically changes. Sinusoidal oscillations begin.

 

... It immediately looked to us like something was precessing. Could it be the source - or could it be the Earth? We measured the oscillation period as 22,000 years and immediately recognized that oscillations had the same period as the precession of the Earth. But what about the lack of any effect of the Earth’s precession on the curve earlier than 80,000 years ago? ...

 

The encounter [ with a cosmic radiation source ] began about 80,000 years ago and apparently ended only 11,000 years ago.

The graphs that he created to illustrate these statements show that cosmic radiation fluctuations increased above a ‘normal’ level at 80,000 years ago with a sudden peak, experienced a more sustained peak at about 60,000 years ago and a substantial one at 40,000 years ago.

They tapered off at about 11,000 years ago. It will be recalled that in references I obtained in earlier years and quoted in the first part of this chapter, the periods of excessive radiation around 60,000 and 40, 000 years ago have been known for some time, but no 172 professional scientist had apparently seen their significance in relation to changes in human culture.

This directly concerned my thesis regarding the planet-wide flowering of rock-art and decoration of artifacts from about 35,000 years ago. It also raised another important question: is there evidence of cultural change following the periods of 80,000 and 60,000 years ago?

And the answer is clear. At about the 80,000 years ago event, the out-of-Africa migration of modern people began, as shown by the genetic evidence. Critics of the theory have asked why it was that modern mankind began moving so purposefully about the planet at that time. The reason that I had to accept was that there was population growth following good times in eastern Africa and climatic change; a dry period in the northeast around the Horn, precipitated a nomadic thrust.

I have referred to Stephen Oppenheiner and his book Out of Eden (2003) and Christopher Springer & Robin McKie in African Exodus (1996) in previous discussion on this particular problem. But, the promotion of this behaviour may have been precipitated or facilitated by subtle mutation in their brains caused by cosmic radiation.

74,000 years ago the Toba volcanic explosion caused disaster to populations across the northern edge of the tropical belt of Eurasia and a hiatus to human development and movement.

At 60,000 years ago, I see a new surge beginning: migrants crossed the seas to Australia and explored far beyond the apparent previous limits of about 45ºN latitude in Eurasia. It is most probable that island-hopping and coastal migration began from northeast Siberia to the northwest coast of North America so that people reached Mexico, near Puebla, 40,000 years ago, as has been recently demonstrated.

There is considerable evidence of Homo sapiens in the Americas with, for example, Pedra Furada in Brazil and Orogrande in New Mexico revealing dates between 50-20,000 years ago. There were warm periods within the general glacial period from about 110,000 to 12,000 years ago when it may have been practical for people and other large mammals to migrate across the Canadian plains, but I am satisfied that it was not necessary for Alaska and Canada to be ice-free.

Coastal migration is the pattern that I believe has always been the most natural route for all pioneering movements since the emergence of the earliest Homo erectus. This is central to my hypothesis.

The last severe ice-age which ended about 12,000 years ago did not inhibit human migrations. No doubt populations were savagely decimated by the ‘Biblical’ flooding and other catastrophic effects, but wherever it was possible to find food, populations expanded and humanity spread to all parts of Earth. As the ice retreated, people followed, living successfully at the very edge of summertime limits.

Neolithic Homo sapiens was confident in its mastery of the planet. I am examining the last 100,000 years, specifically the last 80,000 during the significant rise of cosmic radiation illustrated by Aden Meinel, but the importance of this concept has to be taken backwards into far reaches of time. I am confident in speculating that the major jumps in evolution which have resulted in modern mankind, apparently inexplicable by conventional science, may have been the result of similar cosmic ray bombardments.

Significant increases in cosmic radiation over a fairly prolonged period of tens or hundreds of thousands of years will not have been the sole cause of evolutionary jumps. That could be absurd.

But the combination of climate change forcing great environmental alterations, which in turn forced migration and changes in diet and nutrition, especially prolonged seashore living and seafood eating, and combined 173 with periodic mutations in soft tissue caused by cosmic ray bombardment, all coincidentally acting with feedback through natural selection on a vulnerable hominid with vertical stance, may have been the magical combination of ingredients we have been seeking.

Meinel’s paper then proceeded to examine mutation. He wrote:

During our JPL [Jet Propulsion Laboratory] days we encountered this issue concerning whether astronauts could sustain genetic damage from cosmic rays during long space missions. Astronauts had reported seeing bright streaks of light whether their eyes were open or closed. This was concluded to be caused by cosmic rays. ...

 

... these various reports were limited to opinions from medical experts. But there was insufficient medical data to hazard more than a best guess how cosmic rays might cause DNA fragments within the ova or sperm. They also needed to know how these fragments could recombine to create new genes, whether these changed genes are inheritable, remain silent, or are lethal.

When considering mutations caused by cosmic radiation, this principle must be always before one’s eyes.

Genes may be changed by radiation, and the greatest concern is that they then develop into cancers. Research on male airline pilots in Canada and the United Kingdom and on female staff in Scandinavia show increased rates of prostate and breast cancer among them.

But, those malevolent changes are within a living entity and do not survive their death. For mutations to succeed in changing the genes of a population, they have to occur in reproductive cells before conception, and the resulting offspring must survive to reproduce itself, and so on.

It is evident that many authorities disregard the probability of major genetic change through the action of cosmic radiation simply because the possibility of many similar mutations in sperms and ova in large populations seems remote with normal levels of radiation.

However, we are considering in this chapter recent evidence of extraordinary levels of radiation, particularly those strange peaks at times coincident to worldwide change in human behaviour. These high levels of radiation were also coincident to the extinction of the Neanderthals.

Aden Meinel goes on :

If there were genetic changes induced by that surge of cosmic rays [at 40,000 years ago] they should have become evident relatively soon after the 40 Ky event. Thus we noted with interest the frequent appearance of 40 Ky BP in connection with the new species, as reported in recent issues of Science and Nature.

He then proceeds to speculate on possible scenarios resulting from probable mutation. He suggests:

... The transformation would be imperceptively slow, yet accomplish physiological and mental changes to yield the capabilities of modern humans. It could have been so gradual that it neither induced social stress nor heightened the normal level of inter-group hostility. Life simply went on as though nothing was happening.

Here, for the first time, I was reading material from an academic scientist with much experience in astronomical disciplines which linked proven bursts of exceptional cosmic radiation to possible evolutionary mutation.
 

It is interesting that in his paper Prof Meinel proposed that the source of cosmic radiation he was investigating came from the Cat’s Eye nebula.

As I understand it, he was not dismissing Cygnus X-3, but was suggesting an alternative or additional source. It is notable that the Cat’s Eye nebula lies in the Draco constellation and is close to Cygnus X-3.

Dr. Paul LaViolette and his theses

Stimulated by Andrew Collins’ material and casting about on the Internet, I found Dr. LaViolette’s website and discovered that he has been researching cosmic radiation for many years. He is Director of an independent research institute in the U.S.

LaViolette is the author of an alternative theory of the origin of galactic energy sources and therefore his research may be viewed with skepticism by many scientists, but it is his work on cosmic radiation effects on Earth with which I am concerned here. His thesis is that massive blasts of gamma radiation originate from the region of the centre of the galaxy caused by the continual production of energy at that location.

He asserts that this is true of all galaxies and so-called nebulae. The physics argument for this is beyond the scope of this chapter. As part of this phenomenon, these gamma ray bursts are preceded by a gravity wave which propels gas and dust particles outwards from the galaxy centre.

The local effect of these events are that, firstly, gas and dust particles are blown into our solar system and a principal result is that the sun’s surface is activated causing unusual solar flares and increased activity which can extend as far as the orbit of Earth. Gas and dust intrusions interfere with the magnetic fields of the planets and the solar system as a whole.

Interference with the sun increases its radiance and its solar flares can ‘scorch’ nearby bodies.

The spectrum of the sun’s radiation is shifted towards both infra-red and ultra-violet during different phases of activity and both have major effects on our climate and the health and survival of animals. Visible light may be ‘dimmed’ by these spectrum shifts. The phenomenon of extreme solar flares is generally accepted and is not particular to LaViolette’s thesis.

The arrival of a massive burst of gamma and other cosmic radiation has less obvious results. Normally, gamma radiation is mostly absorbed by our atmosphere. However, when LaViolette’s postulated bursts arrive, they are hugely in excess of any ‘normal’ background radiation and when coincident with other anomalies resulting from the gravity wave and dust intrusions overwhelm Earth’s defenses. The searing effect of gamma radiation itself may be life-threatening and cause mutations and extinctions.

LaViolette is certain that a particular ‘starburst’ event with a gravity superwave and intense gamma radiation occurred, maybe several times, at the end of the last ice-age.

Relating such an event to our present time, LaViolette predicts the complete shutdown of electronic devices, damage to power systems and widespread disruption and chaos to our civilization.

In the abstract to his paper, Evidence for a Global Warming at the Termination I Boundary and Its Possible Cosmic Dust Cause, he wrote:

A comparison of northern and southern hemispheric paleotemperature profiles suggests that the Bölling-Alleröd Interstadial, Younger Dryas stadial, and subsequent Preboreal warming which occurred at the end of the last ice-age were characterized by temperatures that changed synchronously in various parts of the world, implying that these climatic 175 oscillations were produced by significant changes in the Earth’s energy balance.

 

These globally coordinated oscillations are not easily explained by ocean current mechanisms such as bistable flipping of ocean deep-water production or regional temperature changes involving the NW/SE migration of the North Atlantic polar front.

 

They also are not accounted for by Earth orbital changes in seasonality or by increases in atmospheric CO² or CH.

 

On the other hand, evidence of an elevated cosmic ray flux and of a major interstellar dust incursion around 15,800 years B.P. suggest that a cosmic ray wind driven incursion of interstellar dust and gas may have played a key role through its activation of the Sun and alteration of light transmission through the interplanetary medium.

This is a long and comprehensive paper and, together with much other material, it is available on the Starburst Foundation website. Amongst the conclusions, he wrote:

... the Sun was unusually active during the global warming period at the end of the last ice-age from about 16,000 to 11,000 years BP. It is likely that the Sun was also particularly active at earlier times, particularly during interstadial periods (e.g., 36 - 31 kyrs BP) and during the termination of the previous ice-age (136 - 128 kyrs BP).

 

However since data is lacking on the degree of solar activity during these periods, the data has been adjusted only for the period ending the last ice-age. ...

There is great detail in this paper which is an extended scientific description of the mechanism of the last ice-age.

Several tables showing ice-core readings and cosmic radiation calculations correlating to known glacial and interglacial periods are included. The list of references seems equally exhaustive.

He wrote at the end :

Ice Core Chronology and the Assumption of Synchronous Climatic Change

The [above] ice core chronologies are derived by correlating climatic boundaries seen in the Byrd and Vostok ice core oxygen isotope profiles with those seen in the well-dated GRIP ice core from Summit, Greenland (Johnsen, et al., 1992).

 

In correlating the ice core isotope profiles, we have assumed that major changes in climate occur contemporaneously in both the northern and southern hemispheres and hence that distinct climatic change boundaries evident in the GRIP ice core may be matched up with similar boundaries in the Byrd Station and Vostok ice cores.

 

The assumption that the Earth’s climate warmed and cooled in a globally synchronous manner at the end of the last ice-age is supported by evidence from dated land, sea, and ice climate profiles which show that the Bölling/Alleröd/Younger Dryas oscillation occurred synchronously in both northern and southern latitudes. This evidence has been reviewed above ... .

 

The chronology adopted here for the Byrd core is consistent with that of Beer et al. (1992) which was obtained by correlating distinctive 10Be concentration peaks found in both the Byrd Station, Antarctica and Camp Century, Greenland isotope records, some peaks dating as early as 12 – 20 kyrs BP.

 

The Camp Century isotope profile, in turn, has been accurately dated through correlation with the annual layer dated Summit, Greenland isotope profile.

Dr Paul LaViolette’s book, Earth Under Fire (1997, revised 2005) is useful reading for those who wish to explore greater details of the accumulating information from many disciplines and their research resources on the effect of cosmic radiation, gravity shock-waves and intergalactic dust and gas clouds. His scholarship and synthesis is impressive. [Also see Appendix 1 for detail of cold and warm periods.]

The fact that LaViolette savours relating real cosmic events to flood and disaster myths and legends from around the Earth, which have long excited scholars of ancient literature, should not put off those with an interest solely in the science. The connection between the science and the universal legends and the birth of astrology is an objective in his book. The veracity of legend is being shown by starting with the scientific evidence, rather than speculating on events from the base of legend, as often in the past through lack of evidence.

An article in Science in August 2006 by Govert Schilling, Do Gamma Ray Bursts Always Line Up with Galaxies?, spotlights continuing problems with conclusions from astronomical observation of cosmic radiation. It would seem that the dust-penetrating capability of radiation from massive Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) in distant galaxies is different from that emanating from quasars.

Schilling reports on a paper by Gabriel Prochter of the University of California, Santa Cruz, and wrote:

Dust absorption in the foreground galaxies might be different for quasars and GRBs, in ways that obscure more quasars. Large-scale gravitational lensing by the intervening galaxies might boost the brightness of GRBs and so make them easier to detect.

There is apparently an insufficient number of GRBs coming from distant galaxies available for study, and explanations for anomalies are wanting. LaViolette’s hypotheses may have greater attention when more is known.
 

***

Whereas I seemed to have been unable to access the information I desired about cosmic radiation and extraneous interference with the workings of the solar system and our planet for many years, I now seemed to have an excess.

It seems clear to me that the general and often obscure insights I was pondering fifteen years ago and more, and proposed when this book was first put on the Internet in 1999, have increasingly valid support.

The evolution of life, and mankind in particular, on Earth is an amazingly complex process. What seemed a simple theorem when first described so comprehensively by Charles Darwin is now demonstrated to be enormously complicated with any number of different factors, mostly outside the control, and maybe even the understanding, of the most enlightened scientific intellects possessed by Homo sapiens sapiens.

Our skeletal structure did not change between 100,000 and 10,000 years ago and our skulls are the same. It is what goes on inside those skulls which is different.

Palaeontology and anatomical studies of skulls cannot provide proof of a mutation within our soft tissues. It is the evidence of abrupt efflorescence of culture and behavioral change, exemplified in the worldwide explosion of rockart from 35,000 years ago, which is the potent signpost. Another extraordinary efflorescence occurred at about 10,000 years ago with the rapid development of agriculture and urban society in the Middle East.

Andrew Collins in exploratory conversations asked me why I had concluded that cosmic radiation, from whatever source, had contributed to the development of the African Late Stone Age at about 35,000 years ago. I replied along these lines:

“Knowing perfectly well that it is an obvious circular argument, I could not stop thinking that there had to be something beyond climatic or other factors which could trigger such a tremendous change in culture all over the world inhabited by people at that time.

 

We are what we are. And the demise of the Neanderthals by Cro-Magnon impact also seemed too easy and slipshod as an explanation. There had to be some extra-terrestrial event, but I could not think of what it would be. It had worried at me for years.

“And then I had come across that brief article by Adrian Berry in 1991, purely by chance. How many pages of daily newspapers do you skim through without picking up a small column? Berry’s story had been a revelation.

 

“A burst of cosmic radiation at the right period, which had seemed to eminent scientists specializing in the relevant disciplines to be sufficiently powerful to blow away the ozone layer and cause extinctions and mutations, was so strikingly obvious. And if it happened in 35,000BP, what about the other milestones in behavioural evolution? What about the first hominids, what about the first discovery of stone tool-making from chunks of rock and the taming of fire; amazing developments which require forethought and imagination?

 

The first migrations of early Homo erectus, the second major out-of-Africa migration of later Homo erectus associated with mitochondrial Eve, the first tentative steps to art and decoration and the coincidental out-of-Africa migration of homo sapiens? The development of cities? What about those other milestones?

 

“Climate and environment, and most especially seafood nutrition for long periods, were always dominating driving forces in our evolution performing relatively gradual mutation of our genes, working with natural selection. But surely it is bursts of cosmic radiation with strongly induced mutation which were the triggering mechanisms.

“It’s the combination of forces, coming together at crucial times.”

Prof. Michael Crawford in a personal communication in August 2006 reiterated the importance of environment when considering the effect of mutation by radiation.

If we have a radiation shock at some time point, then good if it has survival value. To survive it has to be compatible with the environment and nutrition.

I made the point in What we Eat Today [1972] that there would be a massive survival advantage to an antelope or buffalo if it could see in the night and so see the big cats hunting them down and escape. However, it never happened. Why?

Well, the answer in my book is that their food chain and growth velocity deprived them of the brain and vision specific nutrients that would have made that eye possible. So even if the gene map changed by random mutation or some other mutational force to give the codes for night vision they would be unable to do it because they would not have had the building materials for such an apparatus.

It follows that seashore-living early hominids, and later homo erectus and homo sapiens, had the necessary nutritional regime with epigenetic activity at work to be affected by mutation from a cosmic radiation burst.

Chimps and the other great apes did not have that nutritional advantage, and they were living in tropical forests where they were in any case shielded from less penetrative radiation such as ultra-violet or weak gamma rays.
 

***

Andrew Collins drew my attention to an article in the New York Times of 24 March 2004.

Elsewhere, in discussing the transition from Australopithecus to Homo erectus, I have quoted from this article which draws together themes on which I have been speculating for many years in the earlier versions of this book.

The synthesis of information on mutations caused by various bursts of cosmic radiation, in their different forms, the transition of species and the extinction of some while others burgeoned, the physical environment and finally the coincidentally critical effect of seafood diet is occurring quite rapidly now.

I quote the whole of the article from the New York Times here, which is somehow fitting since my association of cosmic radiation with evolution began with Adrian Berry’s article in the London Daily Telegraph fifteen years ago, quoted at the beginning of this chapter.

Mutation Cited in Evolution
By JOHN NOBLE WILFORD
March 24, 2004

At a pivotal time in human evolution, around 2.4 million years ago, a muscle gene underwent a disabling alteration. And scientists say this could have made all the difference, leading to the enlarged brains of the lineage that evolved into modern humans.

Researchers who made the discovery said this might be the first recognized functional genetic difference between humans and the apes that can be correlated with anatomical changes in the fossil record. As they said, the gene mutation may represent the beginning of the ancestral triumph of brain over brawn. At the least, scientists said, the small mutated gene probably accounts for the more graceful human jaw, in contrast to the protruding ape jaw and facial ridges.

The discovery was made by scientists at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and will be published Thursday in the journal Nature. They also described the findings in interviews last week.

“We’re not suggesting that that mutation alone buys you Homo sapiens,” said Dr. Hansell H. Stedman, leader of the research team. “But it lifted a constraint that leads to brain growth.”

Evolutionary scientists and paleoanthropologists not involved in the project said the interpretation of the findings was intriguing and provocative.

 

A “seductive hypothesis,” one of them said, while others cautioned that the explanation probably oversimplified the causes behind the significant brain expansion that marked the emergence of the Homo lineage out of the more apelike Australopithecus species.

Even so, the findings were expected to encourage other scientists to investigate a whole range of other genes that have decisive roles in making us distinctively human. This could enable molecular biologists to establish the chronology of important steps in human evolution with greater precision.

 

The Penn scientists were searching for remaining genes that govern myosin, a protein that makes up muscle tissue, when they came across a piece of the human genome sequence that had been overlooked. The gene, MYH16, had apparently gone unrecognized because of a small mutation that had rendered it inactive for producing some jaw muscles for chewing and biting.
 

The scientists found that this myosin gene is still intact in other primates today, such as chimpanzees and macaques. They have correspondingly strong jaw muscles. An analysis of DNA samples showed the gene-inactivating mutation to be present in all modern humans worldwide. The analysis further traced the mutation’s occurrence to between 2.1 million and 2.7 million years ago, probably 2.4 million.

That happened to be just prior to the appearance of major evolutionary changes in hominid fossils, the research team noted in the journal article. Some hominids with protruding jaws and small brain were soon to evolve into the first species of the genus Homo, with significantly smaller jaws, larger brains and a modern human body size.

 

After two million years, Homo erectus was able to strike out for lands far beyond Africa.

“The mutation very possibly initiated an evolutionary cascade,” said Dr. Nancy Minugh-Purvis, a paleoanthropologist involved in the project. Dr. Stedman’s group concluded that the findings “raise the intriguing possibility that the decrement in masticatory muscle size removed an evolutionary constraint on encephalization.”

In short, as the strong, stoutly buttressed jaw muscles declined, this allowed the skull to develop a new shape and structure, giving the brain room to grow.

In an accompanying critique, Dr. Pete Currie, a developmental biologist in Sydney, Australia, who called the hypothesis seductive, wrote that the Penn researchers presented “convincing arguments as to how the mutation could have been responsible” for the acquisition of more humanlike traits by ancestral hominids.

“I’m amazed at what they came up with,” said Dr. John Fleagle, a palaeanthropologist at the State University of New York, Stony Brook. “But I’d be surprised if the interpretation is that simple.”

Dr. Alan Walker, an anatomist who specializes in human evolution at Pennsylvania State University, said,

“The mutation is a very interesting finding, but what it means is a different matter.”

Dr. Walker and others questioned the idea that jaw muscles of the more apelike hominids were a major factor in constraining brain size. “An extremely unlikely proposition,” he said.

Dr. Stedman said the cause of the mutation was unknown and probably unknowable: damage from cosmic rays perhaps, ingested toxins or other environmental exposures. Other contemporary hominid species could have been exposed to the same conditions, but for some reason, escaped with their myosin gene unaltered and their jaws as formidable as ever.

 

These robust but smallbrain species continued to live in Africa until their line became extinct about one million years ago.

Dr. Minugh-Purvis said it was unclear how the mutation could have become fixed in the species, considering its potentially deleterious effects on survival. Perhaps other agents of change were already at work, like the transition to a richer protein diet of meat. The heavier jaws were required for grinding the mainstays, nuts and plants, in their diets.

Dr. Ken Weiss, a geneticist at Penn State, said the new research is one of a number of recent investigations into the roles of single genes in significant changes in human evolution. He agreed that the mutation could have led to some differences in the muscle structure of hominids, but other changes were already in progress that contributed to the traits that set the genus Homo apart from its predecessors.

Although he doubted the myosin gene will be a Rosetta stone of evolution, Dr. Philip Rightmire, a palaeanthropologist at the State University of New York, 180 Binghamton, said it was intriguing that the timing of the mutation “is just bang on the mark for the emergence of genus Homo.”

Scraps of fossils in East Africa suggest that the first Homo species evolved about 2.3 million years ago. The evidence for them becomes more prevalent a few hundred thousand years later.

Dr. Ian Tattersall, a palaeanthropologist at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City, said the gene mutation “could certainly be a link in a larger chain of cause and effect, but probably not the whole story.”

What was needed to understand more of the story was to study the effects of seafood nutrition, and the difference of exposure to cosmic rays between living along seashores and within the rainforest.