ABSTRACT
The aspect of the Neanderthal genome study that attracted most attention was the comparison of allele sharing between Neanderthals and modern humans from different geographical regions, showing an excess of sharing with all humans outside Africa. The debate on the possible admixture between ana-tomically modern humans and other hominins has been revolutionized by the recovery of reliable genetic information from ancient specimens. Morphological variation among present-day populations should also carry information about the origins of modern human anatomy: if this variation is predominantly neutral, the simple expectation is that it should be greatest close to the origin. Languages change rapidly, even within the span of a human lifetime, so it may seem surprising that linguistics can be informative about ancient human origins. Intermediate models are obviously possible, for example involving a recent origin of most human characteristics in Africa, but also interbreeding with archaic populations inside or outside Africa—a leaky replacement model.
