ABSTRACT
The most recent of the major mistakes made by palaeoanthropology and Pleistocene archaeology concerns the proposition that ‘modern humans’ are the result of a speciation event in Sub-Saharan Africa. The replacement hypothesis asserts that this new species of ‘superior’ humans eliminated all other hominins of the Old World, be it by genocide, disease or by outcompeting them. It is shown to be an origins myth without any empirical foundation, either genetic, archaeological or anthropological. Earlier human subspecies are demonstrated to have been far more advanced culturally and technologically than the African Eve advocates believe. The creation and use of art-like productions hundreds of thousands of years ago and the incidents of maritime colonisation up to a million years ago define the capabilities of the ancients long before ‘modern’ people appeared. Robusticity in early humans refers to the condition of their skeletal remains and is unrelated to cognition, intelligence or cultural potential. Female humans were always more gracile (slender) than males, and the physical difference between robust and gracile humans is attributable to the latter’s neoteny.
