John Hawks has pointed out that the great archaeologist Colin Renfrew has been making the case that our species has been in genomic stasis for 50,000 years. He contends:
The genetic composition of living humans at birth (the human genotype) is closely similar from individual to individual today. That was an underlying assumption of the Human Genome Project and it is being further researched in studies of human genetic diversity. We are all truly born much the same. Moreover a child born today, in the twenty-first century of the Common Era, would be very little different in its DNA -- i.e., in the genotype, and hence in innate capacities -- from one born 60,000 years ago.
I bring attention to this because I notice that Steve Waldman over at Beliefnet has a post up about Neandertals where he is transmitting Renfrew's assertions second-hand. Waldman is frank about his ignorance of ...
