Evolution of Homo Sapiens in Asia: An Alternative Implication of the "Out-Of-Africa" Model Based on Mitochondrial DNA Data (Report‪)‬

1. INTRODUCTION Evidence has accumulated that the Homo lineage originally appeared in Africa, followed by its successful global expansion. The view of "Out-of-Africa" that our direct ancestral H. sapiens evolved in the African continent and spread to other continents, has been popularly received among researchers [1-8]. On the other hand, there have been significant fossil records in non-African continents, supporting the "regional continuity" model [9]. This model claims that our direct ancestral H. sapiens evolved locally in the widespread regions of major con tinents, e.g. Africa, Europe and Asia [10-12]. In fact, morphological continuity in East Asian traits from East Asian Homo erectus during the middle-late Pleistocene transition can be seen in these fossil records [12-14]. However, most of these records have neither definitely refuted nor supported one of the models for or against the origin of H. sapiens, particularly in Asia. Furthermore, most genetic evidence, such as simulated dendrograms, genetic diversity and ancient DNA sequences can argue for either model of human origin [15].