Thank you, Graham, for your link to this fascinating new book The Forgotten Exodus: The Into Africa Theory of Human Evolution and for writing its foreword:
The Forgotten Exodus is a timely, thought-provoking and extremely useful little book by Bruce Fenton. And while it is not the only, or even the first, book to propose an “out-of-Australia” evolutionary origin for anatomically modern humans, it is by far the best. Indeed, it has the potential – although I cannot promise that this potential will be fulfilled – to rewrite history.
End of quote.
Fenton drives a truck through the almost universally accepted Out of Africa Theory of human evolution, and it’s not some utility truck; it’s one of those huge iron ore movers form the Pilbara, leaving us gaping at the hole. And it’s an appropriate metaphor as he paints a scientifically well-supported case for an out of Australia model or, as Fenton chooses to call it The Into Africa Theory of Human Evolution.
Fenton credits the foundation of his model to the stalwart father and son Aussie pair, Steven and Evan Strong, whose work I’ve been tracking for some years. However, Fenton brings a depth and breadth of research from across the globe to support his case that he lays out in an entertaining and easily followed narrative that seemingly races to its conclusions. It’s easy to read and hard to refute, though I’m sure many will try.
And he’s neither woolly worded nor careful of precious academic egos in his approach. He’ll make enemies with his book, but it’s clear he doesn’t care. More power to his arm.
And I love his quote from Tolstoy:
“I know that most men, including those at ease with problems of the greatest complexity, can seldom accept even the simplest and most obvious truth if it be such as would oblige them to admit the falsity of conclusions which they have delighted in explaining to colleagues, which they have proudly taught to others, and which they have woven, thread by thread, into the fabric of their lives.” – Leo Tolstoy
It’s a wonderfully elegant expression of something I’ve sought to express many times when I say that people take their beliefs to be themselves, unless they have a sense of themselves beyond those beliefs, which, sadly, few yet do.
I commend Fenton’s book to you, along with his “Earth moving” new model of human evolution.
Richard
Check out the extraordinary new, life-changing technology at www.magravsplasmaproducts.com
Recent Comments