Maju: &quot;This issue of partial abandonment of t...

Maju: "This issue of partial abandonment of the HBC elements is not only seen in Eurasia but also in Africa, even Hadzas seem to have abandoned some elements of HBC (following your reasoning) and certainly have Niger-Kongo peoples and others.

So maybe the process began already in East or NE Africa, becoming increased in the migration to Asia... maybe it is not (or not only) a catastrophic episode what accounts for it but a more gradual and irregular process of cultural "evolution"."

The questions you pose are important. And yes, we certainly see partial abandonment of the HBC norms in Africa. But in Africa the process seems closer to what we would expect from "a more gradual and irregular process of cultural "evolution"" because there are many continuities, and also relatively minor discontinuities, that we can use to reconstruct certain histories fairly easily. Whereas what we see along the Out of Africa migration route appears to me as very different, with a huge break in continuity.

For me, the biggest difference between us is that I am extremely fixated on worldwide distribution patterns and you seem willing to discount them and fall back on certain basic principles instead. To me these principles are based on assumptions, whereas the distribution patterns reflect (however indirectly) real evidence.