Evolution And History

208 CHAPTER 9 | The Global Expansion of Homo sapiens and Their Technology

Anthropologists of Note

Berhane Asfaw (b. 1953) ■ Xinzhi Wu (b. 1930)

Born in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, in 1953,

Berhane Asfaw is a world-renowned pa-

leoanthropologist leading major expedi-

tions in Ethiopia. He is co-leader of the

international Middle Awash Research

Project, the research team responsible

for the discovery of spectacular ancestral

fossils dating from the entire 6-million-

year course of human evolutionary his-

tory, including Ardipithecus ramidus,

Australopithecus afarensis, Australopith-

ecus garhi, Homo erectus, and, most

recently, the Homo sapiens idaltu fossils

from Herto, Ethiopia.

At the June 2003 press conference,

organized by Teshome Toga, Ethiopia’s

minister of culture, Asfaw described the

Herto specimens as the oldest “anatomi-

cally modern” humans, likening Ethiopia

to the “Garden of Eden.” This confer-

ence marked a shift in the Ethiopian

government’s stance toward the paleoan-

thropological research spanning Asfaw’s

career. Previous discoveries in the

Middle Awash were also very important,

but the government did not participate

or support this research.

Asfaw entered the discipline of

paleoanthropology through a program

administered by the Leakey Founda-

tion providing fellowships for Africans

to pursue graduate studies in Europe

and the United States. Since this pro-

gram’s inception in the late 1970s, the

Leakey Foundation has awarded sixty-

eight fellowships totaling $1.2 million

to Kenyans, Ethiopians, and Tanzani-

ans to pursue graduate education in

paleoanthropology.

Asfaw, mentored by American pa-

leoanthropologist Desmond Clark at

the University of California, Berkeley,

was among the earliest fellows in this

program. They first met in 1979 when

Asfaw was a senior studying geology in

Addis Ababa. Asfaw obtained his doctor-

ate in 1988 and returned to Ethiopia,

where he had few Ethiopian anthropo-

logical colleagues, and the government

had halted fossil exploration. Since that

time, Asfaw has recruited and mentored

many Ethiopian scholars, including

Sileshi Semaw (see Chapter 8), and now

has about a dozen on his team. Local

scientists can protect the antiquities,

keep fossils from disappearing, and

mobilize government support. Asfaw’s

leadership in paleoanthropology has

played a key role in helping the govern-

ment recognize how important prehistory

is for Ethiopia.

Xinzhi Wu is one of China’s foremost

paleoanthropological scholars, contribut-

ing to the development of the discipline

for the past fifty years. As with many

other paleoanthropologists, the study of

human anatomy has been of vital impor-

tance to him.

He began his academic career with a

degree from Shanghai Medical College

followed by teaching in the Depart-

ment of Human Anatomy at the Medi-

cal College in Dalian before beginning

graduate studies in paleoanthropology.

He is presently a professor at the Chi-

nese Academy of Sciences Institute of

Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoan-

thropology in Beijing and the honorary

president of the Chinese Society of

Anatomical Sciences.

In addition to managing excavations

in China and other parts of Asia, Wu

has played a major role in the develop-

ment of theories about modern human

origins in cooperation with scholars

internationally. He collaborated with

Milford Wolpoff of the United States

and Alan Thorne of Australia in the

development of the theory of multire-

gional continuity for modern human

origins. This theory fits well with the

Asian fossil evidence proposing an

important place for Homo erectus in

modern human origins. Interestingly,

it builds upon the model for human

origins developed by Franz Weidenreich

(see Chapter 8).

According to Wu, early humans from

China are as old if not older than hu-

mans anyplace else. He suggests that

the reason more fossils have been found

in Africa recently is that Africa has been

the site for more excavations.

Zhoukoudian remains a site of partic-

ular importance for Wu, as it documents

continuous habitation of early humans

and one of the earliest sites with evi-

dence of controlled use of fire. Wu has

predicted that more important discover-

ies will still be made at Zhoukoudian

as a third of this site has still not been

fully excavated. The Chinese government

has responded to Wu’s suggestions and

is presently constructing a 2.4-square-

kilometer “Peking Man” exhibition and

paleoanthropology research area at

Zhoukoudian.

Wu has welcomed many international

scholars to China to study the Asian evi-

dence. He also has led efforts to make

descriptions of fossil material available

in English. Collaborating with anthro-

pologist Frank Poirier, he published the

comprehensive volume Human Evolution

in China, describing the fossil evidence

and archaeological sites with great ac-

© 1988 David L. Brill curacy and detail.

paleoanthropologists, for example, favor the multi regional
hypothesis because it fits well with the fossil discoveries
from Asia and Australia. By contrast, the recent African
origins hypothesis depends more upon the interpretation

of fossils and cultural remains from Europe, Africa, and

Southwest Asia. Three kinds of evidence are used to both

support and critique each hypothesis for modern human

origins: genetic, anatomical, and cultural.