This was in the news today:
Almost all living people outside Africa trace back single migration over 50,000 years ago
I thought you’d be interested in that, granny
Seems that science is finding more evidence for the Eden in Africa hypothesis. A single origin and major outward migration.
As for original populations, I find some variation on a theological monogenesis hypothesis (best article I’ve seen covering several possibilities
here) most convincing. That’s probably a topic better for a different thread.
Original Sin is the most essential truth here, though it could possibly be more corporate in nature (as the OT dwells quite a bit on corporate sin–the whole group bearing guilt and responsibility, not just individual guilt, and even though some individuals may not be very culpable).
As for the scientific observational data, correlated with Biblical and philosophical data and suggestions, it seems to me that God “formed” man out of the “dust/clay of the earth” through micro-evolutionary processes, evident in the hominin and hominid prior forms, and then breathed a rational soul in the image and likeness of God into a singular Adam selected from this process. This happened somewhere in (central?) Africa (“the Garden of Eden”) some time between 50kya and 70kya. From Adam and Eve, after the Fall, spread the human population through (as the above article suggests) possible allowed interbreeding with other biologically-similar populations, which may also explain “children of men” references, the possibly-implied populations of people beyond Adam and Eve’s own children who interbred (including those of Cain, as he went among other populations). Following the descendants of Adam would come the rational soul – the “theological” or “intellectual” monogenesis suggested above.
Thus, “Out of Africa” (or “Out of Eden,” if you like) spread of modern humans, which completely eventually completely overtakes all prior “hominids” (explaining their disappearance, while also explaining genetic artifacts remaining in modern humans of races like the Neanderthals).
Adam, then, most likely lived 50-70kya. His descendants spread and “conquered the world,” reaching everywhere we find evidence of continuous human population to today, including aboriginal Australia (~50kya) and Papau New Guinea and such isolated places.
They bore with them the traits of Adam and Eve’s Fall, from their Original Sin, as they passed on only what they had, and could not transmit to future generations what they lacked (the state of Original Justice).
IMO, this seems to harmonize all the evidence, scientific, Biblical, logical, philosophical, Church teaching, etc. The convergence of evidence illustrating a clearer picture of what actually happened in history, in harmony with what we know by faith and revelation.
