关键词: 古人类学;考古学;遗传学;现代人起源;学科交叉

Abstract: Modern human origins and evolution is a hot research topic about in full swing with no signs of slowing down. It has attracted researchers from several fields, especially genetics, paleoanthropology, and archaeology. As a result, several hypotheses have been proposed, including Multi-regional Evolution, Continuity with Hybridization, Out-of-Africa, Partial Replacement or Assimilation, etc. Some hypotheses are in fierce debate, describing totally different scenarios for modern human origins and dispersal. The main reason for such a development might be that such research is still in its premature stage, like blind men feeling an elephant and drawing conclusions on the basis of partial understanding of the whole body, no comprehensive and widely accepted ultimate result has been produced. We hould also realize that there are some problems or obstacles hindering current research, reventing researchers from reaching consensus, such as the lack of communication, understanding and collaboration among relevant research fields, especially those three major disciplines. Due to the differences in research materials, evidence, methods and focus, each field has its unique strengths that cannot be replaced by other fields and certain weakness that cannot be easily overcome by itself, and not a single discipline can work on its own to solve all problems, especially on key academic issue such as modern human origins. Therefore, strengthening communication and interaction between traditional paleoanthropological fields and the burgeoning molecular biological fields, understanding each field’s speciality and demands, carrying out multi-disciplinary and integrative research, should be the right direction and strategy in the research on human origins and evolution in the future.

Key words: Paleoanthropology; Archaeology; Genetics; Human origins; Multi-disciplinary research