Sir, The issues of human origins (letter, June 2) are still a matter of vigorous debate, even after 150 years of intensive research. In this context it is unfortunate that the BBC Two programme, The Incredible Human Journey, presented a strangely distorted view of the dispersal of our own species (Homo sapiens) from Africa to the rest of the world. We were told very confidently that Homo sapiens had spread eastwards from Africa to India before the time of the volcanic “super-eruption” at Mount Toba in Sumatra at least 78,000 years ago, and subsequently pressed on to reach Australia about 65,000 years ago.

There is almost no firm evidence to support these claims, and much evidence against them. The claim for Homo sapiens populations in India before 78,000 years ago remains highly controversial in several respects, relating to the character and the dating of the archaeological finds. A date of more than 78,000 years would be seriously at loggerheads with all of the most recent and most reliable DNA evidence for modern human dispersal from Africa, which points to a much later date of about 55,000 to 60,000 years for this dispersal. Dates for the colonisation of Australia earlier than 45,000 to 50,000 years ago would be rejected by the majority of Australian specialists. The programme also did not include a paper on precisely the same issues published in Science, which demonstrated archaeologically and genetically that the earliest modern human colonisation of India could be no earlier than 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.

All this amounted to seriously misleading the viewing public on the crucially important question of the origins and dispersal of our own species. The producer was made aware of these conflicts while the programme was in production, but chose to make no modification beyond the one-line disclaimer that “not everyone will agree with these conclusions”.

But the presenter, Dr Alice Roberts, assured us that “I’m personally quite convinced that there were modern humans in India before 78,000 years ago”, and this was the strong message passed on to viewers.

Of course, headline-grabbing claims of this kind make for good publicity in the commercially competitive environment of “scientific” television journalism. People who watched the programme should be aware that this represented only one small minority view of the actual patterns of dispersal of our own species from Africa to the rest of the world. I wonder how much of all this had the blessing of the two specialist “scientific advisers”, who I know hold different views from those expressed in the programme?

Professor Paul Mellars

Professor of Prehistory and Human Evolution, Department of Archaeology, University of Cambridge

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