Chris Stringer, "Rethinking Out of Africa"

Over at the Edge:

I'm thinking a lot about species concepts as applied to humans, about the "Out of Africa" model, and also looking back into Africa itself. I think the idea that modern humans originated in Africa is still a sound concept. Behaviorally and physically, we began our story there, but I've come around to thinking that it wasn't a simple origin. Twenty years ago, I would have argued that our species evolved in one place, maybe in East Africa or South Africa. There was a period of time in just one place where a small population of humans became modern, physically and behaviourally. Isolated and perhaps stressed by climate change, this drove a rapid and punctuational origin for our species. Now I don’t think it was that simple, either within or outside of Africa.

There is a 44' video at the site (which I haven't viewed yet).

UPDATE: at 10:45, he suggests that Broken Hill is much younger than "many of us think". This seems exceptionally important, since BH (or Kabwe) is thought to be the African branch of H. heidelbergensis and a precursor to the later H. sapiens. Given the current extent of dates proposed for the specimen, it seems almost certain that "much younger" means post-Omo, and hence: (i) one possible precursor for H. sapiens disappears from Africa, and (ii) one additional post-H. sapiens archaic hominin is added.