Hypothesis Vol. 9, No.1 | September 2011 | hypothesisjournal.com 1 EDITORIAL Please cite this article as: Saab et al. The origin and future of modern humans. Hypothesis 2011, 9(1): e12. EARLIER THIS YEAR, we published an article describing an exciting hypothesis that explains how two important observations, that on the surface appear incompatible, come together to provide insight into the evolution of modern man. 1 Recent evidence demonstrates that modern humans share some genomic DNA with Neanderthals, 2 yet decade-old analyses clearly demonstrate that modern human and the ancient hominid share zero mitochondrial DNA. 3 To reconcile these apparently paradoxical discoveries, Australian anthropologist duo Paul H. Mason and Roger V. Short describe the type of mating patterns and offspring success rates that might have occurred between Neanderthal and premodern humans tens of thousands of years ago. Their article captured the attention of the popular science media and garnered the most views of any article in Volume 9. We consulted Tatjana Schmidt-Derstroff to gain an independent perspective on their theory. As a veteran archaeologist who spent 27 years living amongst the Australian aboriginals, Schmidt- Derstroff has collected some of the world’s inest photographs of ancient human cave engravings and petroglyphs and has deep insight into their modern and ancient way of life. “Forty years ago, many of the most important methods for investigating evolutionary data were not yet invented,” remarked Schmidt- Derstroff, “and many of the less pronounced discoveries went unnoticed.” Asked what her primary discoveries were, she replied that cataloging people and their ancient art was a discovery unto itself. “The irst step in exploring the culture of ancient men of the earth was to ind the evidence of ancient culture. Many, or perhaps even most, of the photographs I took were the irst of their kind.” In this way, Schmidt-Derstroff extended the known inventory of cave paintings and carvings. “The aboriginals were aware of the paintings, of course—they led me directly to them—but much of this ancient artwork had never before been seen by the devel- oped world.” Schmidt-Derstroff’s exclusive photographs were frequently published in popular German science magazines during the 1970’s, and select examples are shown in igures 1-3. These photographs are all the more important today, as access to much of The origin and future of modern humans Hypothesis Senior Board: Bechara J. Saab, Ashlee Jollymore, Iacovos P. Michael, Jennifer Moore, Fiona Robinson, Laura Southcott & Vanessa Tran ——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Correspondence: contact@hypothesisjournal.com Posted online: 2011/12/04 © 2011 Saab et al. This is an Open Access article distributed by Hypothesis under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Figure 1 | Modern aboriginals encountered by Schmidt-Derstroff in the Australian outback. (left) An example of a blond individual from the Andy Ngohgol tribe within Beagle Bay of Kimberley, Western Australia. (right) Modern aboriginals dancing by irelight.