The neutral theory has been used as a null model for interpreting nature and produced the Recent Out of Africa model of anatomically modern humans. Recent studies, however, have established that genetic diversities are mostly at maximum saturation levels maintained by selection, therefore challenging the explanatory power of the neutral theory and rendering the present molecular model of human origins untenable. Using improved methods and public data, we have revisited human evolution and found sharing of genetic variations among racial groups to be largely a result of parallel mutations rather than recent common ancestry and admixture as commonly assumed. We derived an age of 1.86-1.92 million years for the first split in modern human populations based on autosomal diversity data. We found evidence of modern Y and mtDNA originating in East Asia and dispersing via hybridization with archaic humans. Analyses of autosomes, Y and mtDNA all suggest that Denisovan and Neanderthal were archaic Africans with Eurasian admixtures and ancestors of South Asia Negritos and Aboriginal Australians. Verifying our model, we found more ancestry of Southern Chinese from Hunan in Africans relative to other East Asian groups examined. These results suggest multiregional evolution of autosomes and replacements of archaic Y and mtDNA by modern ones originating in East Asia, thereby leading to a coherent account of modern human origins.*   AMH    :   anatomically modern humans    MGD    :   maximum genetic diversity    SNP    :   single nucleotide polymorphisms    AUA    :   Aboriginal Australian    PGD    :   pairwise genetic distance    PCA    :   principal component analysis    Myr    :   million years    AFR    :   African    ASN    :   East Asian    EUR    :   European    SAS    :   South Asian    ESN    :   Esen in Nigeria    GBR    :   British in England and Scotland    CHS    :   Southern Han Chinese    CHB    :   Han Chinese in Beijing    JPT    :   Japanese in Tokyo    BEB    :   Bengali from Bangladesh    YRI    :   Yoruba in Ibadan, Nigeria    CEU    :   Utah Residents with Northern and Western European Ancestry    LWK    :   Luhya in Webuye, Kenya

Modern human origins: multiregional evolution of autosomes and East Asia origin of Y and mtDNA