Obviously there had to have been a point in which humans became behaviourally modern.

 

So if later homo (from homo erectus) ad advanced stone tools, growing linguistic capabilties, more human-esque social behaviour, and even basic abstract thought/feeling as such spirituality, then it stands to reason this must have culminated in modern behaviour.

 

The notion though that this was triggered by a mutation 50,000 years ago seems weird to me. isn't it just as possible that this emerged over many millennia, perhaps before our modern morphology fully emerged (say 100,000 years ago, as the Omo remains are essentially part modern, part archaic).

There's an on-going debate about that, and I tend to side against the sudden mutation school of thought, myself.

Not my field, but if you can say "the Omo remains are essentially part modern, part archaic" surely there isn't a specific "cutoff" for modernity so the question of when did it happen is meaningless.

Not my field, but if you can say "the Omo remains are essentially part modern, part archaic" surely there isn't a specific "cutoff" for modernity so the question of when did it happen is meaningless.

 

Why not?

 

The point in quotes is fact. However, this does not rule out a sudden mutation.

There's an on-going debate about that, and I tend to side against the sudden mutation school of thought, myself.

 

OK. I still believe it's fairly far-fetched.