This study presents important data which are fundamentally contradictory to Recent Out of Africa (ROA) -- in its various incarnations -- and in support of more radical multi-regional modeling.

The authors, perhaps not specializing in human evolutionary theorization, have only hinted at this in their discussion. I will lay out the case as briefly as possible.

Regarding the traditional ROA "total replacement" model, as the authors suggest, their data support interspecies breeding instead. (It should be noted that there is still a significant hardline ROA faction trying to save total replacement.)

Regarding the basic Recent Out of Africa assertion of Homo sapiens evolution in Africa after 200,000 years before present, and dispersion not before 85,000 ybp, the lice data make this scenario unlikely to be possible (especially with proposed human population bottlenecks after 100,000 ybp).

The intra-clade divergence date for Clade A is 110,000 to 540,000 years before present. The median of 325,000 ybp is far older than ROA assertions for their African "mtDNA Eve".

The authors' dating of the appearance of clothing lice to around 83,000 ybp, from already distinct populations "throughout the world" as they themselves say, reinforces both older Clade A dating, and puts its early Homo sapiens host populations in Eurasia -- as clothing means colder Eurasian climes (confer Khoi-San and Australian Aboriginal cultures). This absolutely rules out both the later version of standard ROA migration timing (at 50,000 ybp), as well as making the earlier version of standard ROA migration (at 85,000, to tropical S.E. Asia) essentially impossible.

Secondarily, as there is almost no fossil evidence for proto-Homo sapiens development in Africa from 1 million - 200,000 ybp, and much in Europe during this period, this older timing opens the possibility that the 325,000 ybp Homo sapiens who carried the Clade A lice were dispersing from Europe, not Africa. (The mtDNA phylogeny central to Recent Out of Africa has always been inconclusive, as a more robust African mtDNA type could easily have spread through Eurasia by gene diffusion without much migration.)

Regarding the "revisionist ROA" of the last few years which does allow human interspecies breeding, it is difficult to critique this solidly as the new doctrine is still being argued over factionally and rolled out. But what can be seen clearly is that it is an attempt at "containment" of multiregionalism, and of course not an open embrace of it. What is being allowed is "tiny amounts" of interbreeding, with species "almost like us".

The most definable proof of this is the Denisova specimen, which has a tooth morphology identical to that of 2-4 million year old Australopithecines, but which is being fraudulently presented as a "close cousin of the Neanderthals". The Neanderthals are also described as "evolving in Africa 300,000 years ago", when there is zero evidence for their African rather than European development. We can guess that this is leading to a reformulated "Almost Recent Out of Africa", with Homo sapiens evolving there about 300,000 years ago, and interbreeding restricted to only closely-related subspecies (e.g. Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, Homo sapiens denisovensis) which "left Africa a bit early".

I have had to go on that digression about the nascent "revisionist ROA" in order to set up how important the lice data is in directly contradicting it.

The divergence date of Clade A from Clade B is 770,000 to 1.2 million ybp. This is interbreeding with Homo erectus.

The divergence date of Clade A/B from Clade C is 2 million ybp. This is interbreeding with Australopithecines. These are "non-humans" (not part of the Homo genus), let alone close cousins of cuddly new-look Neanderthals.