I can only go on what you are telling me. I ask you repeatedly if you agree with the scientific consensus, and you steadfastly avoid saying “Yes”. You also say that previous statements you made which agree with the scientific consensus, are wrong. If you agree with the scientific consensus, it’s really easy to say so; just say “*I agree with the scientific consensus”. Right now you just look incredibly evasive.
You mean not based on your reading of the paragraph you quoted.
If we are looking at a lineage evolving temporally we are always going to have to draw an arbitrary line between human and not human. There is no real hard line between language and no language. For all we know, Australopithecines had some form of rudimentary language and tool making along with elevated cognitive skills.
I think the best we can do is determine what the evidence can tell us about the lineage leading to us. From what I have seen, the genetic data can support the idea of humans evolving from a population over the last 500k years or so. Beyond that, I don’t know if we have the tools or data to inform us of what those populations looked like.
if you want to draw a line based on what our knowledge is right now, humanity begins with Homo Erectus a million years ago. Homo Erectus was the most cognitively advanced Hominid the world had ever seen spanning Africa and EurAsia for hundreds of thousands of years. All species (as many as 10 human species) of Hominids after Homo Erectus were ever more cognitively advanced. Either way - 1 million years or 500,000 years ago humanity was several different species of ever advancing humans.
Which is precisely the position that Venema is not taking.