Are Neanderthals Connected With Humans?

[Gold Barz]

Or they are not related?

 

[Ouabache]

You may want to ask this over in Anthopology
---> https://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=85

In the meantime you might enjoy checking out this ref: ----> http://www.thedarwinpapers.com/oldsite/number10/Darwin10.htm

 

[spicerack]

Redheads 'are neanderthal'

Culture/Society News
Source: Times UK

BY A CORRESPONDENT

RED hair may be the genetic legacy of Neanderthals, scientists believe.

Researchers at the John Radcliffe Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford say that the so-called �ginger gene� which gives people red hair, fair skin and freckles could be up to 100,000 years old.

They claim that their discovery points to the gene having originated in Neanderthal man who lived in Europe for 200,000 years before Homo sapien settlers, the ancestors of modern man, arrived from Africa about 40,000 years ago.

Rosalind Harding, the research team leader, said: �The gene is certainly older than 50,000 years and it could be as old as 100,000 years.

�An explanation is that it comes from Neanderthals.� It is estimated that at least 10 per cent of Scots have red hair and a further 40 per cent carry the gene responsible, which could account for their once fearsome reputation as fighters.

Neanderthals have been characterised as migrant hunters and violent cannibals who probably ate most of their meat raw. They were taller and stockier than Homo sapiens, but with shorter limbs, bigger faces and noses, receding chins and low foreheads.

The two species overlapped for a period of time and the Oxford research appears to suggests that they must have successfully interbred for the �ginger gene� to survive. Neanderthals became extinct about 28,000 years ago, the last dying out in suthern Spain and southwest France.

it seems a logical choice for the sudden appearance of the whiteman and his nature since the last ice age as ther is no other logical reason why blacks out of africa could naturally mutate to white. By nature i mean due to cultural evolutionary processe in much the same way as culture acts as an operator to behaviour in any ethnic grouping

and this

What we know about Neanderthals is that they didn't have perfect use of fire and didn't have the faculty of speech but they had tools that, though extremely primitive, made them Hominians. The skull was as big or even bigger than today's humans and the part where the intelligence nests was small while the part devoted to the memory was huge. So, the Neanderthal must have possessed a capacity for uncanny memory, unthinkable for us, which could have been his tool for empirical knowledge. In his more than 100,000 years of existence, the Neanderthal could have stocked a fantastic amount of knowledge about the nature that surrounded him. He must have known everything about medicinal plants, etc. If your reasoning capacity isn't very developed but you can put two and two together thanks to memory, you are somewhere at the ante-chamber to intelligence.

We can suppose that some individual Neanderthal could have possessed intelligence superior to the Neanderthal average, comparable to Homo Sapiens.

so what happens when you breed the two ?

You get a lighter skinned more intelligent and thus better equipped to survive species of man with a somewhat lesser than civilised behaviour.

 

[hitssquad]

Link for spicerack's first quote:
http://www.google.com/search?q="RED...c+legacy+of+Neanderthals,+scientists+believe"



Link for spicerack's second quote:
http://www.vagabondpages.com/august96/evolution.html

 

[Phobos]

Neandertals are at least close cousins on the evolutionary tree (i.e., same genus, very recent common ancestor).

It's an ongoing debate as to whether H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens interbred. In 1999, there were news reports of a potential hybrid fossil found. In 2000, there were news reports of DNA evidence saying there was no interbreeding. In 2004, there were news reports of computer studies of fossil morphology that indicated there was no interbreeding.

But the research & debate rages on. Stay tuned.

 

[Phobos]

FWIW, neandertals were "human"...just a different species of human than we are.

 

[spicerack]

oh yeah, sorry bout the linkage thing.

I'm still getting used to the way things are done round here

cheers hitssquad

 

[Gold Barz]

FWIW, neandertals were "human"...just a different species of human than we are.

Aha, I see...just like different breeds of dogs?

 

[Phobos]

Aha, I see...just like different breeds of dogs?

Sort of, but a bit more separation than that. If they were a “subspecies” (kind of like a breeding group within a species), they would be Homo sapiens neandertalensis (and we would be Homo sapiens sapiens). But they are usually classified as a whole separate species (Homo neandertalensis and we’re Homo sapiens), which makes them more distinct than just a breed/subspecies.

But maybe someone else here is more familiar with where the lines are drawn and can explain it better.

Perhaps if more evidence is found to indicate that Neandertals and Cro-Magnons (early H. sapiens) actually interbred, then perhaps the subspecies/breed label would be more appropriate.

 

[hitssquad]

and we would be Homo sapiens sapiens [...] But [...] we’re Homo sapiens

90,000 hits, Phobos:
http://www.google.com/search?q="Homo+sapiens+sapiens"

 

[Gold Barz]

Perhaps if more evidence is found to indicate that Neandertals and Cro-Magnons (early H. sapiens) actually interbred, then perhaps the subspecies/breed label would be more appropriate.

I think the evidence is going the opposite way.

 

[Phobos]

90,000 hits, Phobos:
http://www.google.com/search?q="Homo+sapiens+sapiens"

Hitssquad - the master of tact.

From reading those 90,000 hits, I see that we are classified as Homo sapiens sapiens (all of us alive today, since all other subspecies are gone...so I assume Homo sapiens is a convenient enough shorthand for practical purposes).

excerpt from one of those hits that is relevant to the discussion at hand...

...Neanderthals and modern humans (Homo sapiens) are very similar anatomically -- so similar, in fact, that in 1964, it was proposed that Neanderthals are not even a separate species from modern humans, but that the two forms represent two subspecies: Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens. This classification was popular through the 1970's and 80's, although many authors today have returned to the previous two-species hypothesis. Either way, Neanderthals represent a very close evolutionary relative of modern humans.

 

[hitssquad]

Hss as shorthand for humans

I assume Homo sapiens is a convenient enough shorthand for practical purposes).

I frequently see Hss.
http://google.com/search?q=hss+sapiens

By the way, the first sapiens is a specific epithet and the second sapiens is a varietal epithet:


--
1 c : the part of a scientific name identifying the species, variety, or other subunit within a genus <in the scientific name Rosa chinensis longifolia, chinensis is the specific epithet and longifolia is the varietal epithet>
--
(M-W Unabridged 3.0)

 

[Phobos]

thanks for the clarifications

 

[Almeisan]

Before homo sapiens sapiens there have been very many different kinds of humans. So at each stage we have several humans either competing or interbreeding, all the way from ape-like creatures to homo sapiens sapiens.

So its really a complex puzzle. Of course the fossel record gives a very fragmented image. We found fossels and we now call those different species. But the evolution might very well have been very smooth and talking about species might be a distorted way to talk about the evolutionary process.

So in general there have been a lot of brances and all were dead ends except for us(I consider this a reasonable assumption). Of course we also share a comman ancestor with apes like chimps, bonobo's, gorilla's etc.

About Neanderthals. They lived together with homo sapiens in europe. Its not really clear if they are a subspecies of homo sapiens, or a branch off of the species of humans just before homo sapiens. But the debate rages on, like said before.

People think they had less complex language and died out because they failed to pass on their inventions. Where homo sapiens would pass on inventions and the next generations would improve on it, homo neanderthals would have to reinvent something every generation.

On wikipedia you can find a lot of info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

 

[spicerack]

I don't think the fossil record is going to help as from my understanding it requires catastrophism on a large scale for animals to be buried and compressed in mud before becoming fossilised.

A carcass left in the open won't fossilise just descompose.

 

[rygar]

this is all pretty interesting, i don't really know anything about the evolution of different homonidae species. i was always under the impression that they did interbreed... it seems logical to me, even if it wasn't the "norm".

The skull was as big or even bigger than today's humans and the part where the intelligence nests was small while the part devoted to the memory was huge. So, the Neanderthal must have possessed a capacity for uncanny memory, unthinkable for us, which could have been his tool for empirical knowledge. In his more than 100,000 years of existence, the Neanderthal could have stocked a fantastic amount of knowledge about the nature that surrounded him. He must have known everything about medicinal plants, etc. If your reasoning capacity isn't very developed but you can put two and two together thanks to memory, you are somewhere at the ante-chamber to intelligence.

can anyone provide more sources/verification about this? I've never heard anything about neanderthals having a higher memory capacity... on what basis did they determine this, and is it presented as more of a possible theory or a more like a fact?

 

[spicerack]

Have you read "clan of the cave bear" - Jean Auel

Don't get the movie out, it's crap ! The book though is excellent

and if not the capacity for memory then what other function would a large neandertahl cranial capacity have ?...psychokinesis, telepathy ?

 

[rygar]

Have you read "clan of the cave bear" - Jean Auel

nope, what's it about? i'll look into it

and if not the capacity for memory then what other function would a large neandertahl cranial capacity have ?...psychokinesis, telepathy ?

well i could speculate many things, i suppose. a lot of animals have bigger brains than we do, like elphants. of course, elephants have larger brains because of their somatosensory and motor cortex--they have a larger surface area that needs to be mapped onto the brain. do they have larger occipital regions too?

well, i don't really know much about elephant brains. but the point is that a larger brain doesn't correlate to higher brain functions. i always assumed that the neanderthal's extra brain cortex was not devoted to higher functions, because they are known for being more of a primitive, brute species.

it's not that i disbelieve the quote in question; i really don't know anything about the brains of neanderthals! but i would like to see more sources and the evidence used to attain such facts, just to satisfy my curiosity.

 

[misskitty]

Redheads 'are neanderthal'

Culture/Society News
Source: Times UK

BY A CORRESPONDENT

RED hair may be the genetic legacy of Neanderthals, scientists believe.

Researchers at the John Radcliffe Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford say that the so-called �ginger gene� which gives people red hair, fair skin and freckles could be up to 100,000 years old.

They claim that their discovery points to the gene having originated in Neanderthal man who lived in Europe for 200,000 years before Homo sapien settlers, the ancestors of modern man, arrived from Africa about 40,000 years ago.

Rosalind Harding, the research team leader, said: �The gene is certainly older than 50,000 years and it could be as old as 100,000 years.

�An explanation is that it comes from Neanderthals.� It is estimated that at least 10 per cent of Scots have red hair and a further 40 per cent carry the gene responsible, which could account for their once fearsome reputation as fighters.

Neanderthals have been characterised as migrant hunters and violent cannibals who probably ate most of their meat raw. They were taller and stockier than Homo sapiens, but with shorter limbs, bigger faces and noses, receding chins and low foreheads.

The two species overlapped for a period of time and the Oxford research appears to suggests that they must have successfully interbred for the �ginger gene� to survive. Neanderthals became extinct about 28,000 years ago, the last dying out in suthern Spain and southwest France.

it seems a logical choice for the sudden appearance of the whiteman and his nature since the last ice age as ther is no other logical reason why blacks out of africa could naturally mutate to white. By nature i mean due to cultural evolutionary processe in much the same way as culture acts as an operator to behaviour in any ethnic grouping

and this

What we know about Neanderthals is that they didn't have perfect use of fire and didn't have the faculty of speech but they had tools that, though extremely primitive, made them Hominians. The skull was as big or even bigger than today's humans and the part where the intelligence nests was small while the part devoted to the memory was huge. So, the Neanderthal must have possessed a capacity for uncanny memory, unthinkable for us, which could have been his tool for empirical knowledge. In his more than 100,000 years of existence, the Neanderthal could have stocked a fantastic amount of knowledge about the nature that surrounded him. He must have known everything about medicinal plants, etc. If your reasoning capacity isn't very developed but you can put two and two together thanks to memory, you are somewhere at the ante-chamber to intelligence.

We can suppose that some individual Neanderthal could have possessed intelligence superior to the Neanderthal average, comparable to Homo Sapiens.

so what happens when you breed the two ?

You get a lighter skinned more intelligent and thus better equipped to survive species of man with a somewhat lesser than civilised behaviour.

Whoa, that's pretty weird. And cool at the same time.

 

[spicerack]

you think that's weird miskitty ?

you should google "yakub theory" and see what Nation of Islam believe about how caucasians came into existence only 6000 yrs ago...

...now that is weird

 

[Phobos]

I don't think the fossil record is going to help as from my understanding it requires catastrophism on a large scale for animals to be buried and compressed in mud before becoming fossilised.

A carcass left in the open won't fossilise just descompose.

Fossilization doesn't require a large scale catastrophe. A small scale event can quickly bury an individual (or even some individuals dig & become entrapped...and there is some evidence that Neandertals buried their dead or at least had a specific disposal area).

Granted, a large scale event has the potential to capture more specimens at one time.

 

[hypatia]

There is also some thought that the Neanderthals didn't have a well developed immune system, and perhaps were wiped out by disease.

 

[Ouabache]

yes, I agree that the Neanderthal's lack of effective speech and smaller http://www.csuchico.edu/~pmccaff/syllabi/CMSD%20320/362unit4.html(leading to diminished reasoning and judgement), compared with Homo sapiens sapiens, was a strong factor in their demise. They lost their competitive advantage.

 

[zoobyshoe]

This "ginger gene" thing is very interesting. I wonder how they determine that gene, or any gene, goes back 100,000 years?

 

[arildno]

This "ginger gene" thing is very interesting. I wonder how they determine that gene, or any gene, goes back 100,000 years?

From what I know, one of those factors involved in gene-dating is to look at the distribution of the gene in different human populations.
If a given gene is only present in "native" Americans, then it is most likely to have come into place after the segregation of their ancestors by their migration to the Americas.

However, I'm sure there are lot of factors to be considered in this context..

 

[zoobyshoe]

Here's another interesting twist to the whole issue:

American Neanderthal?
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/612553/posts

Some believe there were people in North America as much as 30,000 years ago.

 

[hypatia]

reconstructed face of a childhttp://www.rdos.net/neanderthal.jpg"

 

[zoobyshoe]

reconstructed face of a childhttp://www.rdos.net/neanderthal.jpg"

This is an example of a trend I've seen a lot of recently which is to make Neanderthal reconstructions as "human" looking as possible. Earlier ones played up "ape" characteristics.

There is really no way of knowing things like skin pigmentation or how hairy they were. Human skin is covered with hair, but it is so fine we think of ourselves as non-hairy. Without adding any more hair to their bodies than we have, but making it all much courser, Neanderthal could have been quite hairy compared to us, perhaps like Chimps are, and there is just no telling if they were dark skinned like modern Africans or very pale.

The nose openings in their skulls allegedly require that they have very, very large noses. I wonder if we have the shape of their noses correct at all, though. I wonder if they couldn't have been more ape like.

 

[hypatia]

http://www.evolutionnyc.com/id-843/ImgUpload/N_118089_961769.jpg"If you notice from this photo apes have a different shape to the supporting bone of the nose. I want to say its almost heart shaped.
And yes your correct, we can only guess at hair/skin/eye coloring of any human species. But we do get some clues from our own development. Humans who live in colder areas have less body hair{sweat can freeze on hair} and large noses warm the air befor it reaches the lungs.

 

[Moonbear]

Humans who live in colder areas have less body hair{sweat can freeze on hair}

Can I ask where you got that information from? It seems counter-intuitive to me since arctic mammals have very thick fur as part of their "insulation" to protect them against the cold. And non-human mammals in temperate climates have thin fur coats in the summer and thick fur coats (more of an "under" layer of downy fur) in the winter. So, while a thin coat of hair would provide some protection against the sun, it would seem to me a thicker coat would help provide warmth (you wouldn't be sweating if you're cold, so sweat freezing shouldn't be an issue). But, I'm just basing this on other mammalian species. Did you base your statement on some evidence for humans that's different from other mammals?

 

[zoobyshoe]

If you notice from this photo apes have a different shape to the supporting bone of the nose. I want to say its almost heart shaped.

The images wouldn't show up for me at that site you linked to. That's OK because I googled chimp, gorila, and orangutan skull images. I see what you mean: unlike Neanderthal the ape noses are just apertures that don't even project up off the face. Neanderthal clearly has sides and a bridge to the skeletal nose like we do.

 

[hypatia]

Moonbear, that's correct, its only humans this applies to because we sweat. And yes, human sweat all the time, even while we sleep, even if we are cold. We also sweat more more reasons then just temp control. Stress, ever see someone with sweaty palms? sweat out a tuff exam? or break out in sweat from eating big meals? If you also notice, people in really warm areas like Italy are really hairy all over. Sweat trapped in hair helps cool you.
Its just a general rule of thumb for humans, more so before the 1900's when populations didn't move/intermix as much.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Moonbear, that's correct, its only humans this applies to because we sweat. And yes, human sweat all the time, even while we sleep, even if we are cold. We also sweat more more reasons then just temp control.

This makes me wonder, then, if gorillas, chimps, and orangutans sweat. They must get pretty warm in the jungles.

I know that Orangutans like to play in water, and that there is a kind of Gorilla deep in the Congo that actually spends a lot of the day up to its neck in rivers, which they figure is a way to stay cool.

 

[Psi 5]

Good question. I have a couple of observations on the subject.

First, I seem to be the only person who has noticed that people have 2 kinds of feet. Some people, like me, have toes that evenly recede in length from the big toe. Other people have a much longer second toe than the big toe. Naturally, this seems to me to be the more primitive form, while mine is obviously the higher evolved form of the foot. My theory is that people who have Neanderthal blood can be easily identified by which set of toes they have.

Second, as we all know, men will have intercourse with anything that walks, if it doesn't walk they will help it along and then have intercourse with it. We would have intercourse with a woodpile if we thought there was a knothole in there somewhere. In short, of COURSE we interbred, have you seen what some people marry?

 

[zoobyshoe]

In short, of COURSE we interbred, have you seen what some people marry?

You are missing the whole point about whether or not our genes are compatible enough to produce offspring, and if they are, were the offspring sterile or could they reproduce. You may have sex with as many goats as you like but no little goat-boys will result.

 

[Psi 5]

You are missing the whole point about whether or not our genes are compatible enough to produce offspring, and if they are, were the offspring sterile or could they reproduce. You may have sex with as many goats as you like but no little goat-boys will result.

I didn't miss the point at all, is your second toe longer than your big toe?

 

[zoobyshoe]

I didn't miss the point at all, is your second toe longer than your big toe?

I can't see my toes: there's too much hair in the way.

 

[newp175]

Hi all

I just read that article from spicecrack; it is a complete load of nonsece from start to finish, written by some losers to make them feel better about their miserable selves.

As far as I know the genes for red and blonde hair arose from some region in northeastern europe early in history due to inbreeding of isolated communities, after all those genes are recessive. Some studies claim that in 150-200 years, due to globalisation the genes will have dissapeared.

 

[scott1]

http://www.rdos.net/eng/asperger.htm#Abstract
It's a theory about the Neanderthals being realted to asperger,autsim and ADHD.I'am not sure if it's true but it's intersting

 

[zoobyshoe]

http://www.rdos.net/eng/asperger.htm#Abstract
It's a theory about the Neanderthals being realted to asperger,autsim and ADHD.I'am not sure if it's true but it's intersting

The conclusion that can draw from all this, is that psychiatric disorders are no disorders or dysfunctions, rather the remains of a hybridization with Neanderthals.

This is exactly the kind of idea that occurs to me when I want to write a spoof of whacky theories.

 

[H. jonathanensi]

Now Begins the Turning of the Wheels of Revolution!

Neanderthals and H. sapiens (along with H. erectus) are all ONE species. We modern folk have a tendency to split things up in smaller and smaller divisions the closer we get to the present. Take for example, Roman Empire, Middle Ages, Rennasciance, Colonial, Industrial Revolution, Information Age...

Notice how we place our divisions? They become more precise as we approach modernity. The Roman Empire and Middle Ages lasted about as long as all the other periods COMBINED! Yet, we form extra splits. The Rennasciance, Colonial period, IR, and Information Age are really just part of the Capitalistic Period (that's what they'll call it in 1000 years ).

We do the same with species division, creating more and more splitting the closer we come to modern times. Why do we do this? To make ourselves feel special of course. Humanity has a way of exaggerating its own history, and this is not excepted in the study of our own evolution.

There are many populations alive today that have skull forms almost IDENTICAL to what would normally be classified as erectus or neanderthalensis. People who have very large brow ridges, or jutting jaws. There are many stocky folks with short arms (*points to himself *). As well, there is an incredible amount of difficulty in classifying some fossils as erectus, neanderthalensis, or sapiens. Some obvious erectus fossils are classified simply as sapiens for the time they were thought to have existed in. Our classification of these things as separate species, then, is out of our own self pride... shame we like to reject our own history so much, all in the favour of our ego .

Two million years ago H. erectus spread from Africa, reaching the ends of the Old World. Like all expanding populations, it remain connected, and like all populations it continued to evolve. It's modern forms are still around: H. erectus neanderthalensis, H. erectus sapiens, and H. erectus erectus. There are earlier forms of H. erectus, that do not exist anymore, however; they look nothing like a human as we would think of them .

Face it, this is the truth, and you folks cannot hide behind your speciocentric arrogant veil of Capitalistic conceit forever. Soon the world will understand the TRUE tale of our origins, and will realize that we are no more special than any other chunk of flesh and bones out there on this funny-shaped rock that we have taken upon ourselves to call Earth.

Regards,
Jon

 

[moe darklight]

Face it, this is the truth, and you folks cannot hide behind your speciocentric arrogant veil of Capitalistic conceit forever.

lol this is all you had to say, this explains everything...


or wait, couldn't the reason we split species closer to our time more carefully be because we have MORE INFORMATION ABOUT THEM.

We couldn't possibly gather all the genetic, behavioral, physical, social, etc. information about pre-human primates as we can about humans and animals that exist now (not to mention dinosaurs). hence: we can be more accurate (or arrogant and speciocentric capitalists, whichever way you like to see it).


WARNING! OVER-SIMPLISTIC ANALOGY!:
Suppose we have a picture of a basket full of oranges taken in poor light. Looking at this picture, all we can really say is "this is a basket full of oranges" (maybe we can also say "one is rotten", maybe "that one looks bigger than the rest," but still not much). Some oranges you can't even see; they are hidden beneath or behind other oranges...
That's pretty much where we're at with fossils— and the older the fossil, the poorer the lighting.

Now suppose you have a basket full of oranges—right here, right now: REAL oranges—now can see that they are not really all the same: some are juicier, some smell stronger, some have a rougher skin, etc...

The closer the specimen is to us (in space and time), the better we can understand and differentiate it.

This also goes for people (usually creationists) who criticize the fossil record (so called "holes" in evolution): some oranges are hidden—NOT EVERY ANIMAL TO EVER DIE IS TURNED INTO A PERFECT FOSSIL, "missing links" don't mean that there is NO link.



The same can be said about your roman empire thing.
We own less than 5% of important roman literature, many cities and artifacts are completely destroyed... we just don't know a lot about what was happening back then.

Much of what we know comes from stories about, say, 400 BC, written in 60BC or 50BC— Roman history books written hundreds of years after the fact (most likely embellishing Roman achievement) and probably not the most accurate account.

So we fit over 500 years into "Roman Times" because we don't know enough to divide this period very accurately (I should also say: there are differentiations within "Roman times," there is the empire, there is the republic, etc.)

Also, there are over 6 billion humans now... technology has helped us to communicate, calculate, build, and create faster than ever before... couldn't it also be that society actually IS changing at a faster rate than back in the roman times, middle ages, greeks, and so on?

O, if only Socrates had myspace...

 

[H. jonathanensi]

Everything you've said only gives a different reason for why we do what we do; it does not, however, justify any of it.

Whether we are splitting them more now because we have more data, or because we think we are special, does not change the fact that such excessive splitting is right, or justified.

So, why do you think it's okay to split what is really just one long continuous species into three separate, isolated species?


Regards,
Jon

 

[moe darklight]

dogs and humans also have a common ancestor, as do humans and zebras, rats, and maple trees.

even though, by your reasoning, a human and a maple tree are both part of the same continuous species, I don't see much chance of a human and a maple tree socializing, falling in love, and reproducing. For science to advance, there has to be a classification system that tells us what is what.

The point where one species starts and another ends is at times very hazy, but we* have to make these decisions in order to communicate our thoughts better.

Yes, there is no clear point at which a pre-human primate (provided it is on the same evolutionary branch) becomes a human... if you keep going back in time the line is always hazy and it's impossible to say for sure when one species becomes another, we could go back to the Dimetrodon without finding a CLEAR point when the human stopped being human... the process is so slow that we have to leave our obsession to detail aside and decide, more or less, where this happens.

(I hope you can at least appreciate the difference between a human and a Dimetrodon )The further you go back in time, the harder it is to collect data, so the harder it is to differentiate one species from another (or social state like with the Roman Times).

Right now, we can easily tell the difference between an asian Elephant and and African elephant, they both have very distinct features. But if all we had to work with was 60-million year old fossils of whatever elephant happened to die under the special circumstances under which a fossil forms, and that fossil wasn't somehow destroyed... well... we would probably just know of THE elephant.

If the fossil record was very damaged, and all we had to go on was a hip bone here and there or a skull fragment, classification might be even worse, and we might think that it was a giraffe bone or a rhino bone and assumed them to be all the same (ok the bone structure of those animals looks nothing alike, so I doubt anyone would confuse an elephant hip bone with a giraffe hip bone, but you get my main point).so in some way, the names we give animals are artificial, but it's the only way humans can propperly communicate ideas. When someone says "chair," you know what they are talking about even though one chair can be completely different from another... if you have a three legged plastic chair, then a 4 legged wooden chair might have more things in common with a table than with that specific chair— but when someone says "chair" you still know what they mean.

When one biologist says "African Elephant," it's very important that the other biologist knows that they are talking about an African Elephant and not a Zebra or a Cactus (even if they all technically have common ancestors and are part of the same big long process of life).* well, I say "we" as in "we as people" ... my line is film not science hahaha

 

[H. jonathanensi]

This comes down to the two competing theories, Multiregionalism and Out of Africa (MH and OOA).

The reason I have trouble with OOA is that it is very strict on the point that there was no (or only a negligible amount) of breeding between what it considers three separate species. A common definition of species is any populations that can or potentially can breed. Neanderthals, erectus, and sapiens all were able to breed with one another. We see this in the regional continuity of Asia and Australia, the ginger gene of Europe.

We can also look at Neanderthals and sapiens skulls and compare them with the earlier form h. erectus. If we do this, we see that they have a tendency to evolve similar characteristics (smaller zygomatic arch, flatter jaw, more rounded head, etc.). One of these might be taken as coincidence, but when we see so many similarities like this, the best conclusion is that they were breeding them back and forth between each other, as they co-evolved. The logical conclusion, then, should be that they are members of the same species... think of different house cats all able to breed, yet with many varieties all over the world.

Furthermore, where we draw the line for species becomes increasingly important when the results have such a profound impact on the study of culture, race, and regional diversity. For MH, such diversity has been in the makings for over a million years, and the human population as a world population has existed for just as long. In OOA, the diversity is said to be superficial; to not exist. This, of course, all sounds a little too quantum mechanical to me--‘the wall doesn't really exist; it's just a bunch of matter waves’. The problem, is that the diversity IS real, and it DOES exist. Perhaps not in the DNA that has been bottlenecked more than the soda at the Coke company, but it's there in the populations, and ESPECIALLY in their bones, and in the fossil record.

I have a report that you might all be interested in reading:

http://studentweb.stcloudstate.edu/ahjo0601/diversity_2-o-2.pdf

Abstract:

The human population has relatively low levels of racial and regional diversity when compared with other species. In this report, I look at that phenomenon through the lenses of two opposing theories of human evolution: ‘Out of Africa’ theory, and Multiregional theory. I will first introduce an hypothesis of diversity that is based on the latter theory, and then explain each theory briefly. Next, I will present evidence regarding genetic studies and the fossil record in an attempt to show Multiregionalism to be correct. Having shown Multiregionalism to be the correct theory, I will conclude that the hypothesis of diversity presented in the introduction is more plausible than the one accepted by ‘Out of Africa’ proponents. The report will finish with an analysis of my research, and address minor problems in the diversity hypothesis and this report.

Please enjoy


Regards,
Jon

 

[Evo]

Hi Jon,

After reading the paper, the conclusion appears to be what we already know, that although there is no genetic evidence of mtDNA contributing to modern humans, that due to the small sample size, the experts won't completely rule out the possibility. So far there is no evidence of interbreeding, genetic or fossil.


No Evidence of Neandertal mtDNA Contribution to Early Modern Humans

David Serre1, André Langaney2,3, Mario Chech2, Maria Teschler-Nicola4, Maja Paunovic5‡, Philippe Mennecier2, Michael Hofreiter1, Göran Possnert6, Svante Pääbo1*

1 Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig, Germany, 2 Laboratoire d'Anthropologie Biologique, Musée de l'Homme, Paris, France, 3 Laboratoire de Génétique et Biométrie, Université de Genève, Genève, Switzerland, 4 Department of Anthropology, Natural History Museum, Vienna, Austria, 5 Institute of Quaternary Paleontology and Geology, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts, Zagreb, Croatia, 6 Ångström Laboratory, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

"Despite intense research efforts, no consensus has been reached about the genetic relationship between early modern humans and archaic human forms such as the Neandertals. While supporters of “multiregional evolution” argue for genetic exchange or even continuity between archaic and modern humans (Weidenreich 1943; Wolpoff et al. 1984, Wolpoff et al. 2000; Duarte et al. 1999; Hawks and Wolpoff 2001), proponents of a “single African origin” of contemporary humans claim that negligible genetic interaction took place (Cann et al. 1987; Stringer and Andrews 1988; Ingman et al. 2000; Underhill et al. 2000; Stringer 2002)."

"It is noteworthy that under the model of constant population size, about 50 early modern human remains would need to be studied to exclude a Neandertal mtDNA contribution of 10%. To exclude a 5% contribution, one would need to study more early modern human remains than have been discovered to date. Thus, definitive knowledge of the extent of a putative contribution of Neandertals to the modern human gene pool will not be possible, although extensive studies of variation in the current human gene pool may clarify this question (Wall 2000). It is, however, worthwhile to note that samples considered as anatomically “transitional” between modern humans and Neandertals, such as Vindija (Smith 1984; Wolpoff 1999) and Mlade (Frayer 1986, Frayer 1992; Wolpoff 1999), analyzed here, fail to show any evidence of mtDNA admixture between the two groups. Thus, while it cannot be excluded that Neandertals contributed variants at some genetic loci to contemporary humans, no positive evidence of any such contribution has yet been detected."

http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0020057

 

[moe darklight]

This comes down to the two competing theories, Multiregionalism and Out of Africa (MH and OOA).

Key word being theory.

One can't throw oneself 100% at every hypothesis that comes along. It may turn out to be correct, but as of now we don't know that, so completely disregarding the current theory (and calling those who study it names?) right off the bat isn't very helpful.

And "species" is not as black and white as that,* especially when speaking in terms of the evolution of one species into another. All roads lead to "what came first, the chicken or the egg" lol.* think of the mule

 

[H. jonathanensi]

It is my opinion that many, if not most to all, of the genes that eventually spread to the populations of h. neanderthalensis and h. erectus probably first appeared in Africa. For this reason, we get a ‘genetic origin’ in Africa, despite the fact that many of the individuals in Africa probably would not have moved out too far from there. This actually jives pretty well with some of what we know:

1) the human population was for the longest time larger in Africa than anywhere else
2) ‘transitional’ fossils found outside of Africa

The posted report briefly mentioned a theory called ‘centre and edge.’ Unless requested, I will not go into much detail on it, but it is a great explanation for the diversity yet connectedness seen in the world today of humans. What's more, is that this theory fits beautifully with MH, and the fossil record... and better yet: common sense.

Regards,
Jon

 

[H. jonathanensi]

Key word being theory.

One can't throw oneself 100% at every hypothesis that comes along. It may turn out to be correct, but as of now we don't know that, so completely disregarding the current theory (and calling those who study it names?) right off the bat isn't very helpful.

And "species" is not as black and white as that,* especially when speaking in terms of the evolution of one species into another. All roads lead to "what came first, the chicken or the egg" lol.


* think of the mule

Who are you arguing? The terms theory and hypothesis, in this case at least, don't have much bearing. OOA is just called a theory because more people accept it, whereas MH is an hypothesis because OOA folks run the show at the moment.

As for calling people names... well... I hope you all know that I was just being jokingly over dramatic

Regards,
Jon