Modern Humans Bred With Evolutionary Predecessors In Africa

NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Based on a new analysis of old skulls, it now appears that modern humans may have interbred with some earlier hominid species, suggesting that human evolution took a more complex path than previously thought. The study opines that modern humans lived side by side with the older species. Paleontologists disagree over the meaning of the findings, or whether they have any substantial significance at all."

Comments

Time for another 4 letter comic.

[suso]

Reminds me so much of this comic

Re:Time for another 4 letter comic.

[MightyMartian]

Not to state whether or not it did happen, but let's try to remember here that the species concept is not an insurmountable wall. Some species within the same genus can cross breed and create viable fertile young, some can't. There's no hard fast rule as to how distant is too distant for successful interbreeding (and by that I mean not just viability of the offspring, but fertility of both offspring and all descendants of the offspring).

Now that we're pretty damned sure that H. sapiens and H. neandertalis did in fact interbreed, and we know several hundred thousand years must certainly have divided the Eurasian H. neandertals and African H. sapiens, that tells me that interfertility may stretch a helluva long ways back; somewhere around 600-700kyears ago at least. If that's the case, then I'll wager we could successfully interbreed with H. erectus and maybe even further back.

Re:Time for another 4 letter comic.

[MightyMartian]

That has not been an adequate species concept for decades. No one defines species based solely on infertility. That two distinct populations can interbreed does not automatically make them the same species, any more, in fact, that distaff members of related populations being unable to interbreed makes them different species. For instance Great Danes and Chihuahas are both members of C. lupis, despite the fact that they cannot interbreed, because intermediaries can. This is a classic example of a ring species.

The species concept is a rather complex one, and doesn't lend itself to concrete definitions. Any general statement you make about what constitutes a species cannot apply to every situation. Of course, we can never know for sure that all of genus Homo is one species or several. We're going largely off of morphological data, which is dangerous, because, again, it can paint a false picture. Some alien taxonomist might look at the skeleton of a great dane and a miniature poodle and assume the two were different species.

But since there is value to classifying extinct hominids, to show trends in morphological and physiological changes, as much as anything it's convenience to group them into different species and even genuses, even though we're only able to measure some of the characteristics, and not get a fuller picture (ie. genetic data). Even the divide between the Australopithecines and genus Homo is somewhat arbitrary, but still useful because of the clearly more human traits found with H. habilis.

A single fossil

[Anonymous Coward]

How do they draw this conclusion from a single fossil? Couldn't it have been a deformed human? There are still humans born with the occasional pre-humanoid traits, like tails.

Re:A single fossil

[Anonymous Coward]

Skull.
Ignore the summary, RTFA.
Skull.

Re:A single fossil

[arth1]

So it had two heads!

Re:A single fossil

[maxume]

If they interbred and the genes persist in the present day population, all it means is that the definition of human that excluded the 'other' species was wrong (or at least it calls the usefulness of that definition into question).

Anyway, it is a tautology that a species interbred with it's evolutionary predecessors.

Re:A single fossil

[Bob-taro]

How do they draw this conclusion from a single fossil? Couldn't it have been a deformed human? There are still humans born with the occasional pre-humanoid traits, like tails.

FTA:

But palaeontologists are not all agreed on precisely what the new analysis is telling us - or, indeed, whether it is telling us anything definitive at all.

"I do not think that these findings add anything new to our view," said Prof Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar Museum, who was not connected to the study.

Please don't mod me informative just for quoting the original article.

Re:A single fossil

[maxume]

That's likely just parochialism on your part, they lacked our absurd numbers and fantastic machines, but that's pretty much the entire difference.

Would have been fascinating to chronicle...

[Empiric]

...the thought processes of such cultural collisions.

I imagine something like this, but the interaction would have been very interesting...

When you see your likeness, you are pleased. But when you see your images which came into being before you, and which neither die nor become manifest, how much you will have to bear!

--Darwin, um, yeah... Darwin, to get past the more-reflexive mods

Is this really any surprise?

[Jmc23]

Human males are well known to basically try and fuck anything in sight that has a vagina, a large portion of things that don't, and even some things that aren't even alive.

Something tells me nerdy scientists aren't the best equipped for this field of study.

Re:Is this really any surprise?

[Trax3001BBS]

Some common sense! Just reading the headline thought well hell ya...

I remember reading Neanderthal's and our ancestors lived together with no inbreeding and thought ya right.

Re:Is this really any surprise?

[Black Parrot]

Human females have been known to fuck any vegetable or plant matter shaped like a long cylinder, in-sight.

Yeah, I learned all I know about women from internet porn sites too.

Impossible!

[Anonymous Coward]

I refuse to believe liberals and conservatives can interbreed. If there was a resulting hybrid offspring it would most certainly be sterile. There is a chance that one of the two known species of Homo Sapiens could interbred with the last remaining members of the Homo Centris sub species allowing extremist DNA to slowly migrate between the species. I haven't seen anything in Nature on the subject so I have my doubts.

NY Country Anthropologist?

[joeyspqr]

... did they download copyrighted music to set the mood for their interspecies lovemaking?

Re:genetic evidence

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't use link shorteners on a site without character limits. It just makes people think you're linking to goatse. This is the parent's resolved link: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/09/africans-arent-pure-humans-either/#more-13790

Re:That cannot logically be true

[Appolonius of Perge]

The definition of species isn't very good. It's a convenient abstraction, and works in a lot of cases, but it doesn't entirely reflect reality. There are, for example, ring species that break it, and lots of fertile hybrids between species, and even hybrids between genera, especially in plants. Often, hybrids are not fertile, but sometimes they are. But it's important to remember that fertility isn't the only barrier to inter-species mating; behavioral, temporal and geographic barriers also play a very important part.

H. Erectus

[luis_a_espinal]

That's whom we get our erections from.

In the last year or so

[Gr8Apes]

There's been an avalanche of research published in the last year or so regarding these types of things, with a lot more scientific backing than the little bit I read in this article.

In one of many articles on the topic, this one raised a whole new series of questions about our ancestry:

Scientists unveil a newly-discovered, ancient human ancestor

Or check out these that all relate to different areas of genetic research, most empirical, one modeled, all relating supporting information about homo sapiens (that's us!) inbreeding with various offshoots and close relatives, with us apparently coming out the better? for it.

Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'
Sex with Neanderthals boosted human immunity
Neanderthals, Humans Interbred—First Solid DNA Evidence
Frontiers of Anthropology
Ancient DNA Reveals Secrets of Human History
Fossilised finger points to previously unknown group of human relatives