Possible New Human Species Discovered In China

BayaWeaver writes "These are exciting times in anthropology. Recent analysis of fossils first discovered in China in 1979 indicate that a human-like species may have co-existed with modern humans as late as 11,500 years ago. This presumably new species has been nicknamed Red Deer Cave people because of their apparent taste for the extinct giant red deer. Other species recently discovered include: the 'hobbits' on the Indonesian island of Flores which are also thought to have been around until 12,000 years ago and the Denisovans discovered in 2010 that co-existed with modern humans in Siberia about 30,000 years ago."

Comments

Fascinating!

[SultanCemil]

I, for one, think this is absolutely fascinating! The thought that, as recently as 10k years ago, there were other species of human is amazing - that's not far off of written history!

I wonder if we could think about cloning these people - is the DNA "fresh" enough?

Re:Fascinating!

[Spy Handler]

written history only goes back to about 5000 years, I think ancient Sumerians (Iraqis) writing cuneiform on clay tablets.

To paraphrase a nerd, if the cro-magnons who left cave paintings 30,000 years ago in France could've written something, they would've written something.

Re:Fascinating!

[DigiShaman]

Cloning? To what end? Why did they die out in the first place? Ultimately, if they're genetically compatible do you really want to reintroduce their genetic lineage back into the modern human race? Relationships happen. That might be a step backwards for us even if the impact is negligible. Then you start talking about preemptive sterilization.

I can think of at least half dozen ethical issues so far. It's a can of worms I really don't think we should be opening. Just my 2 cents.

Re:Fascinating!

[modmans2ndcoming]

And one of necessity....In a tribe, you can gather everyone together and talk to communicate to the population....in a city of thousands, you need something else. Sure town criers work but what bureaucracy needs a record to be maintained beyond what someone recollects a few months later....Who said a bureaucrat was worthless? I am it was a bureaucrat that invented writing in the first place.

Re:Fascinating!

[tmosley]

30000 years from now, no paper or electronic writing produced by the current generation will exist. Just what little we have carved into stone.

Hard to say what a people were capable of when we know so very, very little about them.

Re:Fascinating!

[buchner.johannes]

Cloning? To what end? Why did they die out in the first place? Ultimately, if they're genetically compatible do you really want to reintroduce their genetic lineage back into the modern human race? Relationships happen. That might be a step backwards for us even if the impact is negligible. Then you start talking about preemptive sterilization.

I can think of at least half dozen ethical issues so far. It's a can of worms I really don't think we should be opening. Just my 2 cents.

What kind of speciest talk is that? There is no direction and no step forwards or backwards in evolution. It is not directed, only adaptive. A concept of destiny is superstition. I don't mind mammoths being cloned, so what's the line?

You're right, of course. The ethical questions are staggering. I guess the geek side of me went "cool, I want to talk to these guys". Wouldn't it be cool to see if they were really like us? Haven't you always wondered if Neanderthals would see you as a fellow (albeit weird) "person"?

Neanderthals wouldn't stand out if you dressed them like us and educated them like our kids. The difference to them is smaller than the variety within homo sampiens. In fact, it hasn't been ruled out that there was mixing between Neanderthals and humans, so we might be all Neanderthals too.

Re:Fascinating!

[IndustrialComplex]

Ultimately, if they're genetically compatible do you really want to reintroduce their genetic lineage back into the modern human race? Relationships happen. That might be a step backwards for us even if the impact is negligible

Backwards? That assumes that there is a forwards to evolution.

Re:Fascinating!

[MightyMartian]

Anyone with even the slimmest knowledge of history would know that governments were responsible for a considerable number of developments, likely even large scale agriculture and civilization themselves.

Then there are Libertarians, who, instead of history, just repeat idiotic slogans, too stupid and too self-important to even ponder whether the real world resembles them at all.

Misleading title

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Based on the title, I thought that mankind has just made another evolutionary leap! But no, it's actually an old human species, not a new one.

Re:missing link

[Anonymous Coward]

The missing link was found. And the two new missing links on either side of that, and the new "missing links".

Please, if serious you need to accept that it has become so well studied of a field that scientists actually estimated based on previous research where a "crock-o-duck" should have existed, went there and found the bloody fossils. Same for whales. Your argument has devolved, pun intended, from something that could be respected to practically a parody of Xeno arguing that a runner could never catch a turtle.

If a troll, I may be feeding you, but feeding you is far worse than feeding people who actually use such arguments. Please, just stop.

Re:Ok, how many more are there?

[erroneus]

That's crap though. We know we have interbred with neanderthals... well, the people who left Africa did anyway. Unfortunately there aren't any really strong divisions because life in all of its forms and continuous evolutions doesn't easily fit within any given definition.