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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."
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?
Cemil.
Besides Homo Sapiens, there are Neanderthals, Floresians (I ain't calling them "hobbits"), Denisovans and now these?
Pre-history is getting crowded with failed competitors. Yay us?
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
Perhaps they were Yetis?
"Trust me - I know what I'm doing."
- Sledge Hammer
And I thought we got over scientific racism a long time ago...
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.
Ezekiel 23:20
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.
Named the Red Deer Cave people, after their apparent penchant for home-cooked venison...
Of course, we know that rest of the human species at the time preferred takeout...
The link between /. commenters and intelligent human beings?
Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
To be fair, that headline was practically begging for someone to interpret it as a reference to current humans, not to a population of hominids that lived in the area we call China thousands of years ago.
http://alternatives.rzero.com/
We have Pygmies today across Africa. They've endured a lot of human rights issues over the years, and theories are out suggesting Iodine deficiencies are related to their short stature.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pygmies
Why do we see papers about recent human evolutionary theory only when it pertains to extinct peoples? Are the currently living pygmies less studied simply because anthropologists aren't interested in living people, and nobody else is into these fields of science?
We just don't recognize them because their bones are buried or cremated and we generally dont go digging up graves.
Huh? I thought they actually found NEW (as in living, just formed) human species...
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
Then you need a better filesystem integrity checker.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The journal article that is being linked to is open-access. There is no paywall, regardless of where you are accessing it from. You can download it and print as many copies as you want, you can even download it and repost it in its entirety on your own website if you feel like it. You can do the same with every article in the PLoS journals as well.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
but...but...but.. the world is only 6,000 years old and man was created in his current image by god! There must be some other explanation!
That's why they're a different species: made in someone else's image.
And survived right up 'til 5500 years before creation, too!
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
No, no, how can they have been telling us for thousands of years? Every Chinese person knows China has 5000 years of history, while the West has approximately 5 years of history. There were some reported sightings of Westerners once in the Ming dynasty, but this has since been discovered to have been a hoax, constructed from a bearded monkey on stilts.
While you are right that his comment is idiotic, it is not because missing links were found, it is because modern biology does not consider it necessary for any link to even exist and they are therefore not missing. Google 'punctuated equilibrium' for details. Of course the term missing link was devised by naysayers to evolution before most prehuman ancestors were categorised so it is not entirely incorrect to say the missing links were found.
If they were found alive, they'd just put them to work at Foxconn making iPads. The only reason Yeti has been left alone is its hands are too big to handle the little instruments.