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Mystery Humans Spiced Up Ancients' Sex Lives
ananyo writes "New genome sequences from two extinct human relatives suggest that these 'archaic' groups bred with humans and with each other more extensively than was previously known. The ancient genomes, one from a Neanderthal and one from a different archaic human group, the Denisovans, were presented at a meeting at the Royal Society in London. They suggest that interbreeding went on between the members of several ancient human-like groups living in Europe and Asia more than 30,000 years ago, including an as-yet unknown human ancestor from Asia. 'What it begins to suggest is that we're looking at a 'Lord of the Rings'-type world — that there were many hominid populations,' says Mark Thomas, an evolutionary geneticist at University College London who was at the meeting but was not involved in the work."
Are they first or second cousins and are we playing by North or South rules?
Suborbital [spaceflight] is the special olympics of spaceflight. - Rei
They suggest that interbreeding went on between the members of several ancient human-like groups living in Europe and Asia more than 30,000 years ago
So were the offspring of these 'human-like' beings capable of reproduction? If they were, wouldn't they be just "human"?
Groups probably were naturally isolated for long periods of time by geography and as intelligence increased so did the
ability to travel more and go into other enviroments. Once we became a "global" population all similiar species were
eventually assimilated.
Nice to see that we came by our propensity to fornicate with anything in a natural manner.
"I believe in Karma. That means I can do bad things to people all day long and I assume they deserve it." : Dogbert
...if any sheep genomes were found?
Is it similar to different races? In light of the recently (too lazy to look it up) revised unification of what were once thought to be different human ancestor species, could the whole interbreeding thing simply be the first signs of larger scale population migrations?
In my book, if you can breed with it, it's human. Maybe anthropologists are special.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
thanks to craigslist, mystery humans still spice up my sex life.
(just kidding, I'm too fat to get laid)
Be seeing you...
What I'm getting at is that the only "pure human" seems to be the black African human. Everyone else is
There are larger genetic differences between different groups of the same "race", than between individuals of "different race".
Is that clearer for you? No? Black vs. white could be more similar than two similarly looking east asian people, or two similarly looking white people.
And ffs, there is NO SUCH THING AS "PURE HUMAN". Never was. Never will be. Just as there is no "pure monkey" or "pure snail". The entire theory of evolution completely contradicts such ridicules notions.
A very insightful post, except for one line (so I found it quite odd that you started from/with it):
Nope. Not even them. The trap, which from reading the rest of your post you do recognise, is that the adjective "pure" is subjective, arbitrary and inapplicable - but we try to apply it anyway, arising from a desire to have life's infinite complexities fit into a set of simple, easily-understood boxes, preferably ones with dials and locks.
What I'm getting at is that humanity is a variable, not a constant.
More precisely, but not actually precisely, from an interactive ongoing perspective over time it's an evolving, um, multi-nodal continuum that... ah, cue Doctor Who excerpt: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vY_Ry8J_jdw
Or to paraphrase the Tao Te Ching: "The human that can be spoken of is not the constant human".
Wait a moment, did sub-Sahara Africans interbreed with something? No? Then they _are_ pure humans. And the others (me including) are different species, or sub-species at least. Unless we change the definition of pure human to some complex mix with archaic "animals". :) BTW, it depends how we look at it, probably they were in fact more advanced.
Second, about the distance, research I've seen last year showed that if we feed clustering software with different genetic material then it first separates blacks and whites, then asians. I don't know where did you get that Asians are more diverse group then the rest of the population. More over Africans themselves are more diverse group as whites ancestors were only a small group which left somewhere 100-70k years ago. But it was genetically (near)isolated for much longer. Remember at that time there was no UN, no continent wide trading, no railroads. Everyone was sitting within their tribe land.
The definition of species and subspecies has been fluid, and to some extent still seems to be a subject of debate. Google defines them like this:
species [ sp sheez ]
taxonomic group: a subdivision of a genus considered as a basic biological classification and containing individuals that resemble one another and may interbreed
organisms in species: the organisms belonging to a species
humankind: human beings or the human race
Synonyms: group, class, type, kind, genus, sort, variety, order
subspecies [ súb spsheez ]
plant or animal category: a category used to classify plants and animals whose populations are distinct, e.g. in distribution, appearance, or feeding habits, but can still interbreed
Synonyms: category, strain, genus, sort, class
Subspecies can interbreed and produce viable offspring. That means that modern human 'races' vaguely qualify as subspecies at best. Furthermore, according to this definition can be argued that Neanderthals were a human subspecies if we define 'human' as species Homo Sapiens. Neanderthals differed mildly in appearance, feeding habits and for a time, distribution but could still indisputably interbreed with modern humans and produce viable offspring (since some modern humans carry Neanderthal DNA). Now H. Neanderthalensis arrived in Europe 400.000 years before modern humans emerged in Africa about 200.000 years ago. Does that make Neanderthals more _pure_ humans than modern humans? Did Europeans and Asians become _purer_ humans than Africans by interbreeding with H. Neanderthalensis? IMHO the answer is no, it's more the case that the whole concept of some group of people being _pure_ humans is a steaming pile of BS.
Caveats: It is still debated whether H. Neanderthalis was a subspecies of Homo Sapiens or a species of the genus Homo, i.e whether it we should call it H. Sapiens Neanderthalis or H. Neanderthalis. Secondly recent discoveries have completely blown apart our previous picture of the entire genus Homo.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
If they have living descendants, then surely they didn't go extinct.
Don't get me wrong, especially don't consider me a racist :D
I think the names for e.g. Neanderthals and Denisovans and the distinction between them is pretty arbitrary.
Lets look from an hobbyist or layman point of view on the phisiognomy and body on an australian aboriginee, a south american indian a chinese an african Ashanti or Bushman.
Now as we know they live all pretty isolated in a certain region of the world. E.g south america and australia.
Now lets assume one of them was completely extingued 10.000 years ago. And in that area only west european whites would live now.
If we would look at the bones of such extingued "species" we easy would assume they are a different species.
Sure, *I know* that classifying stuff by bones and teeth and age / aera they lived would in this case show many "similarities" while in the actual classification the "distinction" is in the foreground.
However I allready saw "living Neanderthals" ... people with a strange skull and thick ridges over the eyes, flat nose and with a strong build.
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
Man's insatiable appetite for midget porn. Or is that just me?
Europeans and Neanderthals, Africans and homo erectus ... demonstrates a principle that has been true since time immemorial, and all over the world. The modern situational implication is this: after 2AM there is no such thing as an ugly woman in a bar.