Sunday, May 29, 2016

Neanderthals, Denisovans and homo sapiens sapiens - and now the Monday Forum post as well

 The mystery of the Neanderthals has long fascinated people. What were they? Why did they vanish? Were they wiped out by homo sapiens? Now we know that human beings carry a proportion of Neanderthal genes that varies but appears to be an average of perhaps 2%. The Neanderthal survives within us.

Given such apparent inter-breeding, the question of when the two groups first had sex exercises a sort of fascination. We can see this in this Guardian headline:
Skull discovery suggests location where humans first had sex with Neanderthals.

The story is by no means as exciting as the headline would suggest. It refers to the discovery of a modern human skull in a cave in Northern Israel dating to perhaps 55,000 year ago, a time when the "region when it was already well populated with Neanderthals. Skeletons of Neanderthals from the same time have been recovered from Amud cave 24 miles (40km) to the east of Manot cave, and from Kebara cave 30 miles to the south."

The Neanderthal are far more ancient than that Johnny come lately homo sapiens sapiens  with a sophisticated tool using culture. Nor, as we now know through the miracles of DNA analysis, were they the only older human species co-existing with and interbreeding with homo sapiens sapiens. 

In March 2010, scientists announced the discovery of a finger bone fragment of a juvenile female who lived about 41,000 years ago, found in the remote Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains in Siberia, a cave that has also been inhabited by Neanderthals and modern humans.

Analysis of the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) of the finger bone showed it to be genetically distinct from the mtDNAs of Neanderthals and modern humans. Subsequent study of the nuclear genome from this specimen suggests that Denisovans shared a common origin with Neanderthals, that they ranged from Siberia to South-East Asia, and that they lived among and interbred with the ancestors of some modern humans, with about 3% to 5% of the DNA of Melanesians and Aboriginal Australians deriving from Denisovans.

DNA discovered in Spain suggests that Denisovans at some point resided in Western Europe, where Neanderthals were previously thought to be the only inhabitants. A comparison with the genome of a Neanderthal from the same cave revealed significant local interbreeding with local Neanderthal DNA representing 17% of the Denisovan genome, while evidence was also detected of interbreeding with an as yet unidentified ancient human lineage. 

In addition to the linked Wikipedia articles, you can find more on the Denisovans (and the Neanderthals too) on John Hawks blog.

Postscript

I had planned to bring up a post last night on the Finnish school system for the Monday Forum but events intervened. Now it seems that the Neanderthal theme has generated its own comments not connected with the post, so go for it in whatever direction you like! 


11 comments:

Anonymous said...

Being it's Monday and all - I see the obnoxious has had done with the specious, and now, Jim, I'm left wondering if that will change your threatened vote :)

kvd

2 tanners said...

kvd, I'm not sure which is which and who is who, but it's interesting that you've decided to post this under an article on neanderthals et al. :)

Anonymous said...

tanners, Jim's post points out that we humans are a bastard race, of doubtful lineage, and with incestuous animal instincts. This, and the fact that it was a sunny Monday, with little other news of note, basically forced my hand :)

kvd

ps "I'm not sure which is which and who is who" - accepted, but then, neither are they.

Jim Belshaw said...

Good evening, both. I will add a postscript making this a Monday Forum post as well!

I'm not sure about your typology, kvd. Perhaps I have different views. I do think the good Senator has gone a little off track in trying to appeal to such a disparate group in a way that kind of submerges issues and principles. But I can see the advantage of having that view in Parliament has a balance.

I'm also not sure about the incestuous part! Not sure I want to respond to 2t's uncertainty. You may mean someone totally different.

Anonymous said...

Jim, I don't usually point out spelling errors, but there is only one 'n' in 'finish'.

I do agree that it is a good idea to finish school, so look forward to your further post; is this in some way linked to your thoughts re 'open boarders'?

kvd

Anonymous said...

On a more serious note, after the recent spate of deaths involving horse riding in all its forms, the inevitable has occurred:

http://www.smh.com.au/business/workplace-relations/first-safety-code-to-regulate-the-horseriding-industry-20160531-gp7z3j.html

kvd

Anonymous said...

I liked this: http://www.thisiscolossal.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/domonkos-3.gif
from here : http://www.thisiscolossal.com/2016/06/bill-domonkos-surreal-animations/

That's what my chooks are doing right now in the rain.

kvd

Jim Belshaw said...

Good morning, kvd. "Finnish" corrected! I couldn't find that precise link you were referring too on the chooks. If I were a chook at the moment, I would retire to my pnen!

I'm not sure that there has been a "spate" of recent deaths involving horses. Couldn't access that SMH story, I'm not quite sure when my month will be up (its been a long month!) and I can access my next thirty stories, but found the ABC story -http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-06-01/horse-riding-code-for-nsw-designed-to-cut-accident-numbers/7465404. Also found the proposed draft code - http://www.haveyoursay.nsw.gov.au/assets/Uploads/Draft-horse-code-of-practice-for-consultation-2.pdf. Its a remarkably difficult document to read.

I'm not sure what I think of all this. The death that triggered the whole thing was associated with a NSW TAFE course where they used an unsuitable horse. TAFE was responsible.

Between 2000 and 2014 133 fatalities occurred Australia-wide. There have been almost 2,000 NSW workers' compensation claims relating to horses in the past five years, costing more than $14 million. These are actually not large numbers.

Horses are dangerous. The number of horse related deaths in Australian colonial history when horses were so dominant was very high. Do we now need another set of regulations? A code need not be the same as regulations, but they tend to overlap. And once you have them, they extend.

I have nothing but sympathy for Sarah Waugh's parents, but I'm not sure that the NSW code is the right solution.

Anonymous said...

Jim, regarding "spate", there have been now 3 deaths in the last 3 months. Show jumpers in two cases, pony club the other, I think. The first of the three was quite high profile given the family's connection to all things horse.

Individual tragedies, all - and I do agree the (quite old) instance forming the basis of that article was more about incompetent supervision of an inexperienced rider, placed on a racehorse retired for just 6 weeks - but none of the incidents require the nanny state to act imo.

kvd

Anonymous said...

Geez Jim: 'Finnish' 'finish' - you had it right the first time; 'twas only a riff on your 'boarder policy' :)

kvd

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7rwc3VGvlRY

Jim Belshaw said...

Oops on Finnish! Just responded! Enjoyed the MP song, although it was remarkably not MP!

Three is hardly a spate! While I haven't properly absorbed the new code, I would agree with you re lack of necessity.