Mystery Humans Spiced Up Ancients' Sex Lives 238
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."
Human-like? (Score:5, Insightful)
In my book, if you can breed with it, it's human. Maybe anthropologists are special.
We keep dancing around it (Score:1, Insightful)
Please do not misunderstand. I have done much soul searching on the subject and I'm quite settled into the fact that I'm not racist. I recognize we have all manner of mixing among humanity that that a "pure human" is extremely rare. So let's dispose of that nonsense.
What I'm getting at is that the only "pure human" seems to be the black African human. Everyone else is kind of based on that but also mixed with something else, or as suggested, mixed with several possible somethings else. So while I agree we're all "human" can we yet admit that we're not all fully the same species? I know it's forbidden, often career ending to bring up such notions, but without recognition of reality as it is presented to us, we can make no serious scientific progress in our understanding of things.
I admit and recognize that if we admit to differences among us, we then get into uglier topics such as "who is better" and things like that. True. But don't we already dance around that reality as well? We readily support positive reputations among groups. "Better at sports" or "better at math" and so on right? And where money is applied, those details never escape reality which can otherwise never be openly admitted. Betting of all types whether it is sports gambling, insurance and commodities markets all take certain factors into account that, in other areas of life would result in a political sh!tstorm.
Forced inconsistencies of understanding, of teaching, of speaking and of thinking make this mildly autistic boy uncomfortable because his take on reality doesn't fit with politics. It helps me to understand what it must feel like to be in an unpopular group in certain political historic times and places. I can't yet play a "minority card" to defend myself and must instead feel shame for my 'affliction' which doesn't help. But wouldn't it be nice if we could grow up about certain things? Then perhaps we can ALL make some serious progress.
For a simple example of the kind of progress I mean, let's look at food. If we're not all exactly the same species, the surely we must all recognize that not all foods are good for all of us. We have some acknowledgement that some people handle alcohol better than others, some tend to have more obesity than others or that one type of food or another tend to result in a higher incident of problems here or there or even certain types of 'intolerance' here and there. And once we accept we're not quite homogenized, we can make serious progress on human health.
Damnit, we're all human. But we have differences. Failure to recognize them fully leads to more harm than good, I feel, in all sorts of ways for every one of us. And if it turns out there is a more perfect human-blend out there, I'm prepared to accept that as a reality even if I'm not a member of that group. I don't expect to be. I know I'm not the strongest anyone, not the smartest anyone, not quite the best at anything. But without a greater understanding of what factors into potential as a human, how can any of us best make use of what we have if we constantly deny that we're different? We're literally holding everyone back in this "common core" view of humanity that just doesn't really work or help anyone.
Re:Human Relatives (Score:5, Insightful)
That may not be true. Cooperation is just as inborn a trait as assholism. I don't mean to paint a rosy picture, but please consider that most of the people still living on the planet under a tribal/primitive lifestyle are pretty calm and get along pretty well.
Natural selection works for the talkers as well as the fighters. Sometimes in the same individual.
Re:Human Relatives (Score:4, Insightful)
please consider that most of the people still living on the planet under a tribal/primitive lifestyle are pretty calm and get along pretty well.
Bullshit.
Seriously, if you think that's even remotely true you've obviously never studied Anthropology to any degree, and especially never paid any attention to those particular groups.
As for this article, I'm getting really tired of people acting like this is some kind of startling revelation. It's not.
It IS important evidence which further validates Evolutionary Theory, which predicted this situation all along. In the past we didn't have any evidence for humans co-existing with other species, and that has long been a point the Anti-Evolution crowd has attempted to use to invalidate Evolution.
So hooray for the data, but please, spare us the "shock and surprise" because the only people who should be surprised are the ones who think Evolution says humans are the result of a monkey fucking a fish.
Re:Human Relatives (Score:5, Insightful)
We also have compassion, cooperation and communication. Those are the "killer features" of human behavior, the things that make us the most adaptable animal species ever. These are such fundamental features of what it means to be human that it's easy to take them for granted.
You mention enslavement, pillage and plunder, and those make my point. Until you have built a society beyond small nomadic hunter-gatherer bands, slavery makes no sense. Pillage and plunder as well are meaningless until your species has at least developed agriculture, and the social ability to band together to attack people who have converted agricultural surplus into property.
But in the end it isn't about being nice, it's about being adaptable. Being nice -- the things that make others want to spend time with us and cooperate with us -- just happens to be the best basic pattern for building a species with maximum behavioral adaptability. But it makes sense that we ALSO retain the ability to be not-nice. From time to time it's useful for survival -- just less than the 100% of the time that social Darwinists would have us believe. There are times when turning on your neighbor at least ensures someone from the neighborhood survives.
It's a tautology: a behaviorally adaptable species manifests many different kinds of behaviors. So it seems plausible that our distant ancestors made both love AND war with the other human species on the planet.
Remember, though: it was a much less populated planet in the Early Paleolithic. Even in the more populated Late Paleolithic period there were fewer people in the whole world than there are in the Portland OR metropolitan area today. There were maybe 3000 in all of Europe. If in all that underpopulated land you happened to meet another band of humans, which would be better for your genetic legacy? Exchanging genes or exchanging attacks? Screwing or stoning?
Re:Human Relatives (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the contention was that the separate species was the same species because of the ability to interbreed which at one time the inability was key to denoting a deparate species. The though was same species but different races like we see today.
I don't care to get into an evolution verses creation argument. Just stating the argument as i heard it. I do agree this is no big news or anything novel as the concept has been around a while but not widely accepted. I guess the news to me is the concept of another unknown race or species being involved
Re:Human Relatives (Score:5, Insightful)
Nope, survival is just one means among several.
What evolution is really all about is propagation of DNA.
Traits can rise to prominence or dwindle into nothingness without affecting survival at all, if they affect reproductive success in some other way.
A gene doesn't even have to be reproduced via the same individual to support its own propagation:
In multicellular organisms like ourselves, millions of cells self-sacrifice every day, having offloaded the task of propagating their genes to the other clones in in the same colony (i.e. body). Insect colonies display similar constructs at the level of complex individuals, to the point of the majority of individuals being intrinsically sterile.
Humans and other social animals display social contracts that are much weaker, but which still strongly affect behaviour, and probably for much the same reasons.
If humans were truly as asocial as lone-hunter-type animals, you and I would be out feeding or sleeping, not hanging out here on slashdot trying to impress each other with our insights.
Re:We keep dancing around it (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:Human Relatives (Score:5, Insightful)
That may not be true. Cooperation is just as inborn a trait as assholism. I don't mean to paint a rosy picture, but please consider that most of the people still living on the planet under a tribal/primitive lifestyle are pretty calm and get along pretty well.
Natural selection works for the talkers as well as the fighters. Sometimes in the same individual.
Darwin actually said as much. He pointed out that humans weren't the strongest or the fastest or any of the "ests" and yet we rose to the top. People credit him for his "survival of the fittest" theory, but he actually rarely used that term and it contradicted his main theme that since humans were not the fittest on so many levels it was our ability to cooperate that allowed us to not only survive but to dominate.
We still see this today, for instance with hunting. Hunting a deer by yourself may or may not yield success. In a group, where others drive the deer towards the hunters, the success rate is much higher. Today, hunting is a sport, but back then, it was about survival. The whole clan or community benefited by the cooperation. Now hunting is a over simplified example, the reality is that in the wild, even today, the odds of a single human being surviving for extended periods is limited. Not that it can't be done, but it is extremely difficult. With a community, even a small one, there is division of tasks and even though there are more mouths to feed, more can be accomplished to secure food and shelter and ultimately the survival of progeny.
So while raping and pillaging were no doubt part of early human life, that is not what led to homo sapiens overtaking other competing hominids (as it is likely that they also raped and pillaged, too). It was that homo sapiens were much better at cooperating than their counterparts.
Re: Human Relatives (Score:4, Insightful)
Classic problem of game theory, the prisoner’s dilemma. Yes, a few selfish people can get ahead if the majority and compassionate. Of course, if everybody is greedy then the whole system falls apart. Which is why there exist ideas like fairness and retribution. Abusers are identified and are kicked out of society at large.