Modern Humans Bred With Evolutionary Predecessors In Africa 160
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "Based on a new analysis of old skulls, it now appears that modern humans may have interbred with some earlier hominid species, suggesting that human evolution took a more complex path than previously thought. The study opines that modern humans lived side by side with the older species. Paleontologists disagree over the meaning of the findings, or whether they have any substantial significance at all."
Time for another 4 letter comic. (Score:5, Funny)
Reminds me so much of this comic [smbc-comics.com]
Well, duh! (Score:2)
Of course modern humans inbred with evolutionary predecessors. If they didn't, they wouldn't exist!
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Not to state whether or not it did happen, but let's try to remember here that the species concept is not an insurmountable wall. Some species within the same genus can cross breed and create viable fertile young, some can't. There's no hard fast rule as to how distant is too distant for successful interbreeding (and by that I mean not just viability of the offspring, but fertility of both offspring and all descendants of the offspring).
Now that we're pretty damned sure that H. sapiens and H. neandertalis
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Although some use the inability to produce viable and fertile offspring as the method of determining when real speciation has taken place. What this may show is that H.Sapiens and H. neanderthal are not different species but merely different breeds. As Russian Blue and American Short Hair are very different looking but are both feline domesticus.
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No, those are different species by at least most of the definitions of the word.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species#Definitions_of_species [wikipedia.org]
Re:Time for another 4 letter comic. (Score:5, Informative)
That has not been an adequate species concept for decades. No one defines species based solely on infertility. That two distinct populations can interbreed does not automatically make them the same species, any more, in fact, that distaff members of related populations being unable to interbreed makes them different species. For instance Great Danes and Chihuahas are both members of C. lupis, despite the fact that they cannot interbreed, because intermediaries can. This is a classic example of a ring species.
The species concept is a rather complex one, and doesn't lend itself to concrete definitions. Any general statement you make about what constitutes a species cannot apply to every situation. Of course, we can never know for sure that all of genus Homo is one species or several. We're going largely off of morphological data, which is dangerous, because, again, it can paint a false picture. Some alien taxonomist might look at the skeleton of a great dane and a miniature poodle and assume the two were different species.
But since there is value to classifying extinct hominids, to show trends in morphological and physiological changes, as much as anything it's convenience to group them into different species and even genuses, even though we're only able to measure some of the characteristics, and not get a fuller picture (ie. genetic data). Even the divide between the Australopithecines and genus Homo is somewhat arbitrary, but still useful because of the clearly more human traits found with H. habilis.
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For instance Great Danes and Chihuahas are both members of C. lupis, despite the fact that they cannot interbreed
nonsense. either a miniature ladder, or a shoehorn will remedy the situation, depending on which one is the male, and which one is the female...
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In almost all cases where the sire is a Dane, you'll kill the female.
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did moped jesus forget to bring his humor with him?
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Just use a surrogate to carry the in-vitro fertilized eggs from the Chihuahas, the cattle industry has done this for decades.
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Most species of the Xiphophorus genus interbreed without any problem, in fact, most of their domestic population are hybrids of some sort (and they also interbreed like crazy).
IIRC there were even successful cross-genera interbreedings - african x indian elephant, sheep x goat and others.
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I'll wager we could successfully interbreed with Homo erectus.
Didn't Pastor Ted Haggard' wife breed with an erect homo?
A single fossil (Score:5, Insightful)
How do they draw this conclusion from a single fossil? Couldn't it have been a deformed human? There are still humans born with the occasional pre-humanoid traits, like tails.
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How do they draw this conclusion from a single fossil? Couldn't it have been a deformed human? There are still humans born with the occasional pre-humanoid traits, like tails.
I was wondering that myself
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If they interbred and the genes persist in the present day population, all it means is that the definition of human that excluded the 'other' species was wrong (or at least it calls the usefulness of that definition into question).
Anyway, it is a tautology that a species interbred with it's evolutionary predecessors.
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Anyway, it is a tautology that a species interbred with it's evolutionary predecessors.
Ahh, but not that "modern man" did so with prehistoric predecessors. I'm interested in hearing that "modern" applies to anything prior to, oh, 0 BCE.
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That's likely just parochialism on your part, they lacked our absurd numbers and fantastic machines, but that's pretty much the entire difference.
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"modern man" refers to the species H. Sapiens, which has been around for almost 200,000 years, and has been developing tools and technology for about 50,000 years. While there have been pronounced differences in things like height over the last 50,000 years (or even the last 1,000 years), those are mostly due to improved nutrition and medicine, not changes to the genetic structure or the development of a new species. Assuming you're fertile and could travel in time, you could have a child with a human from
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Re:A single fossil (Score:5, Informative)
How do they draw this conclusion from a single fossil? Couldn't it have been a deformed human? There are still humans born with the occasional pre-humanoid traits, like tails.
FTA:
But palaeontologists are not all agreed on precisely what the new analysis is telling us - or, indeed, whether it is telling us anything definitive at all.
"I do not think that these findings add anything new to our view," said Prof Clive Finlayson, director of the Gibraltar Museum, who was not connected to the study.
Please don't mod me informative just for quoting the original article.
In the last year or so (Score:3)
There's been an avalanche of research published in the last year or so regarding these types of things, with a lot more scientific backing than the little bit I read in this article.
In one of many articles on the topic, this one raised a whole new series of questions about our ancestry:
Scientists unveil a newly-discovered, ancient human ancestor [io9.com]
Or check out these that all relate to different areas of genetic research, most empirical, one modeled, all relating supporting information about homo sapiens (that'
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Only on Slashdot can a copypasta from TFA be modded "Informative" whilst intelligent and well-researched replies get ignored by the mods...
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It's a slashdot thing - the first to post gets the mod points, then the mods short attention spans go elsewhere.
Perhaps there should be a minimum time before mod points can be used within a posting, maybe 1 or 2 hours?
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I actually thought about this, and perhaps the solution is to not allow more than 1 point in escalation per 10 minutes or something. So only 1 point shows in the first 10 minutes, and then you don't have an option to raise it until the next 10 minute window
That addresses getting rid of the spammers/trolls, while still limiting the upward motion of postings.
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Interestingly, and probably not surprising since modern Africans did not migrate through Europe, modern Africans don't have any N
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Actually, they have two skulls, which look alike. One odd skull could conceivably be an aberration, but when you have two that look alike, that's strong evidence that you're looking at the average for that population, not the outliers.
The skulls fall completely outside the range of variation seen in modern Homo sapiens, and are abo
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no since your common "necko" if she was real would have what would be considered "feline" attributes and a werewolf would have what would be considered "canine" attributes.
certain things are considered simian but not Human attributes (tails and prominent brow ridges are examples)
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Skull.
Ignore the summary, RTFA.
Skull.
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So it had two heads!
Would have been fascinating to chronicle... (Score:3)
I imagine something like this, but the interaction would have been very interesting...
When you see your likeness, you are pleased. But when you see your images which came into being before you, and which neither die nor become manifest, how much you will have to bear!
--Darwin, um, yeah... Darwin, to get past the more-reflexive mods
Previous genetic evidence (Score:2)
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Similar hypotheses have been suggested based on genetic evidence which suggested that humans and neanderthals interbred. See http://www.nhm.ac.uk/about-us/news/2010/may/first-genetic-code-of-neanderthal-reveals-inbreeding66724.html [nhm.ac.uk]. In both cases, the work has been done by Chris Stringer who seems to focus a lot on this hypothesis. Stringer is a very respected anthropologist who was responsible for formulating a lot of the now accepted ideas about how homonids spread from Africa in successive waves of migrations.
In addition to that, we know that the ancestors of the Melanesian population interbred with the Denisovan hominids. [wikipedia.org] To add more interesting stuff to the cauldron, it appears that the Neanderthals not only interbred with H. Sapiens but with the Denisovans as well. [newscientist.com] Stone-age interspecial threesome man!
Is this really any surprise? (Score:4, Insightful)
Something tells me nerdy scientists aren't the best equipped for this field of study.
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Human females have been known to fuck any vegetable or plant matter shaped like a long cylinder, in-sight. Are Human Females not included in "nerdy scientists"? Why be so sexist as to imply nerdy scientists are only males?
Something tells me that Slashdot isn't the best equipped for taking your engendered bias.
Re:Is this really any surprise? (Score:4, Funny)
Human females have been known to fuck any vegetable or plant matter shaped like a long cylinder, in-sight.
Yeah, I learned all I know about women from internet porn sites too.
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Human females have been known to fuck any vegetable or plant matter shaped like a long cylinder, in-sight.
It's the other way around, actually. You see, that vegetable/plant matter was male (as evidenced by the shape)... ~
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Some common sense! Just reading the headline thought well hell ya...
I remember reading Neanderthal's and our ancestors lived together with no inbreeding and thought ya right.
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Try browsing Slashdot at -1.
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Best comment I've seen in a while... well played! XD
Impossible! (Score:3, Funny)
I refuse to believe liberals and conservatives can interbreed. If there was a resulting hybrid offspring it would most certainly be sterile. There is a chance that one of the two known species of Homo Sapiens could interbred with the last remaining members of the Homo Centris sub species allowing extremist DNA to slowly migrate between the species. I haven't seen anything in Nature on the subject so I have my doubts.
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I refuse to believe liberals and conservatives can interbreed. If there was a resulting hybrid offspring it would most certainly be sterile.
Arnold Schwartzenegger and Maria Shriver
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I refuse to believe liberals and conservatives can interbreed. If there was a resulting hybrid offspring it would most certainly be sterile.
Arnold Schwartzenegger and Maria Shriver
It has not yet been determined if their offspring are sterile.
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I refuse to believe liberals and conservatives can interbreed. If there was a resulting hybrid offspring it would most certainly be sterile.
Arnold Schwartzenegger and Maria Shriver
lol. I think the weirdest paring is James Carville and Mary Matalin - political consultants for the opposing parties. Amazing, shocking, and inspiring all at the same time.
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maybe there are similarities that are related to having the same career, even though they work in that career for competing organizations
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That was an attempt to breed bulletproof Kennedys.
Not surpriseing really... (Score:2, Funny)
The Xon? Pfft (Score:1)
genetic evidence (Score:1)
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We Knew This (Score:1)
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I'm surprised this was the only comment about BSG. My first thought was "they finally found evidence for cylons!"
NY Country Anthropologist? (Score:3)
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. did they download copyrighted music to set the mood for their interspecies lovemaking?
Yes, but their mp3 players were hopelessly antiquated.
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They used mp back then...mp2 hadn't even been invented yet :)
MP1 (Score:2)
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The could afford numbers back then? Back in my day....
I was making an assumption that the first version of something does not have a version number, but did not feel like looking up the actual name as it wasn't that important. Thank you for informing me :)
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Whoosh would imply I didn't get the joke, expanding on the joke would surely imply that I got the joke wouldn't it?
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They had less space then the nomad, lame.
So... (Score:2)
That explains how Cane and Abel had kids. When Adam and Even only had 2 sons.
So other then evolving from Monkeys we are inter-species hybrid of Monkeys. You know I think that is irreverent enough to get the evangelical christian nuts to support some elements of evolution. Vs accepting that we are descendants of a human monkey hybrid.
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That explains how Cane and Abel had kids. When Adam and Even only had 2 sons.
Well, or else there is Lilith [wikipedia.org].
so...nothing. Re:So... (Score:2)
That explains how Cane and Abel had kids. When Adam and Even only had 2 sons.
Dude -- you are not helping. Adam and Eve had *a lot* more children than two sons. At least twice that many offspring, in fact, because Genesis 4:25 states Adam fathered "sons and daughters," and a third son, Seth [wikipedia.org], is mentioned explicitly by name in both Genesis and Chronicles. And then there is the question of Lilith [wikipedia.org] which weakens the exclusivity of the Adam/Eve relationship. If you are going to be snarky about the Christian nuts, at least be responsible enough to do the research first -- all you are
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3, actually. Cain, Abel, and Seth. Cain and Seth are the ones documented to have wives, if you believe the way it's written, and Abel never took a wife. People tend to forget about Seth, because the bigger part of that story is the feud between Cain and Abel. There's not really any discussion of where the wives came from, and the biblical scholars I know are divided on the subject: the literalists believe that the wives were their sisters, and the rest believe it's an allegory and not to be taken literally.
As I heard it said: (Score:2)
"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." - Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion
Also, Susan B. Anthony's "I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always co
Skeletons in the closet (Score:2)
This reminds me of back in grade school when we'd have a section on genetic traits. There was always one kid who couldn't possibly have inherited all of his/her traits from both parents. (Eye color, hair color, blood type, etc.)
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This reminds me of back in grade school when we'd have a section on genetic traits. There was always one kid who couldn't possibly have inherited all of his/her traits from both parents. (Eye color, hair color, blood type, etc.)
While I realize that this probably wasn't in the curriculum at the grade school level... have you ever heard of recessive or double recessive genes? Red hair is a double recessive, blonde his a recessive. You could have inherited the red gene from one parent, the blonde from the other, and have blonde hair, even though your parents both have black hair (which is a dominant genetic trait). Curly hair is another recessive dealing with hair... your parents could both have straight hair (also dominant), and you
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This reminds me of back in grade school when we'd have a section on genetic traits. There was always one kid who couldn't possibly have inherited all of his/her traits from both parents. (Eye color, hair color, blood type, etc.)
Ummm...what? You are describing a phenotypic effect that is explained by allele dominance [wikipedia.org], not hybridization.
Yeah and what will they say about us today? (Score:1)
Humans from recorded history kept companions such as dogs and cats as pets.
This shows clear signs that they both shared beds and food with the animals so they most likely chose them as mates.
Also this giant "M" golden arch unearthed deems that they worshiped ancient Deity such as Ronald McDonald, a clown with face paint. Even more interesting is a giant purple god of consumption, labeled 'grimace'. Statues of this 'God of consumption' are found throughout the world proving that Grimace was worshiped on all
Interbreeding (Score:2)
Interbreeding, so simple a caveman can do it.
Perverts! (Score:2)
Perverts!
It's all a vicious rumor. (Score:2)
Honest.
definition of species (Score:1)
if the two groups can interbreed and produce viable offspring that are fertile...are they really two different species? I'm sure the definition of a species can have some gray area, but I thought this was one of the defining features of the definition.
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H. Erectus (Score:3)
Wasn't this already covered (Score:1)
Time travel? (Score:2)
hasn't the fact that the heavy metal rockers ... (Score:2)
trace their ancestry to Neanderthals been already established?
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Ancient humans got more action than the userbase of Slashdot.
That's not saying much
once again proving that all men... (Score:2)
once again proving that all men are created horny.
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and most women are almost always fertile
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If they didn't .. we wouldn't be here!
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So someone really did bang an ape.
Yeah but with grog goggles (they didn't have beer back then) she looked like uh.....ok so she was a bit hairy.
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Many people are perfectly willing to have sex with goats, sheep, cows ,mares, all manner of monkeys, primates even children of various ages and sexes without the aid of any goggles; our veneer of civilization is much thinner than most of us would like to admit. To think that human evolution didn't include genetic inputs from what ever was available is really egotistical, after all we have something like 30 copies of genes for reverse transcriptase, a retro-virus enzyme.
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Geez people. You guys need to read failblog.org more:
Bros:
http://bros.failblog.org/ [failblog.org]
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What more do you expect from someone who calls people "dude"?
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"Bros"=/= black. Bros are the idiots that try to live like the cast of the Jersey Shore.
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Apparently you're unfamiliar with manbearpig.
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I've got an evolutionary ancestor IN MY PANTS!
H. Erectus?
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At least now we know where the Kardashians came from.
That might explain Kim Kardashian's bestially humongous ass!
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Who's to say we didn't have sex with animals and other 'human-like' apes???
I don't know about you, but that "we" doesn't include me dawg :)