Humans and Neanderthals. Side by side.

condra

So it looks like humans and neanderthals lived side by side, as new research suggests our species arrived in Northern Europe earlier than was previously believed.

http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/11/02/prehistoric-jawbone-has-archeologists-rethinking-history-of-human-habitation/

Thought some of you would be into that.

smokingman

I remember a study last year that showed ~7-10% of our DNA originated from Neanderthals, thus showing we got it on with our "cousins".

In honour of this, some states in the US still practice this custom.
:pac:

CerebralCortex

smokingman wrote: »

I remember a study last year that showed ~7-10% of our DNA originated from Neanderthals, thus showing we got it on with our "cousins".

In honour of this, some states in the US still practice this custom.
:pac:

Ah hallo, we live in Ireland! An underpopulated island with **** roads, they're not the only ones who're inbred.

Wibbs

Oh we defo lived side by side in the middle east. The DNA we got from them appears to be from that area and time period. So far no shared DNA from the later Europe cohabitation has been found. The DNA shows up in non African peoples, so the theory is that we got jiggy at the first crossroads out of Africa, but not after, or so rarely it didn't leave it's mark*. It seems that something different was happening in Europe in a social/cultural way. In the ME we lived in the same caves and valleys right beside each other. In Europe they stayed in the valleys and we changed tack and lived more on the ridges. Which may suggest a "higher ground" defence thang. A less friendly interaction.

On this finding, I'd personally wait until more "bones and stones" show up. IMHO too often in this field discoveries are announced on very small pieces of evidence. The dental points of difference that say "modern" might just be from a gracile(or female) Neandertal, but it does look good. Certainly better than some of the African "species" stuff that can hang on just one tooth.






*Neandertal DNA is still pretty rare in moderns. Not everyone has it, but interestingly two people may have the high end of 4%, but the same two people may have different genes. Plus we've a pretty tiny sample of Neandertal DNA to compare with, never mind ancient modern DNA. Though some researchers are looking at other areas like immune response genes and it's starting to look like many more mixtures going on there. Actual advantageous stuff we picked up from them. They appear to have had unreal immune systems. One old guy had lost his arm above the elbow in youth and survived for many years after that. Surviving massive trauma like that and in primitive conditions is pretty damned impressive. :eek:

cavedave

There is all sorts of interesting stuff about other *species of humans and homo sapiens getting nasty in the pasty

How widespread is Denisovan ancestry today?

The Boskop are also really interesting What Happened to the Hominids Who May Have Been Smarter Than Us?

Two neuroscientists say that a now-extinct race of humans had big eyes, child-like faces, and an average intelligence of around 150, making them geniuses among Homo sapiens.

Am I right in thinking that Neanderthals were humans as hominids just a different *species of human?


*edit must be subspecies if we had sprogs together

Wibbs

cavedave wrote: »

There is all sorts of interesting stuff about other species of humans and homo sapiens getting nasty in the pasty

How widespread is Denisovan ancestry today?

The Denisovan folks are interesting alright and I'll put money down that even more odd stuff is gonna come from that same cave when they sequence more DNA from the other fragments.

The Boskop are also really interesting What Happened to the Hominids Who May Have Been Smarter Than Us?

Unfortunately the Boskop skull stuff has been largely debunked for all sorts of reasons. What the hell Discover was doing publishing that I do not know. For a start you can't measure IQ by skull size. Einstein had a famously small brain(though with more connections at the neuron level). The Hobbits of Flores had very small brains, not that far off chimp size, yet made sophisticated tools. Neandertals not Boskop man had the largest average brains of hominids so far found. Including us. Yes they were bright, very bright, but never seemed to make the cultural and symbolic leaps we did. Well they had some of the toolkit, but not the full box of tricks. Maybe it was down more to culture and population density as much or nearly as much as biological. After all for the guts of 150,000 years we didn't do much better than them. Only slight differences going on.

Am I right in thinking that Neanderthals were humans as hominids just a different species of human?

Seems to be the case alright. We were subspecies of each other, hence we could get jiggy. Some are even suggesting that we may have gotten jiggy with the last of Homo Erectus and they were a good bit different to us. We defo don't have a simplistic line going back. We're not pure "out of Africa" for a start(way to daftly simplistic a theory IMHO). We're all a big mix of various people in our past.

Good username considering....

Zombrex

smokingman wrote: »

I remember a study last year that showed ~7-10% of our DNA originated from Neanderthals, thus showing we got it on with our "cousins".

In honour of this, some states in the US still practice this custom.
:pac: