Fossil record, DNA tell different stories about human origins

Adam Khor

http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/science/dna-and-fossils-tell-differing-tales-of-human-origins-646349/

Rubecula

That is quite a bit interesting. Thanks Adam.

Wibbs

As ever AK can be relied to bring us the good stuff on a daily basis.

Adam Khor

No probs.

I find it funny that the paleoanthropologists are bitching about geneticists not caring for the "evidence" in the fossil record. The fossil record is very fragmentary, and much is still to be found- they act as if they had all the pieces in the puzzle by now.

Wibbs

*ahem*

Wibbs(a while back) wrote: »

Much is made of the Neandertal and other archaic DNA in non Africans and absent in them. I say, it's because we're not looking in the right spots and the preservation of archaic DNA in Africa is problematic. If as we think now Sapiens evolved in Nth east Africa and migrated outward, it seems daft they didn't migrate inward to areas where archaic African folks were already in situ and then get jiggy with them.

As for;

Article extract wrote:

In a report still under review, a third group of geneticists says there are signs of Neanderthals having interbred with Asians and East Africans. But Neanderthals were a cold-adapted species that never reached East Africa.

So? That's a non issue in my humble and easy to explain. Migration isn't only one way. So far the Neandertal DNA found in non African moderns appears to have been the result of mixing in the middle east 100,000 years ago(IIRC). The children of these mixes then went on to Europe and Asia. OK, what's to stop them going back to east Africa, given it's closer than either of the above and they'd have some cultural knowledge of the place? I'd go so far as to look at the genetic "clock"* of the modern east African folks and see if the Neandertal DNA comes in in one wave. I'll bet it does and I'll also bet it corresponds to a glacial maximum. I'd add I don't buy the Neandertal = cold adapted either. They lived for 2-300,000 years in Europe and the near and middle east, across different environments and climates, through glacial minimums as well as maximums, from "Christ tis cold Ted" to "frying on the Costa del sol".