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The Homo Sapiens appeared in Southern Africa 200.000 years ago. They were very similar to current day Hottentots, not related to any modern African race.
Homo Sapiens arrived in Europe 40.000. In Eurasia there were already two hominids, Neaderthal and a hominid that was discovered recently that disappeared 20.000 years ago. H.S are not related to Neaderthals.
Neanderthals mated with some modern humans after all and left their imprint in the human genome, a team of biologists has reported in the first detailed analysis of the Neanderthal genetic sequence.
The biologists, led by Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have been slowly reconstructing the genome of Neanderthals, the stocky hunters that dominated Europe until 30,000 years ago, by extracting the fragments of DNA that still exist in their fossil bones. Just last year, when the biologists first announced that they had decoded the Neanderthal genome, they reported no significant evidence of interbreeding.
Scientists say they have recovered 60 percent of the genome so far and hope to complete it. By comparing that genome with those of various present day humans, the team concluded that about 1 percent to 4 percent of the genome of non-Africans today is derived from Neanderthals.
As an archaeologist, I am thrilled by this. I have always believed that Neanderthals and modern humans did not live side by side for several thousand years with no interbreeding at all. Nor have I ever agreed with the hypothesis that Homo sapien sapien overwhelmed Neanderthal, driving them to extinction. It has been my contention that the population of Neanderthals was very small compared to anatomically modern humans. Because of this, they were eventually bred out of the contributing gene pool.
A little bit of Neanderthal survives in all of us.
Kele's article raises in my mind the tantalizing suspicion that Europeans inherited their "whiteness" from Neanderthals. Perhaps humans were able to flourish in Europe only because they had acquired cold-weather survival traits from Neanderthal, and those who were the "whitest" (i.e., most Neanderthal) had the advantage.
If there is any validity to the studies that show Europeans have higher IQ's than Africans, that would also raise the unsettling hypothesis that Humans who interbred with Neanderthals gained in intellect. Leading to the even more unsettling conclusion that Neanderthals were smarter than Humans. If, also, Asians have higher IQ than Europeans, perhaps Peking Man was the smartest of all. (But you'd first have to jump over a 400,000-year discrepancy for that one.)
05-11-2010, 01:17 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by NJGOAT
All I know is, UFC would be a much more interesting sport...
I think we found one: And this is after he cuts weight down to 265 lbs.
Oh, and if you are wondering how Neanderthals hunted and carried off their dead prey, well here he is doing just that - just skip to the end if you do not want to wait for the few minutes it takes to get there. Love how he just walked off with it.
Kele's article raises in my mind the tantalizing suspicion that Europeans inherited their "whiteness" from Neanderthals. Perhaps humans were able to flourish in Europe only because they had acquired cold-weather survival traits from Neanderthal, and those who were the "whitest" (i.e., most Neanderthal) had the advantage.
If there is any validity to the studies that show Europeans have higher IQ's than Africans, that would also raise the unsettling hypothesis that Humans who interbred with Neanderthals gained in intellect. Leading to the even more unsettling conclusion that Neanderthals were smarter than Humans. If, also, Asians have higher IQ than Europeans, perhaps Peking Man was the smartest of all. (But you'd first have to jump over a 400,000-year discrepancy for that one.)
Neanderthals have always been portrayed as intellectually inferior to Anatomically Modern Humans (AMH) because they did make tools and such, they never attained a degree of sophistication to that of AMH when both were around.
Comparing IQ (a rather dubious measure of anything inherent) to brain size is problematic too because Neanderthals who were supposed to be less smart had bigger brains. This is one of the arguments I recall from College Anthro class .
So now that the recent preliminary reports from Max Planck DNA studies show that Eurasians might have a tiny bit of Neanderthal DNA,suddenly previous accepted thought has changed to now state Neanderthals must have gifted Eurasians with intellectual ability owing to bigger brain size.
The recent articles on Hybridization needs much more time and expert analysis. Even the authors caution against jumping to conclusions and acting on preconceived biases.
The recent articles on Hybridization needs much more time and expert analysis. Even the authors caution against jumping to conclusions and acting on preconceived biases.
I always pretty much ignore cautions against jumping to conclusions and acting on preconceived biases. I just do the expert analysis myself, which really cuts down a lot of that 'much more time". If I come out right more than half the time, I consider it a plus.
Didn't National Geographic or the History channel or Discovery have a program early this year about this very subject. I had planned to watch it, but something came up at the last minute and I didn't get a chance to set the VCR,....... but, if memory serves me correctly, the commercials for it suggested that maybe Neanderthals did survive and are living amongst us and mingling with our species. Did anyone see that program?
Oh, just go on over to your nearest Wal-Mart and take a look around - I'm not at all certain the Neanderthals are gone.
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