Posted on 08/20/2014 2:50:07 PM PDT by Fractal Trader
A new study concludes that modern humans arrived in Europe much earlier than previously believed, and clarifies more specifically the long time period they overlapped with Neanderthals.
The significant overlap bolsters a theory that the two species met, bred and possibly exchanged or copied vital toolmaking techniques. It represents another twist in an enduring puzzle about human origins: why we triumphed while the better adapted and similarly intelligent Neanderthals died out.
The study was published Wednesday in the journal Nature.
Neanderthals are our closest known extinct relatives, with about 99.5% of DNA in common with humans. They had a brain size similar to ours and much stronger bodies. They were also likely better adapted to Europe's bitter climate and had survived several ice ages. Modern humans, by contrast, arrived in Europe from sultry Africa.
Scientists have struggled to pinpoint when and how the Neanderthals disappeared in Europe. A big reason is that radiocarbon dating of material older than 30,000 years is unreliable because contamination of the samples can make them appear much younger.
A Neanderthal jaw from Zafaraya, Spain Thomas Higham An international team of scientists has now used improved techniques—including methods to remove contamination, plus more sophisticated chemical treatments—to more accurately date samples of bone, shell and charcoal dug up at 40 archaeological sites from Russia to Spain.
Neanderthals originally emerged from Africa and lived in Europe, Russia and the Middle East at least 200,000 years ago and possibly for tens of thousands of years before that.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Ping
If they couldn’t get it right the first time, why would I think they know now?
Is there a scientific source outside the financial community.
Nonsense.
Based on his initial failures then, Edison never came up with a workable lightbulb.
The article cites the journal “Nature”
>>Modern Humans Arrived in Europe Earlier Than Previously Thought<<
Yeah, but that just meant a longer wait in the Security lines..
If they were able to interbreed with the newcomers from Africa then they were not a different species, they were just another race of human.
lol...but electricity that wasn’t a theory, it was a practical test and solution to a problem.
Theories and speculations with holes in them the first time are usually not any better the second time around....or third etc.
my puter will not load the whole page. I'll keep looking. I thought it was interesting that they said King Tut was first Irish and then half of Europe was related to him.
Are we sure Laz DIDN'T hit it?
Like you say, someone had to interbreed.
Stupid puter still will not load the article.
Thanks.
Her hips don’t lie.
King Tut appears to be Celtic. This does not mean that his ancestors lived in Ireland. It means that the same people that Tut was descended from ultimately migrated there.
Regarding the argument that "Egyptians were Africans", agriculture was first developed somewhere around Iraq. I could see people spreading out from there in search of fertile farming land, finding the Nile valley, and displacing/killing any black Africans they found. Thus, while living in Africa, they would be no more "African" than the whites of South Africa.
Well, surprise, surprise, surprise.
Also, when estimating the contribution of neanderthals to the modern European genome, if 99.5% of genes are the same, what’s to say the contribution wasn’t larger than reported?
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