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Stone Age toe could redraw human family tree
http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/mg21128254.000-stone-age-toe-could-redraw-human-family-tree.html ^ | Wednesday, August 10, 2011 | Colin Barras

Posted on 08/12/2011 5:44:04 AM PDT by SunkenCiv

The Denisova cave had already yielded a fossil tooth and finger bone, in 2000 and 2008. Last year, Pääbo's DNA analysis suggested both belonged to a previously unknown group of hominins, the Denisovans. The new bone, an extremely rare find, looks likely to belong to the same group...

The primitive morphology of the 30,000 to 50,000-year-old Denisovan finger bone and tooth indicates that Denisovans separated from the Neanderthals roughly 300,000 years ago. At the time of the analysis, Pääbo speculated that they came to occupy large parts of east Asia at a time when Europe and western Asia were dominated by Neanderthals. By 40,000 years ago, Homo sapiens was also moving around much of the region. But the Denisovans remain known only from the finger and tooth fossils -- not enough information to formally assign them to their own species.

That may change with analysis of the newly discovered toe bone. It was found in the same layer of the cave floor as the finger bone, by Maria Mednikova at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow... her studies show the finger and toe bones belonged to distinct people. In addition, the toe bone is stocky and its shape is somewhere between that of a modern human and a typical Neanderthal.

Others are less convinced. Erik Trinkaus at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, who has written extensively on hominin foot bone morphology, says the bone's sturdy appearance is interesting but inconclusive from a taxonomic perspective... Pääbo is fast building a reputation for revealing Homo sapiens' promiscuous past. He has shown that humans and Neanderthals interbred, as did humans and Denisovans.

(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...


TOPICS: History; Science; Travel
KEYWORDS: denisovans; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; multiregionalism; neandertal; neandertals; neanderthal; neanderthals; sourcetitlenoturl
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To: SunkenCiv
20 posts and no Helen Thomas picture yet?
Wow, this place is slipping.
21 posted on 08/12/2011 7:42:57 AM PDT by HereInTheHeartland (I love how the FR spellchecker doesn't recognize the word "Obama")
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To: SunkenCiv
>>> Stone Age toe could redraw human family tree

And just imagine the excitement when they find the nose.


22 posted on 08/12/2011 7:45:33 AM PDT by tlb
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To: SunkenCiv
It has been said...

Pääbo is very wily.
23 posted on 08/12/2011 7:45:54 AM PDT by Tainan (Cogito, Ergo Conservitus.)
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To: Sawdring

:) I would say it’s in my top five as well!

‘Blazing Saddles’ is #1.


24 posted on 08/12/2011 7:53:43 AM PDT by Constitution Day
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To: SunkenCiv

Very much so!


25 posted on 08/12/2011 8:03:02 AM PDT by Constitution Day
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To: mountainlion

That’s just B.S.


26 posted on 08/12/2011 8:35:13 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Yes, as a matter of fact, it is that time again -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: decimon

:'D
Google

27 posted on 08/12/2011 8:37:34 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Yes, as a matter of fact, it is that time again -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: tlb

That was predicted by Nostrildamus.


28 posted on 08/12/2011 8:38:35 AM PDT by SunkenCiv (Yes, as a matter of fact, it is that time again -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: SunkenCiv

Sounds like a Russian Piltdown Man.


29 posted on 08/12/2011 8:48:24 AM PDT by pabianice (")
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To: bert

One bone does not a species make

One tooth made Nebraska man! At least until it turned into a pig tooth.


30 posted on 08/12/2011 8:50:47 AM PDT by mountainlion (I am voting for Sarah after getting screwed again by the DC Thugs.)
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To: adorno

I’ve heard speculation that the Elephant Man might have been a one-of and had Elepahnt Man’s Desease. Because his skeleton was boiled before it went on display, no DNA remains. Too bad.


31 posted on 08/12/2011 8:51:20 AM PDT by pabianice (")
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To: SunkenCiv

“has written extensively on hominin foot bone morphology” - another damn graffiti artist.


32 posted on 08/12/2011 9:15:41 AM PDT by blueunicorn6 ("A crack shot and a good dancer")
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To: SunkenCiv
One of my favorite sites is Technology Review by MIT. I like hard science. Global warming, environmentalism and for the most part evolution are more hype than fact. They are theory built on theory on theory... Fraud and hoax damage the science in these areas. Hard science can be repeated over and over. Theory is easily replaced by another theory.
33 posted on 08/12/2011 9:24:27 AM PDT by mountainlion (I am voting for Sarah after getting screwed again by the DC Thugs.)
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Donate Just One
Each Month if You Will

34 posted on 08/12/2011 11:30:35 AM PDT by TheOldLady (FReepmail me to get ON or OFF the ZOT LIGHTNING ping list.)
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To: adorno

I always thought they should have remains of at least a couple of individuals from different locations before they start naming species.


35 posted on 08/12/2011 2:36:55 PM PDT by ThanhPhero (Khach hanh huong den La Vang)
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To: mountainlion

Science is a method, not a body of knowledge. It’s a very good method for figuring out things formerly unknown via the syllogism.

OTOH, global warming is entirely political in origin and is sustained by politics only.


36 posted on 08/13/2011 7:35:42 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Yes, as a matter of fact, it is that time again -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: pabianice; mountainlion

Piltdown Man was a deliberate fraud; Nebraska Man wasn’t a fraud, it was a misidentification that wasn’t used to argue in favor of a primitive American hominid by its discoverer, or by anyone else until so-called creationists created the straw man version of Nebraska Man. That happened because creationism is, like global warming, a political scam being passed off as science.

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html
http://members.cox.net/ardipithecus/evol/lies/lie020.html


37 posted on 08/13/2011 7:42:40 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (Yes, as a matter of fact, it is that time again -- https://secure.freerepublic.com/donate/)
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To: SunkenCiv
I choose Creationism. I have personal experience in the supernatural and there is something there that can not be explained by evolution. I choose to believe that I came form God and have hope for a good afterlife and not hopelessness of coming from green slime with no hope or direction.
38 posted on 08/14/2011 7:15:30 AM PDT by mountainlion (I am voting for Sarah after getting screwed again by the DC Thugs.)
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