Posted on 08/16/2013 12:47:39 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
"The Neanderthal genetic component in the [Tianyuan] early modern human was likely due to interbreeding after early modern humans had left Africa and overlapped with Neanderthals in the Middle East, before splitting into separate groups heading toward what are now Europe and East Asia," explained Fu.
Fu and other scientists compared the DNA of the Tianyuan human with the genome of the now-extinct Neanderthal that the Max Planck Institute helped sequence and publish in 2010. The initial decoding of the Neanderthal genome and comparison with present-day populations around the world revealed that all contemporary humans outside of Africa carry a genetic component of up to 4 percent matching the Neanderthal's DNA; Fu said the Tianyuan individual displayed a similar proportion of "archaic admixture."
Erik Trinkaus, who led an earlier Tianyuan study, said the find helped prove that as they began expanding beyond Africa, "modern humans spread and mixed with regional groups of archaic humans – what we call Neanderthals."
An early advocate of the view that H. sapiens assimilated Neanderthals via gene flows in early encounters, Trinkaus said advocates of the alternative viewpoint – that modern humans completely "replaced" Neanderthals – were continuing a century-long prejudice against the sister species. More than 50,000 years ago, Neanderthals, like H. sapiens, transformed beach shells into decorative beads, painted them, and engaged in other forms of symbolic behavior, added Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist at Washington University in Missouri.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
I liked him on SNL.
I know a song about a mailman...
I recently saw a documentary where it was posited that Neanderthals were bred out of existence. Yepper...interbreeding killed ‘em. Now we know why there are so many stupid people in the world.
Pardon my ignorance, Civ, but I keep seeing the 4%-5% comparison written about. How is it possible that we supposedly share 98% of our DNA with chimps but only 4%-5% with another Homo species? Is it that we share 4-5% of the remaining 2%?
Of course, I’m of northern Euro ancestry with a bit of ginger coloring, ergo I’m just a simple caveman, not comprehending these modern theories... ;)
Why do you think they put Perlman in Quest For Fire?
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