Except Africans, all are Neanderthals

S.A.M.

S.A.M.

uniquely dreadful
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Researchers have found that non-African populations have between 1-4% Neanderthal DNA

The researchers arrived at that conclusion by studying genetic data from 1,983 individuals from 99 populations in Africa, Europe, Asia, Oceania and the Americas. Sarah Joyce, a doctoral student working with Long, analyzed 614 microsatellite positions, which are sections of the genome that can be used like fingerprints. She then created an evolutionary tree to explain the observed genetic variation in microsatellites. The best way to explain that variation was if there were two periods of interbreeding between humans and an archaic species, such as Homo neanderthalensis or H. heidelbergensis.

"This is not what we expected to find," says Long.

Using projected rates of genetic mutation and data from the fossil record, the researchers suggest that the interbreeding happened about 60,000 years ago in the eastern Mediterranean and, more recently, about 45,000 years ago in eastern Asia. Those two events happened after the first H. sapiens had migrated out of Africa, says Long. His group didn't find evidence of interbreeding in the genomes of the modern African people included in the study.

The researchers suggest that the population from the first interbreeding went on to migrate to Europe, Asia and North America. Then the second interbreeding with an archaic population in eastern Asia further altered the genetic makeup of people in Oceania.
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P.S.

The ancient mitochondrial DNA came from a piece of finger bone, which the groups haven't identified by species. It could be Neanderthal, a new Homo species or some other archaic form — like H. erectus, who spread to Oceania by 1.8 million years ago.

The Pääbo team reported that the bone was from an individual that lived 30,000–48,000 years ago in Denisova Cave, near where both modern humans and Neanderthals then dwelled. But the age of the bone has been questioned by researchers, who say the cave's sediments may have been reworked, making the bone's layer older.
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http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100420/full/news.2010.194.html

Anyone wanna add to this?
 
This was in the Washington Post on May 10. It's been a couple of years since geneticists identified bits of DNA in Europeans indicating that their ancestors had interbred with an outside population that was probably not H. sapiens. H. Neanderthalensis was the obvious suspect since Europe was their major population center. Since then, Neanderthal DNA has been studied in more detail as DNA analysis technology continues to become faster, cheaper and more precise.

I spent yesterday afternoon in the new permanent Hall of Human Origins exhibit in the National Museum of Natural History, part of the Smithsonian Institute which is on federal land and heavily subsidized by the U.S. government. Many of us suspect the exhibit was motivated as an "official" centerpiece, right in the center of the nation's capital, to overshadow the Creation "Science" Museum built a few years ago in Kentucky (the nation's backwoods) as the centerpiece of the Religious Redneck Retard Revival.

The exhibits went into considerable detail on the latest research into our ancestral lines. It is now established that H. neanderthalensis descended from the European population of H. heidelbergensis. It is likely, but not yet proven, that H. sapiens is descended from that species's population in southern Africa. H. heidelbergensis was a short-lived transitional species from H. erectus, the first species in genus Homo, a highly successful species that survived for something like 800,000 years and was briefly contemporary with the first sapiens.

Due to the drastic weather fluctuations and their effect on the food supply, our species very nearly became extinct about 75KYA. There were fewer than 10,000 adults left alive to start over. Fortunately, the first successful migration out of Africa occurred 60KYA, making us more difficult to kill off.

However, the exhibit included several sapiens skulls, dated to 100KYA, that were excavated in Israel. They had more prominent brow-ridges than ours, clearly an older bloodline yet sapiens nonetheless. It didn't give an explanation for how they got there, 40,000 years before the first successful colonies were established outside of Africa. Perhaps the answer is simply that it was not a successful colony and left no descendants. Considering that curiosity and adventure is one of the hallmarks of our species, I've always presumed that people must have tried walking out of Africa before, and simply did not survive.
 
I have you know that I embrace my neanderthal ancestors, and insist that they had bigger brains, which I inherited. So there!
 
Skeptical said:
I have you know that I embrace my neanderthal ancestors, and insist that they had bigger brains, which I inherited. So there!
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Stephen Hawking's brain is the same size as the brain of the fellow down the street who has trouble remembering how to tie his shoes. So I wouldn't get too worked up over that! There are plenty of other factors besides brain size that influence intelligence.
 
superstring01 said:
Ooh-ooh. Ahh-ahh. . .

grunt.
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I realise this is an attempt at humour, but it raises an interesting bit of science. It’s common in pop culture to depict Neanderthals as grunting sub-humanoids. But research suggests this might not have been the case. Sequencing of some Neanderthal DNA from bones suggests Neanderthals may have been capable of speech at a comparable level to that of humans.

The scientists managed to extract and analyse DNA from fossil bones of two Neanderthals found in Spain. From the extracted DNA they isolated and sequenced a gene known as FOXP2. The FOXP2 gene is the only gene so far known to influence human speech. Humans with mutations in the gene have impaired speech. The researchers showed that the two Neanderthals studied had FOXP2 variants identical to modern humans. That doesn’t necessarily mean Neanderthals spoke as we do, because many genes presumably influence speech. But “from the point of view of the one gene we know, there’s nothing to say that Neanderthals were different from us” in their language abilities, said one of the lead authors.

Reference:
The derived FOXP2 variant of modern humans was shared with Neandertals.
Krause et al.
Current Biology 17, 1908-1912. (2007)
 
Doesn't anyone find the fact that it is mitochondrial DNA significant?
 
Hercules Rockefeller said:
I realise this is an attempt at humour, but it raises an interesting bit of science. It’s common in pop culture to depict Neanderthals as grunting sub-humanoids.
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Jean Auel, in her well-researched series of Earth's Children novels (beginning with Clan of the Cave Bear) wrote at a time when it was taken for granted that the Neanderthal brain did not have a speech center. She got around that by giving them a very sophisticated sign language.

Millions of deaf people communicate quite elaborately in various national sign languages. Gallaudet University here in Washington is run exclusively by and for the nearly or totally deaf and it turns out some real scholars. Has anyone researched the ways in which their brains process language? Do they use their speech center and do real-time translation back and forth into signs, or written words? Or do they use a different part of their brains?

After all, two other species of Great Ape (chimpanzee and gorilla) have been successfully taught to communicate in American Sign Language, and at least one taught it to her own child. Their vocabulary isn't large, but there's no question that they are actually using language and observing grammar and syntax, not merely mimicking like a kookaburra or learning single words like a dog. (The first time Koko saw a zebra she told her handler, "Look! A white tiger.") How do these cousins of ours process language?

Speech is a very efficient way to communicate, but it's very complicated. We have muscles and range of motion in our mouths and throats that no other mammals have. Perhaps most of the speech center is occupied in simply operating those muscles, rather than encoding and decoding sentences. Like many people, my father had a stroke and could no longer talk, but he could still write and had no trouble understanding speech.

I have a friend who stutters, but he can sing, and he speaks flawless French. Speech seems to be a rather complicated phenomenon.
But research suggests this might not have been the case. Sequencing of some Neanderthal DNA from bones suggests Neanderthals may have been capable of speech at a comparable level to that of humans.
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The Hall of Human Origins, a new permanent exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, acknowledges this new data and says that Neanderthals may have had language. After all, as anthropologists and linguists are quick to point out, it challenges the imagination to wonder how Neanderthals (or even the early H. sapiens) could have exhibited the astounding level of planning, cooperation and organization their societies had, without being able to "talk" in some way.
That doesn’t necessarily mean Neanderthals spoke as we do, because many genes presumably influence speech. But “from the point of view of the one gene we know, there’s nothing to say that Neanderthals were different from us” in their language abilities, said one of the lead authors.
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At each point where a key transition from an ancestral species to our species took place--3-D vision, locking kneecaps, heavier brain, inability to digest raw vegetables, etc.--the exhibit provided a list of its advantages and disadvantages. In addition to the speech center in the brain and the extra muscles in the mouth, speech also requires a differently shaped and positioned voicebox than the other apes have. The disadvantage of this is that we, unlike virtually all other mammals, cannot breathe and swallow at the same time. (Babies can, and their voicebox moves down as they grow older.)

So the question becomes one of anatomy: where is the Neanderthal voicebox located?
 
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