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New Hominid Denisova Siberia?
This discussion has been closed.
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Message 1.Â
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Thursday, 25th March 2010
Any comments from the knowledgeables? lol beeble?
Or is it too early for comments?
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 2
Posted by somewhatsilly (U14315357) on Thursday, 25th March 2010
I happened to catch an good segment on this on 'Material World' this afternoon which I assume will be on iplayer or 'listen again'.
I haven't seen the full article yet but it seems only logical that the human tree must have had many more branches than we are presently aware of, given how long it's been around.
The question is, as ever, why are we the only branch extant? Is it coincidence that our species began to flourish culturally just as our relatives disappeared? I have this horrible suspicion that, as we became more self aware, developed extended complex social relationships, we began to see ourselves as different from the rest of the hominids so that, rather than regarding them as part of the totality of 'creation' and, yes sometimes bushmeat, we viewed them as 'other' and so ripe for total destruction.
I am aware of the various arguments for the extinction of the Neanderthals, climate change, less effective and supportive relationships, the human advantages of external symbolic storage and transfer etc but I still feel that something more sinister was, and still is, inherent in our make up.
With that cheery thought.......
ferval -
Message 3
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Friday, 26th March 2010
Re: Message 2.
ferval,
thanks for the reply. About the Neanderthal extinction: we discussed it already once in the thread:
Neanderthal genes?
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 4
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Monday, 29th March 2010
Paul:
I think that there isn't enough material so far to decide if this a new species or a new race or what, only a small samople, and a juvenile at that, which complicates it. Interesting but inconclusive, I think. -
Message 5
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Tuesday, 30th March 2010
The mtDNA differs from Neanderthal And Homo sapiens.
It is probably best classified as a new genetic lineage,not a new species.Although the article and the supplementary data contain considerable information,the full mtDNA sequence has sequence has not been released as of this date.So it is difficult to make too many assumptions.This new lineage appears to predate Neanderthals and Homo sapiens.It may have originated in Africa or China???We do not have any DNA for the early modern humans ,who inhabited Skhul Cave in the Levant ca 120-80Ka.It could be a hybrid mtDNA between Homo sapiens and ancient occupants of the area [blatant speculation].We need more samples.You can download the supplementary information from Nature for free.There are probably many new ancient lineages to be identified in Eurasia. -
Message 6
Posted by baz (U14258304) on Wednesday, 31st March 2010
I saw a programme on tv many years ago which said that if the toe next to your big toe is longer than your big toe, you have Neanderthal genes.
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Message 7
Posted by bandick (U14360315) on Wednesday, 31st March 2010
I’ve heard the same about people with Red Hair.
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Message 8
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Thursday, 1st April 2010
Paul, interesting isn't it. It's been quite an active few weeks for reports on Eurasian hominids what with the publication of the excavation of stone tools found on Flores in layers over a million years old, potentially pushing human activity on the island back another two hundred thousand years. It is too early to reach any firm conclusion except possibly that the interpretation of the remains as belonging to a new species is premature. The research team from the Max Planck Institute have made no such claim, just that the mitochondrial DNA appears to show a significant degree of variation from both modern DNA and the limited number of Neanderthal individuals that have so far been sequenced.
Perhaps the most crucial advances lie in the refinement of techniques used to extract and amplify the genetic material that has allowed for an increasingly detailed study of ancient genetic material. Questions arise due to the way the extracted material has been anylysed. The proportion of difference between this individual as well as Neanderthal Mitochondrial sequences have been compared to modern humans and chimpanzees that for the sake of the study are considered to have diverged six million years ago. Assuming that variations in proteins in Mitochondrial DNA occur at a uniform rate it should therefore be possible to plot where the divergence between ancient DNA and the modern genome stems from based upon the degree of difference between the ancient lineages and the two modern genomes. Thus the new lineage appears to show a divergence of around one million years ago. This is approximately half a million years older, give or take a couple of hundred thousand years, than the calculated divergence between the Neanderthal sequences and the modern population. This has lead to the provisional suggestion that this should be interpreted as possible evidence for a previously unknown migration out of Africa. In turn some have arrived at the more sensationalist claim for the discovery of a whole new species.
That the method of comparison has such a wide degree of standard deviation, amounting to a possible difference of hundreds of thousands of years could easily negate the apparent discrepancy and need not rule out hominid migrations that we are at least partially familiar with. Not only that but the the asumption that there is a constant rate of change in Mitochondrial DNA has been challenged by work on other species that live in cold environments. It would seem that Mitochondrial DNA is linked to the metabolism and that variation over time accumulate faster in colder environments so comparing lines derived from species that have spent much of their existence in tropical environments with those derived from populations in more temperate environments at higher lattitudes would further skew the results. As it stands there would appear to be plenty of opportunity for refining the calibration of these results.
Populations within a species can demonstrate a large degree of lineal diversity across their range, both in terms of the time and location of their origin. The individual could even be a modern human although the loss of a particular Mitochondrial line from a growing population has been described as highly unlikely and would seem to be rather careless on our species' part. Much as in intelligence gathering it is preferable to have more than one source of information to draw conclusions from and in the absence of any fossils that display morphological features associated with this population, a lot will depend on what the nucleic DNA reveals.
Still there is nothing to stop us from speculating in the meantime. Circumstantial evidence suggesting that the finger was from a Neanderthal is still a distinct possibility given that there are other Neanderthal remains within the Altai mountains around the same time. Assuming that the analysis of the divergence is reasonably accurate, previous attempts to sequence Neanderthal DNA may have missed how deep the divergence between modern humans and groups of Neanderthal's actually ran due to a number of factors from the limited number of individual Neanderthal's that have provided genetic material; the chance of extracting DNA that shows the greatest degree of divergence amongst the fragments of preserved genetic material as well as the frequency of this particular lineage across the Neanderthal's range during their existence.
Even if it is not a Neanderthal it is still possible that the lineage may well have been present in the migrant population that was ancestral to Neanderthals before they left Africa, usually assumed to be Homo Heidlebergensis. Its disappearance from the rest of the descendents might therefore be accountable to genetic drift. Whether the lineage turns out to be from a a central Asian sub species of the descendents of the population that left Africa around half a million years ago or as a branch of Neanderthals then it would imply there was considerable impediment towards mobility in order to allow for the differentiation across Eurasia because the prolonged separation of the populations runs counter to the evidence that hominids were adept at going forth and multiplying. That said the glacial spells between four hundred thousand and one hundred and thirty thousand years ago would seem to be a prime candidate for isolating different bands of hominids.
There are other archaic hominids that we are vaguely aware but like the Homo Heidlebergensis have no genetic sequences with which to make a comparison because the environment their remains have traditionally been found in did not favour the preservation of DNA. East Asian archaic hominids, usually dubbed Asian Erectus, have been uncovered in both China and the Indian subcontinent. Most specimens are considerably older than the material found in the Denisova cave and they were believed to have become extinct before sixty thousand years ago. Furthermore East Asian hominids are also thought to have evolved from the Erectus populations that left Africa some two million years ago so the divergence between modern genetics and the Mitochondrial DNA of this individual does not sit easily with this assumption. If the Denisova individual was to be identified as being related to East Asian archaic hominids it would certainly imply just how much more complex than the simple model of dispersal and replacement the hominid story actually is and opens up the possibility of not only continued interaction between the continents during the lower and middle paleolithic but also the prospect of genetic exchange. -
Message 9
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Thursday, 1st April 2010
Baz, yes I was told that as a child. Not that there was any genetic material with which to justify the theory as the earliest extraction of DNA from Neanderthal remains only took place in 1998. It seems to have been more of a Romantic notion that Neanderthals and modern humans interbred. This is exemplified by moves in the 1970s and 80s to classify Neanderthals as a subspecies of modern human, describing them as Homo Sapiens Neanderthalis while the existing population were described as Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
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Message 10
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Sunday, 4th April 2010
Re: Message 8.
lol,
thank you very much for your elaborated reply. I read it with great interest and learned from it. Especially your last paragraph, which emphasizes how difficult archaeology is, but at the same time how fascinating too in the research for the place of our species in the emerging world of the past.
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 11
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Sunday, 4th April 2010
Re: Message 4 and 5.
Gil and Henvell,
thank you both for your comments and yes from all what I read and lol seems to confirm it is too early to make firm statements if they even ever could be made.
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul.
PS. Gil as an aside and I know it is ages ago that the subject "came on the table"...how is it with the monsters?...if I remember it well there was emerging a second monster?...they have to have now a certain age already?...and I agree it is more a subject for Therese's floating island...perhaps I jump in there once to discuss matters...or is it too "psychedelic" overthere?... -
Message 12
Posted by lolbeeble (U1662865) on Monday, 26th April 2010
Paul, following on from the suggestion that we may already be aware of the species in question. I read a few comments by Chris Stringer of the British Natural History Museum who suggested a link to the hominids found at Sima de los Huesos in the Atapuerca Mountains. Doesn't really make the situation any clearer but interesting none the less.
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Message 13
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Sunday, 2nd May 2010
Re: Message 12.
lol,
many excuses for the delay, but that busy last week.
Thank you very much for the link and will "investigate" as soon as possible.
And it don't stop. A "honest" contributor put this link on a French messageboard as start for a new discussion:
29
Just read the comments up to now but not yet investigated in depth.
lol, thanks again for not forgetting me.
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 14
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Friday, 24th December 2010
lol and others,
Read on my French messageboard something new about the Denisova man: It would be another species than the Neandertal and homo sapiens.
Have no time for the moment to give a translated survey and to seek for articles in English.
It is discussed in an article from the Max Planck institute Germany in March 2010.
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 15
Posted by mismatched (U14242423) on Friday, 24th December 2010
From the Ö÷²¥´óÐã News Site
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Message 16
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Monday, 27th December 2010
Yes, sounds like it could be H heidelbergensis or another offshoot in the way the Neanderthals seem to be. Interesting that it appears to have contributed DNA to some moderns.
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Message 17
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 29th December 2010
Addendum to message 14.
On that same French messageboard someone (not a scientist) asks why the scientists don't speak about the Homo Georgicus? And he asks also if the Homo Georgicus isn't a candidate for common anchestor of Neanderthal and Denisova?
I had never heard of the Homo Georgicus. After a quick research on Google I found out. I want to ask if someone speaks of Homo Georgicus, one can as good speak of Homo Erectus? I saw also now that recent research place the Homo Erectus and the Homo Habilis overlapping each other on the time table? Something is changing every month in the history of the human "pedigree"? Yes, and now you have those Israeli again "against?" the "out of Africa" theory????
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 18
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 29th December 2010
Paul:
If the indications of H heidelbergensis are correct, H georgicus is way off beam - that's pre-H erectus.
The recurrent problem is that there are two contending schools in human taxonony, splitters and lumpers. The lumpers gather loads of different types under one taxon, regarding neanderthalensis, sapiens, heidelbergensis, and all the intermediates between them as at most sub-species, whilst the splitters regard anything different (especially if they discovered it) as a different species. The gene survivals referred to above, IMHO, strengthen the hand of the lumpers. -
Message 19
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Wednesday, 29th December 2010
The new article reported on second or third molar that was found at the same level as the initial discovery.The authors retrieved DNA from the tooth and it belonged to another individual with similar mtDNA.So now there are two specimens.If the tooth is a second molar,it falls within the range of Homo erectus.It differs from modern humans and from Neanderthals.You can download this paper for free by visiting the lead authors website.
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Message 20
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 29th December 2010
Re: Message 18.
Gil,
thanks for the reply.
"whilst the splitters regard anything different (especially if they discovered it) as a different species."
I like the philosphical sentence: "especiallly if they discovered it".
Did some two hours research on the "net" and found all kind of sites, especially some you have to be careful. Found a promising timetable, but always try the "home" to see "what fish is in the kettle":
I have ommitted this sentence too to see if it passes the filter now.
Nevertheless also an American university site is one of the best (and I put it in my favourites) I ever read on this subject and very recent with the Homo Florensis in it:
I try now without this university link to see if my message pass the filter?
Kind regards old friend and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 21
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 29th December 2010
Addendum to previous message:
the university site was:
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 22
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 29th December 2010
Addendum to previous message.
Is the word "creatonism" forbidden on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã messageboards?
Kind regards,
Paul. -
Message 23
Posted by Sambista (U4068266) on Wednesday, 29th December 2010
Paul - thanks for the link, and it appears that the word got through this time!
Re your query about the Monsters - I'm currently working in the scholl where Senior M is Strategic Leader for the Foundation Stage (4-5 y.o.), which makes him my boss. Lesser M is now a graduate too - studied History, what else? - wut still working in a restaurant kitchen. -
Message 24
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 29th December 2010
Addendum to the previous message:
on my first message when I tried to post there was a message underneath:
"Your message contains a word, phrase or website address, which is blocked from being posted on this website. Please edit your message before trying to post again"
I guess it was the turning of a "phrase"....
KInd regards,
Paul. -
Message 25
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 29th December 2010
Re: Message 23.
Gil,
how kind of you to give some information again about your private life. It is a real Christmas present for me. It has to be some 8 years now since the time of the young "monsters"...
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 26
Posted by PaulRyckier (U1753522) on Wednesday, 29th December 2010
Re: Message 19.
Henvell,
thank you very much for the reply. Can you give the link of the article you mentioned? It seems that we can still give university links and all that, but some phrases that "can" be offensive for someone are to be avoided...
Kind regards and with esteem,
Paul. -
Message 27
Posted by henvell (U1781664) on Thursday, 30th December 2010
http//genetics.med.harvard.edu/reich/Reich_Lab/Welcome_files/2010_Nature_Deniso\va_Genome.pdf
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