On the other hand where would we be without banjo players.
Posted on 11/29/2013 7:51:37 AM PST by Pharmboy
CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Nov. 28 (UPI) -- Humans lived for thousands of years in small, isolated populations and resulting inbreeding shaped the course of human evolution, a U.S. researcher says.
Research suggests the severe inbreeding may have created many health problems and the small populations were likely a barrier to the development of complex culture and technologies, NewScientist.com reported Thursday.
David Reich of Harvard Medical School in Boston -- who has sequenced the genome of Neanderthals and that of another extinct human, the Denisovans -- said both species were severely inbred due to small populations.
"Archaic populations had low genetic diversity, really extraordinarily low," he said. "It's among the lowest diversity of any organism in the animal kingdom."
The DNA of one Neanderthal, obtained from a toe bone, had almost no diversity in about one-eighth of the genome -- both copies of each gene were identical.
That suggests the individual's parents were half-siblings, Reich said.
(Excerpt) Read more at upi.com ...
The genetic defect known as ‘liberalism’ can probably be traced back to this.
On the other hand where would we be without banjo players.
Hmmm. Wonder to what degree other primates are inbred.
Explains Barney Frank.
It would have been exceedingly common. Even in the Bible, the lineage of the Patriarchs was either inbreeding or what we would consider very close to inbreeding.
Abraham and Sarah: half-siblings
Isaac and Rebekah: second cousins
Jacob and his wives, Leah and Rachel: first cousins and his wives were full sisters
Not exactly a lot of genetic mixing going on.
The beginning of low information voters.
Nothing to see here. Move along.
In the beginning, how could inbreeding not have been a factor?
Excellent question. The great apes also live in small populations. One difference between them and us, though, is the increased sexual activity of our species and likely the pre-human species too.
kinda like duh....
But be patient, it takes a while to get there. Reminded me of the old days of a twisted pair and a dial-up.
True enough, but this is often not discussed.
Adam + Eve
\ /
+? +? +? +?
later....
Noah + Wife
\ /
+? +? +? +?
“Archaic populations had low genetic diversity, really extraordinarily low,” he said. “It’s among the lowest diversity of any organism in the animal kingdom.”
Hmm... I wonder why that might be. It’s almost as if there was some event that wiped out nearly every human, while multiples of most animal species were preserved.
Here's an excerpt from the New Scientist article:
Fossils suggest the inbreeding took its toll, says Erik Trinkaus of Washington University in St Louis, Missouri. Those he has studied have a range of deformities, many of which are rare in modern humans. He thinks such deformities were once much more common (PLoS ONE, doi.org/p6r).
Perhaps this is the reason that monsters, gnomes, etc., are so common in our folklore and myths. They used to be much more common in our populations.
There is a genetic bottleneck that goes back about 5,000 years. Something happened.
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