Posted on 02/28/2003 3:48:16 AM PST by PatrickHenry
A routine construction dig has turned up a fossil skull that is giving scientists a better glimpse inside the head of our ancient predecessor, Homo erectus. According to a report published today in the journal Science, the find suggests that the H. erectus population that occupied the island of Java was isolated from other Asian populations and probably made only minimal genetic contributions to the ancestry of modern humans.
So far, more than 20 hominid skull fossils have been found at sites in Java. The latest, dubbed Sm 4 (see image), was recovered from the bed of the Solo River in central Java and is one of the largest yet discovered on the island. Hisao Baba of the University of Tokyo and his colleagues analyzed the skull, comparing it to previously discovered specimens. They found that Sm 4 shares certain characteristics, such as a flat top, with skulls dating to more than a million years ago. But Sm 4 also exhibits similarities to much younger fossils from Eastern Java--the shape of a nerve opening near the temple, for example. The researchers thus conclude that Sm 4 is an intermediary between earlier and later Javanese H. erectus. This suggests that the species lived on the island continuously for more than a million years, contrary to the hypothesis that distinct, consecutive migrations to the area occurred.
Sm 4 also presents the best look yet at a particular feature of H. erectus's head known as the cranial base, a bony shelf behind the eyes that helps support the brain. Using computer imaging to probe the skull's interior, the team found that its cranial base is surprisingly modern in being sharply angled, or flexed. This, the researchers note, suggests that the larger brains of modern humans evolved independent of changes to the support on which they rest.
LOL. You mean like the Egyptian Cocaine Mummies
"She discovered that the body of Henut Taui contained large quantities of cocaine and nicotine. The surprise was not just that the ancient Egyptians had taken drugs, but that these drugs come from tobacco and coca, plants completly unknown outside the Americas, unheard of until Sir Walter Raleigh introduced smoking from the New World, or until cocaine was imported in the Victorian era."
You mean straight up? Like perpendicular to the ground?
Ah. And what is the relationship between a woodpecker and a fruit bat? Be sure to explain your reasoning...
Another data point. A biggie. Outranks the pyramid shape. Donno what to make of it. Still, there should be more evidence. Perhaps it will turn up in due course.
Yes! And all their circles had 360 degrees. Ponder that one.
A common mistake. Below is an actual photo of a Carvillian skull.
Enough! If you keep this up I'll be a crop circle believer.
Haven't seen another mention of it...so, I don't know.
Nah. I don't do crop circles, UFO's, or any of the paranormal crap.
The obvious, none.(i.e. in a familial relationship, they both fly, breathe oxygen etc. etc.)
None? No relationship at all, save that they have some common elements or attributes?
Alas, nobody has yet posted the complete mitochondrial genome for woodpeckers yet. But they have for chickens, which I assume also have no relationship to bats. How, then, do we explain that chicken mitochondrial DNA is more similar to bat mitochondrial DNA than it is to mosquito mitochondrial DNA? How do common elements account for the degree of similarity? Don't the relative similarities suggest that chickens and bats are more closely related than chickens and mosquitos? Dare we posit the relative distance from common ancestors here, or is there some other way to account for the comparisons?
But don't take my word for it - take the accession numbers and do the pairwise BLAST yourself:
Gallus gallus (domestic chicken) - NC_001323
Artibeus jamaicensis (Jamaican fruit-bat) - NC_002009
Anopheles gambiae (African malaria mosquito) - NC_002084
The "same" way we explain that bat mitochondrial DNA is more similar to chicken mitochondrial DNA than chicken mitochondrial DNA is to bat mitochondrial DNA or that bat mitochondrial DNA is more similar to mosquito mitochondrial DNA than chicken mitochondrial DNA is to mosquito mitochondrial DNA.
And I wrote familial in the common sense of family.
Really? Why should it be so? Why are chickens and bats more similar to each other than to mosquitos, especially since we're talking mitochodrial DNA, and not the genome of the organisms themselves?
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