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Modern humans emerged more than 300,000 years ago new study suggests
EurekAlert! ^ | September 28, 2017 | Uppsala University

Posted on 09/29/2017 8:22:48 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

A genomic analysis of ancient human remains from KwaZulu-Natal revealed that southern Africa has an important role to play in writing the history of humankind. A research team from Uppsala University, Sweden, the Universities of Johannesburg and the Witwatersrand, South Africa, presents their results in the September 28th early online issue of Science.

The team sequenced the genomes of seven individuals who lived in southern Africa 2300-300 years ago. The three oldest individuals dating to 2300-1800 years ago were genetically related to the descendants of the southern Khoe-San groups, and the four younger individuals who lived 500-300 years ago were genetically related to current-day South African Bantu-speaking groups. "This illustrates the population replacement that occurred in southern Africa", says co-first author Carina Schlebusch, population geneticist at Uppsala University.

The authors estimate the divergence among modern humans to have occurred between 350,000 and 260,000 years ago, based on the ancient Stone Age hunter-gatherer genomes. The deepest split time of 350,000 years ago represents a comparison between an ancient Stone Age hunter-gatherer boy from Ballito Bay on the east coast of South Africa and the West African Mandinka. "This means that modern humans emerged earlier than previously thought", says Mattias Jakobsson, population geneticist at Uppsala University who headed the project together with Stone Age archaeologist Marlize Lombard at the University of Johannesburg.

The fossil record of east Africa, and in particular the Omo and Herto fossils have often been used to set the emergence of anatomically modern humans to about 180,000 years ago. The deeper estimate for modern human divergence at 350,000-260,000 years ago coincides with the Florisbad and Hoedjiespunt fossils, contemporaries of the small-brained Homo naledi in southern Africa. "It now seems that at least two or three Homo species occupied the southern African landscape during this time period, which also represents the early phases of the Middle Stone Age", says Marlize Lombard. It will be interesting to see in future if we find any evidence of interaction between these groups.

"We did not find any evidence of deep structure or archaic admixture among southern African Stone Age hunter-gatherers, instead, we see some evidence for deep structure in the West African population, but that affects only a small fraction of their genome and is about the same age as the deepest divergence among all humans", says Mattias Jakobsson.

The authors also found that all current-day Khoe-San populations admixed with migrant East African pastoralists a little over a thousand years ago. "We could not detect this widespread East African admixture previously since we did not have an un-admixed San group to use as reference. Now that we have access to ancient DNA of people who lived on the landscape before the East African migration, we are able to detect the admixture percentages in all San groups. The admixture percentages in the Khoekhoe, historically identified as pastoralists, are higher than previously estimated", says Carina Schlebusch.

Of the Iron Age individuals, three carry at least one Duffy null allele, protecting against malaria, and two have at least one sleeping-sickness-resistance variant in the APOL1 gene. The Stone Age individuals do not carry these protective alleles. "This tells us that Iron Age farmers carried these disease-resistance variants when they migrated to southern Africa", says co-first author Helena Malmström, archaeo-geneticist at Uppsala University.

Marlize Lombard said that "archaeological deposits dating to the time of the split by 350,000-260,000 years ago, attest to South Africa being populated by tool-making hunter-gatherers at the time. Although human fossils are sparse, those of Florisbad and Hoedjiespunt are seen as transitional to modern humans." These fossils may therefore be ancestral to the Ballito Bay boy and other San hunter-gatherers who lived in southern Africa 2000 years ago.

The transition from archaic to modern humans might not have occurred in one place in Africa but in several, including southern Africa and northern Africa as recently reported. "Thus, both palaeo-anthropological and genetic evidence increasingly points to multiregional origins of anatomically modern humans in Africa, i.e. Homo sapiens did not originate in one place in Africa, but might have evolved from older forms in several places on the continent with gene flow between groups from different places", says Carina Schlebusch.

"It is remarkable that we can now sequence entire genomes of ancient human remains from tropical areas, such as the southeast coast of South Africa", says Helena Malmström. This is promising for our several ongoing investigations in Africa.

Cumulatively these findings shed new light on our species' deep African history and show that there is still much more to learn about our process of becoming modern humans and that the interplay between genetics and archaeology has an increasingly important role to play.


TOPICS: History; Science
KEYWORDS: anthropology; genetics; humans; science
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To: Bryanw92

Most of these old bones are found in caves, under rock overhangs and other sheltered places that are unsuitable for agriculture or cities. That’s true in Africa and Europe.


21 posted on 09/30/2017 5:58:55 PM PDT by WatchungEagle
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To: txnativegop

You sure can. When genes that have evolved for tens of thousands of years in isolation enter a population, the results are not subtle. It does not take a large sample size to see this. One genome before and one after is enough to see it clearly.


22 posted on 09/30/2017 6:02:21 PM PDT by WatchungEagle
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

But it wasn’t until we got that 2% Neanderthal DNA that we got great.


23 posted on 09/30/2017 6:02:40 PM PDT by MUDDOG
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To: WatchungEagle

Thanks


24 posted on 09/30/2017 6:13:20 PM PDT by txnativegop (The political left, Mankinds intellectual hemlock)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; decimon; 1010RD; 21twelve; 24Karet; ...
The team sequenced the genomes of seven individuals who lived in southern Africa 2300-300 years ago. The three oldest individuals dating to 2300-1800 years ago were genetically related to the descendants of the southern Khoe-San groups, and the four younger individuals who lived 500-300 years ago were genetically related to current-day South African Bantu-speaking groups...
IOW, unless there's some additional, coherent evidence, the conclusion makes no sense. It's nice to see the Khoe-San language speakers (the click languages) were in the south at one time. According to John McWhorter ("The Story of Language" lecture series), the isolated click language survivals in the north suggest that the Khoe-San groups came from there, then were displaced. Thanks 2ndDivisionVet.

25 posted on 10/01/2017 5:24:03 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: Godebert
The research adds to a growing body of evidence suggesting that sexual rendezvous between different archaic human species may not have been unusual.
Heh, only a bunch of geeks would miss that one for so long. ;^) Thanks for that link!
26 posted on 10/01/2017 5:26:40 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (www.tapatalk.com/groups/godsgravesglyphs/, forum.darwincentral.org, www.gopbriefingroom.com)
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To: SunkenCiv

Thank you. It’s great getting your pings again. Love the topics. I rarely reply but always read.


27 posted on 10/01/2017 6:18:43 PM PDT by Duchess47 ("One day I will leave this world and dream myself to Reality" Crazy Horse)
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To: SunkenCiv; 2ndDivisionVet; blam; All

Unless I am misreading something the conclusion does make sense. I thought the San groups were still in the Kalahari region of southern Africa, but have mostly been displaced elsewhere by Bantu speaking groups who pushed them out to the most marginal land when they spread from northern Africa down to the south. The fame of the Zulu warriors was partly a result of this particularly successful warrior tribe’s push into South Africa several centuries ago. Other small people were also pushed into more difficult areas like the pygmies into the deep jungle areas. I suspect that both San and pygmy were once much more wide spread until displaced by the BIG boys. It also seems there was a large gap between the two groups tested. 1800 years ago to 500 years ago. A lot of movement and displacing can take place in 1300 years.


28 posted on 10/02/2017 2:06:29 AM PDT by gleeaikin
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To: RJS1950; pepsionice; 2ndDivisionVet
RJS1950: "Based on centuries of observed behavior it is apparent that modern man walked out of Africa...and left the stupid behind."

pepsionice: "In this case, you likely have one tribal unit of a dozen folks, led by ‘Larry’, who got peeved with living conditions, the heat, and continued warfare between other tribes (which is obvious even today)."

Oh, we can do better than that...

Our ancestors who left Africa were the losers, they got beat up by bigger, faster, smarter & meaner rivals and ran off with their "tails" between thier legs.
But then something happened -- in their long travels across the globe, those who weren't big enough, fast enough, smart enough, mean enough (and should I add: good looking enough?), they didn't make it and so, on average, the exiled tribes & clans slowly increased in those qualities.

Today of course everything is reversed, but that's a whole different story...

29 posted on 10/02/2017 3:23:23 AM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective...)
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To: Bryanw92; 2ndDivisionVet; Fungi; WatchungEagle
Bryan92: "Assumptions based on assumptions, layered with assumptions and topped off with lots of assumptions."

Exactly, hypotheses & confirmed theories supported by innumerable data points, but still built on assumptions which cannot be proved and could be false.

In all of this, science does not require belief, but it does need at least a temporary suspension of disbelief.
So read it the same way you would a great work of fiction.
We can still admire what we don't accept as fact.

30 posted on 10/02/2017 3:36:11 AM PDT by BroJoeK (a little historical perspective...)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Interesting stuff.


31 posted on 10/02/2017 10:33:36 AM PDT by ZULU (DITCH MITCH!!! DUMP RYAN!! DROP DEAD MCCAIN!! KIM FATTY the THIRD = Kim Jung Un)
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