Posted on 10/19/2013 6:11:16 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
In 2010, a small bone fragment of a finger bone was discovered in Denisova cave in the Altai Mountains of Asia. Later genetic analysis indicated that it belonged to a heretofore unknown ancient human species, named Denisovans, and that their DNA is still present in native populations of Australia, New Guinea and surrounding regions. There is a distinct, and puzzling, absence of the DNA in Asian populations.
...Alan Cooper of the University of Adelaide in Australia and Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in the UK are suggesting that the DNA presence could be the result of the Denisovans crossing over the deep oceanic marine barrier of Wallaces Line, a biogeographic gap that is so significant that it defines the division between European and Asian mammals on its west and marsupial-dominated Australasia on its east.
"In mainland Asia, neither ancient human specimens, nor geographically isolated modern indigenous populations have Denisovan DNA of any note, indicating that there has never been a genetic signal of Denisovan interbreeding in the area," says Professor Cooper, Director of the University of Adelaide's Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. "The only place where such a genetic signal exists appears to be in areas east of Wallace's Line and that is where we think interbreeding took place -- even though it means that the Denisovans must have somehow made that marine crossing."
"The conclusions we've drawn are very important for our knowledge of early human evolution and culture," says Stringer. "Knowing that the Denisovans spread beyond this significant sea barrier opens up all sorts of questions about the behaviours and capabilities of this group, and how far they could have spread."
(Excerpt) Read more at popular-archaeology.com ...
I can see how that would be puzzling.
With this and the Hobbit discoveries, I think that there were quite a few more unknown ancient human species running around the planet at the same time that our direct ancestors were here than we now know about.
:’)
It seems they left out another possible solution, which is that the ancestor of the Australoid aborigines bred with the Denisovans BEFORE the Australoids crossed the Wallace line.
We KNOW the Australiods did—that is why they’re found in Austraila, New Guinea, the Solomons, etc. They had to have used boats to get there in the first place.
East Asians moved from the interior of Asia into Southeast Asia at the glacial maximum—in the Sundaland and East China land masses that are now underwater. They drove the Australiods into Australia.
The racial characteristics of East Asians—thick hair, eye folds, paler skin color, seem to point to an origination in a dry, cold sunless climate, where the Australiods originated in a hot, sunny area. In other words, East Asians came from the far North and displaced the Australiods living in Southeast Asia and Indonesia.
is that like the sound barrier?
lol
I've read that the dna from this little piece of bone has had a more thorough dna analysis than any other bone anywhere.
In the process of studying the hell out of that DNA, the bone fragment has vanished, existing now only as the archive of genetic data.
Aboriginal folklore leads to meteorite crater
COSMOS | 07 Jan 2010 | Aaron Cook
Posted on 01/12/2010 9:59:26 AM PST by Palter
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2426645/posts?page=11#11
Sounds like a sound argument.
Yup.
I failed to mention that the same article said that the entire bone was completely consumed in the analysis process.
It's a miracle that it was ever found.
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