Posted on 01/29/2015 1:26:30 PM PST by SunkenCiv
The discovery of a 55,000-year-old partial skull of a modern human in an Israeli cave, the first sighting of Homo sapiens in this time and place, offers skeletal evidence to support the idea that Neandertals and moderns mated in the Middle East between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago. What's more, the skull could belong to an ancestor of the modern humans who later swept across Europe and Asia and replaced the Neandertals.
The find supports a raft of recent genetic studies. A 2010 analysis, for example, found that up to 2% of the genomes of today's Europeans and Asians consist of Neandertal DNA, a clear sign of at least limited interbreeding in the past. Two years later, scientists compared ancient DNA extracted from Neandertal fossils to that of contemporary modern human populations around the world, concluding that this interbreeding took place in the Middle East, most likely between 47,000 and 65,000 years ago. And last year, a 45,000-year-old modern human found in Siberia, the oldest modern to have its genome sequenced, was revealed to have harbored a little more than 2% Neandertal DNA, allowing researchers to refine the interbreeding event to roughly 50,000 to 60,000 years ago.
From the Neandertal side, this time and place make sense. That's because numerous skeletons dated to that time period have been found in caves in Israel and other parts of the Middle East over the years, and Neandertals were still living in the region as late as 49,000 years ago. Yet the other side of this mating partnership has been conspicuously absent from the fossil record of the Middle East: Although modern humans from Africa appear to have ventured into some of these same caves as early as 120,000 years ago, none have been found after about 80,000 years.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.sciencemag.org ...
Well?
Guilty.
“As ancient astronaut theorists believe...”
Guilty.
No, it wasn’t all over FR and German newspapers a couple weeks ago.
That TEN YEAR OLD story — which was reposted on FR as if it were brand new — had to do with some allegedly falsified RC dates and misappropriation of artifacts by a German scientist.
IOW, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
That actually explains a lot.
Blame FR! which constantly puts up old articles without identifying the dates. Allegedly? Are you sure?
Reminds me of a girl I once dated.
It could be hit, especially if she were the last woman on Earth.
Why don’t you actually find it and read it for the first time.
She looks really hot at last call though.
“....probably Casino Du Liban.”
.
Don’t knock it unless you have seen a show there in the early 70’s.
Absolutely fantastic performance with about the most beautiful women.
This kind of thing is constantly evolving. (no pun intended)
No, Reid is directly related to Neandertals.
Ha!
Kind of attractive, but masculine.
Few samples are available from wide separate populations but...
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