Posted on 02/15/2020 7:18:31 PM PST by SunkenCiv
Scientists examining the genomes of West Africans have detected signs that a mysterious extinct human species interbred with our own species tens of thousands of years ago in Africa, the latest evidence of humankind's complicated genetic ancestry.
The study indicated that present-day West Africans trace a substantial proportion, some 2% to 19%, of their genetic ancestry to an extinct human species – what the researchers called a "ghost population."
"We estimate interbreeding occurred approximately 43,000 years ago, with large intervals of uncertainty," said University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) human genetics and computer science professor Sriram Sankararaman, who led the study published this week in the journal Science Advances...
Previous genetic research showed that our species interbred with both the Neanderthals and Denisovans, with modern human populations outside of Africa still carrying DNA from both. But while there is an ample fossil record of the Neanderthals and a few fossils of Denisovans, the newly identified "ghost population" is more enigmatic...
Sankararaman said this extinct species seems to have diverged roughly 650,000 years ago from the evolutionary line that led to Homo sapiens, before the evolutionary split between the lineages that led to our species and to the Neanderthals.
The researchers examined genomic data from hundreds of West Africans including the Yoruba people of Nigeria and Benin and the Mende people of Sierra Leone, and then compared that with Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes. They found DNA segments in the West Africans that could best be explained by ancestral interbreeding with an unknown member of the human family tree that led to what is called genetic "introgression."
(Excerpt) Read more at dailysabah.com ...
The novel “Bone Labyrinth” by James Rollins postulates exactly this scenario, as the reason for “the great leap forward” in human intelligence.
Interesting thanks
My pleasure. The morphological approach classifies species by physical characteristics, and that's an approach that has more in common with, say, phrenology, than with any kind of meaningful scientific approach, IMHO. The DNA is an isolate in the population that was studied, in that the odd DNA doesn't exist in other populations, while a good chunk of these folks' DNA is common with the rest of the living humans.
“We estimate interbreeding occurred approximately 43,000 years ago, with large intervals of uncertainty...”
I didn’t realize that people got married way back then.
Didn't you read even the FIRST sentence of the excerpt?
Scientists examining the genomes of West Africans have detected signs that a mysterious extinct human species interbred with our own species tens of thousands of years ago in Africa, the latest evidence of humankind's complicated genetic ancestry.
Regards,
“..the guy in that painting has a pompadour..”
Must be an ancient Elvis gene.
He was referring to the included photograph of a much more recent 4000 cave painting. Why the publication’s editors allowed the inclusion of a photo of a 4000 yr old cave painting in THAILAND for an article on something that occurred several hundred thousands of years ago in AFRICA is the amusing thing. Apparently the editors did not read the article either.
well, they call us mainlanders ghosts in Hawaii so....
Graffiti....
Yeah, where’s Eraserhead when you need him?
Homo Heidelbergensis maybe?
from how they guessed age - sounds like mDNA not DNA
From last month:
“Our results indicate that at least two morphologically different Paleoindian populations were coexisting in Mexico between 12,000 to 8,000 years ago, one in Central Mexico and the other in the Yucatan Peninsula.
Skulls from ancient North Americans hint at multiple migration waves
‘What makes the four individuals from Mexico interesting is that none of them are quite alike. One resembles peoples from the Arctic, another has European features and one looks much like early South American skulls, while the last doesn’t share features with any one population.’
They found DNA segments in the West Africans that could best be explained by ancestral interbreeding with an unknown member of the human family tree that led to what is called The researchers examined genomic data from hundreds of West Africans including the Yoruba people of Nigeria and Benin and the Mende people of Sierra Leone, and then compared that with Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes.
They found DNA segments in the West Africans that could best be explained by ancestral interbreeding with an unknown member of the human family tree that led to what is called genetic "introgression."
Great! My African DNA is explained by: The researchers examined genomic data from hundreds of West Africans including the Yoruba people of Nigeria and Benin and the Mende people of Sierra Leone, and then compared that with Neanderthal and Denisovan genomes.
They found DNA segments in the West Africans that could best be explained by ancestral interbreeding with an unknown member of the human family tree that led to what is called genetic "introgression."
Didn’t erectus migrate to Asia? It must be an undiscovered species.
from the Helix, Make Mine a Double keyword:
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
