Posted on 02/10/2010 12:57:13 PM PST by decimon
A few tufts of hair frozen in the permafrost of Greenland for more than 4,000 years have allowed scientists to sequence the genome of an ancient human for the first time.
The hairs belonged to a member of the ancient Saqqaq culture of Greenland, the first humans known to inhabit the icy island. Scientists have long wondered where the Saqqaq came from and whether or not they were the ancestors of today's modern Inuit and Greenlanders. The new findings, detailed in the Feb. 11 issue of the journal Nature, have helped to settle that question.
The hairs also tell about the individual, which scientist have dubbed "Inuk," meaning "human" or "man" in the Greenlandic language, giving us insight into what our ancient human ancestors looked like.
The results suggested Inuk was a male with brown eyes, dark skin, type A+ blood, shovel-shaped front teeth and was genetically predisposed to baldness and dry earwax. (Because Inuk clearly still had hair when he died, the scientists think he must have died young.) He also likely had a metabolism that was well-adapted to a cold climate.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Rush for iron spurred Inuit ancestors to sprint across Arctic, book contends
Vancouver Sun | February 8, 2010 | Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service
Posted on 02/10/2010 4:03:00 PM PST by SunkenCiv
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2448743/posts
Wow!! It’s the Rock.
This would mean they had to come after the land bridge closed. Makes me wonder what kind of a population of Inuks was there or was this guy part of a small band?
This fits the homogeneity of American Arctic languages; it also fits the fact that bodies of water haven’t posed obstacles to all our ancestors for at least 800K years.
For that remark, I plan to put earwax references in every GGG ping. ;’)
There’s another upcoming topic about naval lint among ancient seagoing peoples. It’s not just an old problem, it goes on as we speak wherever men, women, and children go down to the sea in ships. And the stuff doesn’t stay put, it winds up on the deck, and gets kicked under the bunks and stuff. That’s a collateral problem, as well as the basis for that classic movie, “Das Bunnies”.
That sounds like Henry Waxman’s grandfather.
“Which means, of course, if you are capable of producing both types you probably have the allele type antecedent to both the East Asian and the West Asian populations ~ and that would require a separation from either at least 15,000 years ago, or just a tad before the big meltdown of the glaciers.”
Could you please elaborate? A link would be fine, too.
We’ll have to wait for a link on this one. You did notice that the Japanese did an incredibly indepth study regarding dry earwax, and a small study on wet earwax. It will be a good while before they come up with the rest of it. At the moment they’ve only identified two alleles.
The best choice for that research would be the Pechanga river since hulls up to several thousand years old have been found in areas upstream.
The problem with two research here is three-fold ~ (1) Close proximity to the Russian submarine fleet, (2) Close proximity to the best (invasive species) Alaskan king crab fishing on Earth, and (3) Probably too much shipping in the region to make it easy.
Still, if there are wooden hulls 15,000 years old in the Arctic they should be here!
Male pattern baldness may be observed in numerous species of monkeys.
I hear that DNA scientists plan to use mammoth earwax to isolate their DNA and then clone them.
What do you hear?
Since the worms/clams that destroy wood hulled vessels don't live in the Arctic there's a chance some really ancient boats can be found just off the mouths of estuaries of rivers draining into the Arctic Ocean... Still, if there are wooden hulls 15,000 years old in the Arctic they should be here!Excellent suggestion!
High testosterone AND an inherent genetic make-up that causes a certain distribution of hairs on the crown to react to the DHT compound, by causing hair production to fall to a stop (the hair root becomes dormant, but doesn’t fall off), causes male pattern baldness.
Some scientists say that it is an evolutionary feature that was promoted when some women had an increased sexual preference for balded males, because they appear less aggressive and more mature, thus being indicative of stable partnerships.
I do not believe MPB is racially specific. Asians and Indo-Europeans have the trait.
“Das Bunnies”
I was taught that those were “Ghost Turds”.
M., are you referring to the area the Finns called Petsamo? If so, that indeed would be a very old port and trading post. Still, the Sov’s considered the area a military zone due to proximity to the NATO border. I don’t know what the Russians consider it. It would be a real coup to pull off some archeology there!
It's not that this area is near NATO, but that it's within the Russian zone of control and has all sorts of stuff of interest to the Russians.
There's a hotel in the area that appears to make all its money during the week before the crabbing season.
This is within the Murmansk Oblast and it has an ICE FREE PORT.
Turned out they could. In short order they became the top predator and pushed out over to Norwegian waters.
The Norwegians consider them an invasive species so they allow them to be trapped in unlimited quantities 24/7. The Russians view them as a valuable resource ~ particularly for export.
The result is the Russians feed them and the Norwegians give'em away.
The Pachenga River estuary is pretty close to the Norwegian border. Until about 1820 no one knew there was a border there.
To this outside Nikel, Russia, just across the border:
Fascinating contrast. The pollution of the nickel mine is astounding.
http://www.trentobike.org/Countries/Russia/Tour_Reports/Crossing_into_Russia/
Would be a great idea, although I’m not sure what the scientists would do with all that mammoth ear wax. /rimshot!
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