Posted on 07/18/2011 7:16:57 AM PDT by decimon
Some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals and is found exclusively in people outside Africa, according to an international team of researchers led by Damian Labuda of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Montreal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center. The research was published in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution.
"This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred," says Dr. Labuda. His team places the timing of such intimate contacts and/or family ties early on, probably at the crossroads of the Middle East.
Neanderthals, whose ancestors left Africa about 400,000 to 800,000 years ago, evolved in what is now mainly France, Spain, Germany and Russia, and are thought to have lived until about 30,000 years ago. Meanwhile, early modern humans left Africa about 80,000 to 50,000 years ago. The question on everyone's mind has always been whether the physically stronger Neanderthals, who possessed the gene for language and may have played the flute, were a separate species or could have interbred with modern humans. The answer is yes, the two lived in close association.
"In addition, because our methods were totally independent of Neanderthal material, we can also conclude that previous results were not influenced by contaminating artifacts," adds Dr. Labuda.
Dr. Labuda and his team almost a decade ago had identified a piece of DNA (called a haplotype) in the human X chromosome that seemed different and whose origins they questioned. When the Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010, they quickly compared 6000 chromosomes from all parts of the world to the Neanderthal haplotype. The Neanderthal sequence was present in peoples across all continents, except for sub-Saharan Africa, and including Australia.
"There is little doubt that this haplotype is present because of mating with our ancestors and Neanderthals. This is a very nice result, and further analysis may help determine more details," says Dr. Nick Patterson, of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, a major researcher in human ancestry who was not involved in this study.
"Dr. Labuda and his colleagues were the first to identify a genetic variation in non-Africans that was likely to have come from an archaic population. This was done entirely without the Neanderthal genome sequence, but in light of the Neanderthal sequence, it is now clear that they were absolutely right!" adds Dr. David Reich, a Harvard Medical School geneticist, one of the principal researchers in the Neanderthal genome project.
So, speculates Dr. Labuda, did these exchanges contribute to our success across the world? "Variability is very important for long-term survival of a species," says Dr. Labuda. "Every addition to the genome can be enriching." An interesting match, indeed.
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About the study:
"An X-linked haplotype of the Neandertal origin is present among all non-African populations" was published in the July 2011 issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution. The authors are Vania Yotova, Jean-Francois Lefebvre, Claudia Moreau, Elias Gbeha, Kristine Hovhannesyan, Stephane Bourgeois, Sandra Be´darida, Luisa Azevedo, Antonio Amorim, Tamara Sarkisian, Patrice Hodonou Avogbe, Nicodeme Chabi, Mamoudou Hama Dicko, Emile Sabiba Kou' Santa Amouzou, Ambaliou Sanni, June Roberts-Thomson, Barry Boettcher, Rodney J. Scott, and Damian Labuda.
The study was supported by grants from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.
Humans out of Africa seemed to change spear-point styles over the ages as they tried new things - while Neanderthal humans seemed to be tied to the same styles.
They also may have been nice guys.
History has shown that we are not so nice, and not above pretending to be nice until the nice guys lower their guards.
Disease may have also played a role.
We may have also just out reproduced them. Humans have problems with reproduction due to the large skull, Neanderthals may have had even worse problems. It wouldn't take much of a difference to make a HUGE difference over time.
So what if, every time we come in conflict, they kill us two to one - if our population produces three healthy babies in the time it takes them to produce one.
Stop posting that animation.
Thanks.
We remove it when ever it is posted and we are made aware of it.
That should help convince your family and friends.
Hitting the abuse button when you see racism or other inapproiate posts that go against the rules of Free Republic will get the notification to us quicker than a post on a thread.
Thanks.
The only Scripture that existed at that time was the Scripture that Yehoshua/Jesus used. The Tanach/Old Testament. Everything else has been ADDED and the Old Testament warned about ADDING to it.
I've been mugged by people smaller and likely less intelligent than me -- in groups of five or more.
If the Cro-Mags were, for example, faster or were able to throw further, then they could run up to the Neandertal camp, toss some rocks and spears at them, and run away from any response. Repeat until the Neandertals are all dead.
You are, of course, correct that there are a number of possible explanations for modern humans out-competing the Neandertals, besides the obvious one of us killing them.
The absence of Neandertal male DNA in our own ancestry makes it less likely the process was peaceful, though. That’s exactly what you find in those areas where historically we know the invaders killed all the males and kept some or all of the women.
My point was how often anthropologists jump to the conclusion the replacement of one species or race was peaceful, when there is really little evidence either way. It’s obviously what they want to believe.
BTW, if we’re interfertile with Neandertals, are they really a separate species? Maybe they were just lost Klingons.
Maybe the reason why non-African populations are only 1-4% of Neanderthal ancestry is that there would be enough inversions to make a hybrid have fertility problems.
Neandertals were different enough that they would, by most zoological standards, count as a separate species, but certainly a ‘cousin’.
Modern day coyote populations are of some 5% (IIRC) wolf ancestry.
But a wolf and a coyote are obviously not the same species.
“A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. While in many cases this definition is adequate, more precise or differing measures are often used, such as similarity of DNA, morphology or ecological niche.”
Wiki
Sounds like the definition of what separates a species from a sub-species isn’t all that precise .
I missed the part where it discussed the genealogy of pigs.
Reality, as is usual, doesn't like to comport well with being assigned either or little boxes and hew perfectly to set definitions.
Say you walk from a forest into a swamp, where do you draw the line between, is there such a thing as a swampforest?
;)
Species (and other taxonomic categories) do not exist in nature. They are human-created distinctions we set up to help us categorize things.
IOW, they’re map, not terrain.
Yep, great analogy.
And like a map we like to write “forest” or “swamp” over particular areas and maybe even draw a line between - somewhat arbitrarily.
Ok, so you don’t believe Paul was speaking authoritatively for God, and I do.
If you believe the OT, then, certainly you believe that we are all descended from Adam, so we are all “one blood” in the sense that Noah Webster construed that to mean.
Ergo, Paul was speaking correctly in saying what he did, basing it, as he did, on the Creation Story to which he explicitly referred in Acts 17:24-25.
Therefore, I submit that Paul was speaking authoritatively, basing his assertions on the Creation Story in Genesis.
We share a common ancestry with Adam, but, NOT of ‘one blood’, or we wouldn’t have so many blood types. We know things now that Paul didn’t know back then. The dictionary gives meaning to words in today’s context, but, with the Bible different nuances come into play depending on the language, nation and time it was used. The Concordance is a better gauge, especially when one takes into account that some words are translations and some words are transliterations and they are two very different things.
Paul was not speaking for God, and he never walked with or spoke with Yehoshua/Jesus in real life and Paul taught things that were opposed to the teachings of Yehoshua, which is why James the successor of Yehoshua had Paul brought before the Jerusalem Council. So, no I don’t credit Paul with any authority. He spoke out of both sides of his face like modern politicians, trying to be all things to all men, which he even tells you in his very own words.
1 Corinthians 9:19-23
19 For though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more.
20 And unto the Jews I became as a Jew, that I might gain the Jews; to them that are under the law, as under the law, that I might gain them that are under the law;
21 To them that are without law, as without law, (being not without law to God, but under the law to Christ,) that I might gain them that are without law.
22 To the weak became I as weak, that I might gain the weak: I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some.
23 And this I do for the gospel’s sake, that I might be partaker thereof with you.
Romans 3:7
7 For if the truth of God hath more abounded through my lie unto his glory; why yet am I also judged as a sinner?
2 Corinthians 12:15-16
16 But be it so, I did not burden you: nevertheless, being crafty, I caught you with guile.
Typical lying, deceitful, two faced politician.
I’m done with this discussion, to continue leads us further into areas that this thread was not posted for.
> We share a common ancestry with Adam
Looks like you don’t take Genesis as authoritative, either.
Adam and we do not have common ancestry.
The Bible says that Adam was especially created by God, not descended from “lower forms”.
Blood types do not denote ancestry, yet they are genetic. So, how can people with different ancestries have the same blood type? Specifically, how can an African have the same blood type as a Russian? Yet, we see this.
Eve was formed from Adams rib, so she will have the same genetic markers. Where do all the various blood types come from?
Don’t forget the Rh factor, also.
Please read the whole article. It answers your question in technical and statistical detail.
The Punnett square simply predicts what the possible phenotypes would be for a given couple’s children. From the number of children that Adam and Eve likely produced, it is not difficult to envision all of the ABO blood types being passed down to their offspring.
If Adam and Eve were heterozygous for the ABO blood type gene locus, then the allele frequency for the type O allele is 50 percent (2 of 4 alleles), the allele frequency for type A is 25 percent (1 of 4 alleles), and the allele frequency for type B is 25 percent (Figure 2). If there are no selective pressures or genetic drift for these alleles, then the allele frequency will remain constant through all of their descendants. The overall allele frequency in the Punnett square is actually the same for the children as it might have been for Adam and Eve. This scenario would also be true for Noah’s family and their descendants.
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