Posted on 08/12/2011 5:44:04 AM PDT by SunkenCiv
The Denisova cave had already yielded a fossil tooth and finger bone, in 2000 and 2008. Last year, Pääbo's DNA analysis suggested both belonged to a previously unknown group of hominins, the Denisovans. The new bone, an extremely rare find, looks likely to belong to the same group...
The primitive morphology of the 30,000 to 50,000-year-old Denisovan finger bone and tooth indicates that Denisovans separated from the Neanderthals roughly 300,000 years ago. At the time of the analysis, Pääbo speculated that they came to occupy large parts of east Asia at a time when Europe and western Asia were dominated by Neanderthals. By 40,000 years ago, Homo sapiens was also moving around much of the region. But the Denisovans remain known only from the finger and tooth fossils -- not enough information to formally assign them to their own species.
That may change with analysis of the newly discovered toe bone. It was found in the same layer of the cave floor as the finger bone, by Maria Mednikova at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow... her studies show the finger and toe bones belonged to distinct people. In addition, the toe bone is stocky and its shape is somewhere between that of a modern human and a typical Neanderthal.
Others are less convinced. Erik Trinkaus at Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, who has written extensively on hominin foot bone morphology, says the bone's sturdy appearance is interesting but inconclusive from a taxonomic perspective... Pääbo is fast building a reputation for revealing Homo sapiens' promiscuous past. He has shown that humans and Neanderthals interbred, as did humans and Denisovans.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
And just imagine the excitement when they find the nose.
:) I would say it’s in my top five as well!
‘Blazing Saddles’ is #1.
Very much so!
That’s just B.S.
That was predicted by Nostrildamus.
Sounds like a Russian Piltdown Man.
One bone does not a species make
One tooth made Nebraska man! At least until it turned into a pig tooth.
I’ve heard speculation that the Elephant Man might have been a one-of and had Elepahnt Man’s Desease. Because his skeleton was boiled before it went on display, no DNA remains. Too bad.
“has written extensively on hominin foot bone morphology” - another damn graffiti artist.
I always thought they should have remains of at least a couple of individuals from different locations before they start naming species.
Science is a method, not a body of knowledge. It’s a very good method for figuring out things formerly unknown via the syllogism.
OTOH, global warming is entirely political in origin and is sustained by politics only.
Piltdown Man was a deliberate fraud; Nebraska Man wasn’t a fraud, it was a misidentification that wasn’t used to argue in favor of a primitive American hominid by its discoverer, or by anyone else until so-called creationists created the straw man version of Nebraska Man. That happened because creationism is, like global warming, a political scam being passed off as science.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/a_nebraska.html
http://members.cox.net/ardipithecus/evol/lies/lie020.html
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