Posted on 01/08/2002 3:29:31 PM PST by blam
If the European and Asian branches went through numerious genetic "bottlenecks", that is they were reduced to a very small population and had to regenerate again from that, while at the same time the Bushmen and the Ethiopeans maintained a constant mixing of the same broad gene pool, couldn't the results be the same as reported here? In that case the Bushmen and Ethopeans wouldn't be the oldest populations, just the most consistantly homogenious.
I would not say it is unwarranted.
By the same standard, I would NOT say it makes them inferior. After all, according to the article, this genotype basically expanded throughout Africa, and flourished for some 60,000 years using nothing but a hunter-gatherer lifestyle.
Modern man, by comparison, would be hard set to survive without our technology and societal conventions to support us. ( agriculture, animal husbandry, trade/commerce, the city/state )
The present day human population carries the same basic chromosomal chains, but they have been altered over time, as the article suggests, by copying errors, and general mutations over millennia.
We are therefore, all bad copies. >sarcastic humor<
Actually, we are the new and improved versions, depending on what the current environment is, and what that environments survival requirements are.
I recall seeing pictures of african wall paintings/graffiti dated in the Sahara region dated as being some 20-30,000 years old, and the remarkable resemblance to the bushman genotype.
The Sahara was a "Savannah" at that time, a vast grassland, teeming with game.
These same early bushmen may have been the ancestors of what remains as our current topic of discussion.
They may also be the original "Egyptians", and responsible for the very first carvings on the great stone hill that eventually became the Sphynx. ( just a little wild hypothesizing. )
I find it interesting that this research helps date the land bridge theories concerning Australian aborigines, and may end the debate concerning origins of humanity.
The Asian migration into Europe sounds interesting as well.
I recall reading some articles concerning DNA testing of various groups around the world in order to help class various races and their connection / relations to other groups.
There are a remarkable spread of basic DNA ("codings"?) around the Eurasian / Australian contients, with some of the most clearly seperate gene groups existing within certain cultures in Asia, Eurasia Australia, India, and southeast asia.
A recent BBC article described the DNA tracing of an ancient skeletal remains to the present day and finding a schoolteacher that was descended from same.
How unusual is it to find a family line that has remained in the same confined geographical area for thousands of years? And in Britain, no less?
Now, we are seeing more ancient groups being discovered in Africa.
I find it all extremely fascinating.
This is the history of Humanity.
Quite interesting. I wonder if the 50,000 year lineage headed south because ice up north blocked their way.
I'll email the article to an Australian friend. Thanks.
Cheddar Man
DNA links teacher to 9,000-year-old skeleton
Submitted by: CNN
March 7, 1997
Web posted at: 11:20 p.m. EST
LONDON (AP) -- Using DNA from a tooth, scientist have established a blood tie between a 9,000-year-old skeleton known as "Cheddar Man" and an English schoolteacher who lives just a half mile from the cave where the bones were found.
Oxford University scientists announced Friday that Adrian Targett, 42, a history teacher in the town of Cheddar in southwest England, shares a common ancestor with Cheddar Man.
It is the longest human lineage ever traced, the team of scientists from the university's Institute of Molecular Medicine said.
A very long-lost relative
"They would have shared a common ancestor about 10,000 years ago so they are related -- just not very closely," said Dr. Bryan Sykes, leader of the research team.
Targett was startled by the news.
"I am overwhelmed, a bit surprised," said Targett, whose ancestry was revealed during the filming of a documentary for the TV station HTV, which commissioned the study.
"I was just about to say I hope it's not me."
Targett suggested that if more people were tested, researchers would find other relatives of Cheddar Man.
Larry Barham, a Texas-born archaeologist at Bristol University, said the finding "adds to the evidence that Britons came from a race of hunter-gatherers who later turned to farming because they found it was to their advantage." Archaeologists believe Cheddar Man, who lived during the Stone Age, was a hunter-gatherer.
Opponents of this theory argue that Britons are descendants of Middle Eastern farmers.
Mitochondrial DNA shows a link
To get the DNA, scientists extracted cells from a molar tooth of Cheddar Man.
They compared the mitochondrial DNA -- which is inherited unchanged on the maternal line -- with samples of mitochondrial DNA from the cheek cells of 15 pupils at the Kings of Wessex school, where Targett works, and five adults from old Cheddar families.
Professor Chris Stringer, a researcher at London's Natural History Museum, said one problem with the research "is that we don't know that Cheddar Man had any children. This is mitochondrial DNA that is only inherited through the maternal link, so this would come from Cheddar Man's mother or his sister."
HTV said the discovery came when a television director was researching a series on archaeology. In search of information on whether cannibalism was practiced by Stone Age man, scientists took a sample of cells from the jaw of Cheddar Man, HTV said.
That led them to wonder if there could be modern-day relatives of the ancient man, who was discovered in 1903.
The network of underground caves at Cheddar, 130 miles west of London, is believed to have been home to a community of Stone Age people. Many artifacts have been found there.
(Not so fast, it's not that simple Drammach)
Scientists Challenge Evolution Theory
DNA Shows Modern Humans Not Just From Africa, Say Scientists
S Y D N EY, Jan. 9 — Australian scientists said today they had analyzed the oldest DNA ever taken from human remains, and that the results challenge the theory that modern humans evolved from African ancestors alone. Researchers at Australian National University said they had analyzed DNA taken from remains unearthed in 1974 at Lake Mungo in the state of New South Wales. Dating in May 1999 put the age of the skeletal remains at between 56,000 and 68,000 years old.
ANU anthropologist Alan Thorne said that neither “Mungo Man’s” completely modern skeleton nor its DNA had any links with human ancestors from Africa found in other parts of the world.
“Neither of them [the skeleton or DNA] show any evidence that they ever were in Africa,” Thorne told Reuters. “There’s modern humans in Australia that have nothing to do with Africa at all.”
The findings, revealed in The Australian newspaper today, challenge the prevailing “out of Africa” theory of evolution because “Mungo Man” has a genetic line which has vanished yet his skeleton is completely modern.
The “out of Africa” theory holds that modern humans evolved from a common homo erectus ancestor in Africa.
Homo sapiens then left Africa and spread across the world between 150,000 and 100,000 years ago.
The ANU researchers say that because Mungo Man is modern anatomically, yet has a vanished DNA line, it means at least one group of homo erectus’ descendants evolved outside of Africa.
Under the counter “regional continuity” theory which Thorne supports, modern man evolved from homo erectus in several different places — what is now Africa, Europe, east Asia and west Asia — followed by interbreeding between the regions.
(I subscribe to this theory)
“Everywhere was becoming modern at roughly the same rate,” Thorne said. “As they are today, genes were flowing from Shanghai to Paris, from Singapore to Cape Town.”
Genetic Fingerprint
DNA is a kind of genetic fingerprint unique to every individual and which transmits hereditary characteristics.
The ANU research says that Mungo Man’s mitochondrial DNA contained different sequences of the four chemicals which form DNA to that which has been found in other remains. Mitochondria are the energy packs within cells.
The previously oldest human DNA tested came from Neanderthal remains — a 45,000-year-old specimen in western Germany and 28,000-year-old remains from Croatia.
While the genetic footprint was different, ANU evolutionary genetecist Simon Easteal said Mungo Man would have looked very much like modern humans.
“This individual has facial features, has morphology that is essentially modern, that wouldn’t stand out in a crowd today,” Easteal told Reuters.
“If he was part of a wave of modern people that had come out of Africa and spread, eventually reaching Australia, then his mitochondrial DNA would reflect that,” he said.
Thorne said the dating of Mungo Man meant there was no doubt that ancestors of Australia’s Aborigines came to the continent from Asia about 70,000 years ago — some 30,000 years earlier than was thought.
“There’s no question that somewhere in southeast Asia is where watercraft got invented,” Thorne said. “The first oceanic crossings were to Australia.”
(This article is from 1999 and the topic is still being 'hotly' debated)
For later reading.
For the PC crowd, early does not imply inferior.
So human DNA is bloatware, just like Microsoft products. That explains the 9 month boot time. :)
I don't believe the junk DNA concept entirely. They seem to think humans are all hardware and the software figures itself out spontaneously. I am very curious how the software component works and how we can find and disassemble the source code. Science hasn't even started into that yet. There must be a way of permanently passing knowledge, and there may be a read/write mechanism for a living person to pass permanent information to descendents. It amazes me how much knowledge we have upon birth. Does the mother download the software component in the womb?
I think you're correct. I can't remember if I saw the 2nd one or not. That Coke bottle sure was a lot of trouble, huh?
I find this topic one of the most fascinating anthropological questions facing us today.
There are always new answers, new questions.
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