Bones of contention(Discovery of a new species of human astounds the world,but is it what it seems?)

Guardian (U.K.) ^ | Thursday January 13, 2005 | John Vidal

[JimSEA]

The background to the row is a long and bitter debate between those anthropologists who say the modern human evolved in Africa and that all modern Homo sapiens developed there, and those such as Jacob who say that Homo erectus migrated from Africa through the north and spread [and developed] throughout the rest of the world.

While the DNA evidence thus far presented seems to indicate that a new species, Homo sapiens poured out of Africa and replaced Homo erectus who had earlier exited Africa, logic and the fossil record would seem to indicate otherwise. Why have we found no bigfoot or snowman? why are East Asian Homo sapiens faces flat and East Asian Homo erectus fases flat but this is found nowhere else? I have not read the answers, of course, but the arguements are interesting.

Also interesting to me is the fact that the Homo sapiens "out of Africa" group tends to ridicule to others and holler racism. I have read Milford Wolpoff and Rachel Caspari's "Race and Human Evolution: A Fatal Attraction" which seems resonably logical, supported by the fossil record, and has none of the racism of earlier writers writers speculating that modern humans evolved in many parts of the world.

[SAJ]

...13,000-year-old, 1m tall, 25-year-old hominin with a brain one-third the size of modern man's... (one ASSUMES the author intends the word 'hominid'...but, this is the Guardian, and no assurance can be given)

Such specimens have long been known. Inarguable examples include, at minimum, almost every 19th century Marxist and some considerable number of 20th century environazis.

[carumba]

Johannes is no more than 4ft 1in (1m 25cm) tall, give or take an inch. His grandfather and father were also tiny, and so is his son. All of them had "normal" sized mothers, but for some reason, only the males in his family seem to be small.

If you can successfully breed, you aren't a different species.

[The Spirit Of Allegiance]

This is PREPOSTEROUS! The story omits the fact that newly discovered 'missing links' on Ancestry.com prove this Mini-Me Piltdown Man is actually...Bam-Bam, Little Tom Daschle's great-grandfather.





;^)~

[muir_redwoods]

ping

[Godebert]

Bump for later reading.

[Larry Lucido]

1m tall, 25-year-old hominin with a brain one-third the size of modern man's...

[WestVirginiaRebel]

"Short people got...no reason..."

[commonguymd]

13,000-year-old, 1m tall, 25-year-old hominin with a brain one-third the size of modern man's...

They made the wrong assumption that having a brain one third the size was unique. This size could have been compared to human beings in modern times, by simply asking to measure the cranium cavity in posters at DU.

[so_real]

If you can successfully breed, you aren't a different species.

You beat me to it :-)

[KeepUSfree]

Not necessarily.... I routinely hybridize moths from around the world (different species) and many times create viable offspring from two totally isolated, obviously separate species - related sure - but defintely separate.

[Aquinasfan]

These discoveries of ancient "species of humans" have lost all credibility with me.

[wrench]

"If you can successfully breed, you aren't a different species."

Not entirely true. Take the Horse, Ass, Zebra species as an example. They are the same genus, different species, and they most definatelu can breed and produce offspring.

quote:

Now differences in chromosome number do not serve as reproductive barriers between all species. For example, lets look at some of the equine species ( horses and donkeys). Domesticated horses have 32 pairs of chromosomes and Donkeys have 31. Yet, they can produce offspring, mules, which have 31.5 pairs of chromosomes. One of the horse chromosomes goes unpaired. Wild mountain zebras have 16 pairs of chromosomes, while the last species of wild horse (Przewalski's Horse) has 33 pairs. However, all of these equine species can produce hybrid offspring. In all of these crosses but one, the offspring are sterile. It has long been argued that this sterility is due to the difference in chromosome number, but hybrids of the wild (33 pairs) and domesticated horse (32 pairs) are fertile, and have 32.5 pairs of chromosomes. So clearly, something more than just differences in chromosome number is contributing to the species interbreeding barrier.

from:http://madsci.wustl.edu/posts/archives/may2001/989331026.Ev.r.html

[martin_fierro]

lol

[DaGman]

You may be interested in this one.

[Centurion2000]

Bump ... for that matter look at ligers and tigons.

Ligers are roughly double the size of the big cats.

[PatrickHenry]

There's another thread on this: New species may have relatives in next villlage.

I haven't used my ping list on this subject. No big demand.

[carumba]

Dead end hybrids are not successful breeders. But why beat a dead horse?

[carumba]

I wonder if you use those pheromone colognes?