Posted on 12/10/2007 11:35:58 AM PST by blam
Neanderthal-human hybrid 'a myth'
Monday, 10 December 2007 Jennifer Viegas
Discovery News
This 29,000 year old skull belonged to a hominid with slightly heavier eyebrows than an average person. But this is not enough to convince anthropologists it's evidence of a human-Neanderthal hybrid (Source: Dan Grigorescu)
Did modern humans interbreed with Neanderthals and, if so, did the mating result in a half-human, half-Neanderthal hybrid?
The answer is possibly 'yes' to the interbreeding but 'no' to the hybrid, according to the authors of a new study that is already making waves among anthropologists.
At the centre of the study, published online in the Journal of Human Evolution, and the current debate, is a 29,000 year old Romanian skull that is one of the oldest fossils in Europe with modern human features.
But those features aren't quite a perfect match with us, which has led some experts to suspect it was a cross between a Neanderthal and a modern human.
That's not so, according to study leader Dr Katerina Harvati, a senior researcher in the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and adjunct associate professor of anthropology at the City University of New York Graduate School.
"It differs from living people only in subtle ways, and always well within the range of modern human variation," says Harvati, who worked with the Max Planck Institute researcher Dr Philipp Gunz and Professor Dan Grigorescu, from the University of Bucharest.
"It has, for instance, slightly heavier eyebrows than the average person, and is generally somewhat more robust than average," she adds, explaining that modern humans have gradually evolved to become more slight and slender than upper Palaeolithic people were.
Comparing skulls
She and her team took detailed 3D measurements of the Romanian skull, called Cioclovina calvaria, and compared these with a similar head shape analysis of Neanderthals, modern humans and fossils of other hominids found in Europe, Africa and countries bordering the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
The researchers also studied animal hybrids and developed an unprecedented list of proposed criteria for evaluating whether or not a fossil specimen is a hybrid.
The criteria include: greater or much smaller size than the parental species, on average; evidence for developmental instability; possible occurrence of rare attributes, such as having extra teeth or bone joints; and possessing an intermediate shape.
"Cioclovina did not meet any of these criteria - a strong refutation of the hypothesis that it represents a hybrid," Harvati says.
Single origin
The scientists support the 'single origin' model of human evolution.
This holds that modern humans evolved between 200,000 and 100,000 years ago in a single location, mostly likely Africa, with subsequent migration displacing archaic hominid populations, including Neanderthals, around the world.
The researchers, however, do not rule out that interbreeding may have taken place.
"Modern humans and Neanderthals are very closely related species, so it is possible that, like living closely related species of primates today, they could have interbred to a limited degree," she says.
"[If it occurred] it was probably a rare event and the result was not significant in evolutionary terms."
Backing
Dr Ian Tattersall, curator in the Division of Anthropology of the American Museum of Natural History in New York says he is "thoroughly in agreement" with the new study.
"The strenuous search for a Neanderthal-modern human hybrid has yet to turn up any evidence of such a thing."
Professor Eric Delson, chair of the Department of Anthropology at Lehman College, City University New York, also supports the conclusions.
"The results that Dr Harvati and colleagues obtained on the Cioclovina cranium agree well with the widespread opinion that Neanderthal-modern hybridisation was rare at best in Europe," he says.
Delson adds that, when combined with recent genetic studies that have found "indications of low to nonexistent" levels of Neanderthal genetic imprinting on modern humans, the new findings lead "us to reject widespread hybridisation and thus a major influence of Neanderthals on later human populations in Europe".
oh...beer. Now I’m thirsty.
File under “Things that make you go Whee!!”
“Cro-Magnon was a type of modern man; all hominids apparently including the neanderthal were glorified apes.”
That glorified ape had more cranial capacity than a modern human and made tools.
“We are not related to any of them in any fashion.”
That may very well be true.
Are there still crow-mag genes floating around in us modern sapiens then?
OK, that I agree with. I thought you were suggesting that modern humans appeared out of thin air (a la Creationism).
Cheers!
Pingy-poo
Related to is a broader term than descended from.
Mike Morwood, the archaeologist who excavated the 'Hobbits' on Flores, compared their skeletal features closely with these 1.75 million year old fellas found in the Republic Of Georgia: Stranger In A New Land (Archaeology)
I recommend Mike's book, A New Human
coulda fooled me in some cases..lol
A.I.G....I.C.R...emm.ohh.yoo.ess.see!!!!
The Neandertal EnigmaFrayer's own reading of the record reveals a number of overlooked traits that clearly and specifically link the Neandertals to the Cro-Magnons. One such trait is the shape of the opening of the nerve canal in the lower jaw, a spot where dentists often give a pain-blocking injection. In many Neandertal, the upper portion of the opening is covered by a broad bony ridge, a curious feature also carried by a significant number of Cro-Magnons. But none of the alleged 'ancestors of us all' fossils from Africa have it, and it is extremely rare in modern people outside Europe." [pp 126-127]
by James Shreeve
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Thanks Blam. |
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Waxman is descended from Orcs.
The modern Neanderthals have been keeping shows like "Judge Judy", "The Simpsons", and "The View" going all these years...
Yes, they can be found in the AM radio waves associated with "Air America" broadcasts.
Not to mention CNNNBCCBSABCNYTimesTimemagazineWashingtonPostLATimesTHEGUARDIANETAL, Hollywood, tenured professors, and the Democrat Party.
always assumed he was from the Nosferatu clan.
The resemblance is startling!
PJ
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