Posted on 02/09/2008 6:25:24 PM PST by blam
Tooth Scan Reveals Neanderthal Mobility
By ELENA BECATOROS, Associated Press Writer
A 40,000-year-old tooth is seen in this undated hand out photo released by Greek Culture Ministry. Analysis of the tooth uncovered in southern Greece indicates for the first time that Neanderthals may have traveled more widely than previously thought, paleontologists announced on Friday, Feb. 8, 2008. (AP Photo/Greek Culture Ministry)
(AP) -- Analysis of a 40,000-year-old tooth found in southern Greece suggests Neanderthals were more mobile than once thought, paleontologists said Friday.
Analysis of the tooth - part of the first and only Neanderthal remains found in Greece - showed the ancient human had spent at least part of its life away from the area where it died.
"Neanderthal mobility is highly controversial," said paleoanthropologist Katerina Harvati at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.
Some experts believe Neanderthals roamed over very limited areas, but others say they must have been more mobile, particularly when hunting, Harvati said.
Until now, experts only had indirect evidence, including stone used in tools, Harvati said. "Our analysis is the first that brings evidence from a Neanderthal fossil itself," she said.
The findings by the Max Planck Institute team were published in the Journal of Archaeological Science.
The tooth was found in a seaside excavation in Greece's southern Peloponnese region in 2002.
The team analyzed tooth enamel for ratios of a strontium isotope, a naturally occurring metal found in food and water. Levels of the metal vary in different areas.
Eleni Panagopoulou of the Paleoanthropology-Speleology Department of Southern Greece said the tooth's levels of strontium showed that the Neanderthal grew up at least 12.5 miles from the discovery site.
"Our findings prove that ... their settlement networks were broader and more organized than we believed," Panagopoulou said.
Clive Finlayson, an expert on Neanderthals and director of the Gibraltar Museum, disagreed with the finding's significance.
"I would have been surprised if Neanderthals didn't move at least 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) in their lifetime, or even in a year ... We're talking about humans, not trees," Finlayson said.
Boy the stuff ya learn on FR !
LMBO !!!
Nite !
From a viewpoint of pure logic that simply is not possible. The neanderthal has been ruled out as a human ancestor precisely because the genetic gulf is too wide and all other hominids are more remote from us than the neanderthal. No hominid MORE remote than the neanderthal could plausibly be an ancestor to modern man; you'd need a hominid LESS remote.Gee, that makes sense. What you're saying is that the COMMON ANCESTOR would have to be YOUNGER than the DESCENDANT. You're really running rings around me.
Euell had to point that one out, didn’t ya? ;’)
That was the most macaronic post I’ve read in ages. ;’)
That tooth is probably not any older than 60 to 4,500 years old. There was a time when they tried to build one of these fables from a pig’s tooth, too.
Post-flood? Is that what you are trying to tell us?
The idea is that “too remote to be a plausible ancestor” is a transitive relationship.
“Post-flood? Is that what you are trying to tell us?”
“Euell had to point that one out, didn’t ya?”
I was going to say the extract same thing .
However, Neandertal Genome sequencing is something I can really sink my teeth into. I look forward to updates on this. I remain unconvinced that these fellows went extinct, but that some part of their gene pool remains in us. This is because my wife thinks i have many Neandertal traits.
:’) Search this topic for my template post quoting the Shreeve book. :’) The mtDNA (pronounced “empty DNA”) Paabo et al study assumes a lot of things, including a stable and steady mutation rate, and also that the one and only such specimen tested would match anything (i.e., that the one particular line had survived whatever merger and the odds); everyone else is just supposed to accept that the 379 base pairs were from the sample and not from some microbe that later (or earlier) munched the remains, and also accept that there’s literally NO ONE ON EARTH alive today (since few have been sequenced) who matches the supposed sequence, and for that matter, also accept that the books weren’t cooked to bear out an underlying bias.
The idea is that "too remote to be a plausible ancestor" is a transitive relationship.Oh! You don't know what you're talking about, why didn't you just say so in the first place.
If this thread is any indication, I’m the ONLY one here who knows what he’s talking about. Any idea what I might have meant by the term “transitive relationship”?
A one-night stand?
(Do I win anything?)
Neanderthals Revisited:
New Approaches and Perspectives
ed by Katerina Harvati
and Terry Harrison
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