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Baffling 400,000-Year-Old Clue to Human Origins
The New York Times ^ | December 4, 2013 | Carl Zimmer

Posted on 12/05/2013 11:46:56 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet

An artist's interpretation of the hominins that lived near the Sima de los Huesos cave in Spain.

Scientists have found the oldest DNA evidence yet of humans’ biological history. But instead of neatly clarifying human evolution, the finding is adding new mysteries.

In a paper in the journal Nature, scientists reported Wednesday that they had retrieved ancient human DNA from a fossil dating back about 400,000 years, shattering the previous record of 100,000 years.

The fossil, a thigh bone found in Spain, had previously seemed to many experts to belong to a forerunner of Neanderthals. But its DNA tells a very different story. It most closely resembles DNA from an enigmatic lineage of humans known as Denisovans. Until now, Denisovans were known only from DNA retrieved from 80,000-year-old remains in Siberia, 4,000 miles east of where the new DNA was found.

The mismatch between the anatomical and genetic evidence surprised the scientists, who are now rethinking human evolution over the past few hundred thousand years. It is possible, for example, that there are many extinct human populations that scientists have yet to discover. They might have interbred, swapping DNA. Scientists hope that further studies of extremely ancient human DNA will clarify the mystery....

(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: anthropology; denisovans; fauxiantrolls; godsgravesglyphs; helixmakemineadouble; history; neandertal; neandertals; neanderthal; neanderthals; science
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To: pepsionice

> In a hundred years....we will probably have evidence of several dozen human-like species that existed....mingled...had lusty relations....and one survived onto this point (mostly by luck).

Evolution? We will have proven that as each mingling took place....the tree of the human species took a piece or part from one species and put it into another. Some humans today likely have a protective DNA sequence to prevent various cancers....some likely are very susceptible to any disease. Some are born as a life-long liberal.

Hey we have white women mating with black men, probably similar situation.


21 posted on 12/06/2013 5:16:01 AM PST by jsanders2001
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To: AEMILIUS PAULUS

Did you professor mention that the racial variability within the Neanderthal was greater than within “anatomically modern man”?


22 posted on 12/06/2013 5:22:25 AM PST by Born to Conserve
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To: MestaMachine

One looks like Santa.


23 posted on 12/06/2013 5:22:32 AM PST by ops33 (Senior Master Sergeant, USAF (Retired))
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To: AEMILIUS PAULUS

Ah!

So that explains the gingers and why they have no souls.


24 posted on 12/06/2013 5:29:24 AM PST by Grimmy (equivocation is but the first step along the road to capitulation)
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To: jameslalor
“What’s with the dark skin? Is this because man is thought to have come out of Africa? Or does the DNA confirm skin color?”

They did not bathe as often as we do, and when by chance they did, they had no soap.

25 posted on 12/06/2013 5:32:19 AM PST by PUGACHEV
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To: old and tired

First God made democrats, He looked upon His work and thought “And now, DELUGE!”


26 posted on 12/06/2013 7:00:08 AM PST by Holdem Or Foldem ( A Smith and Wesson beats four aces)
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To: pepsionice

“In a hundred years....we will probably have evidence of several dozen human-like species that existed....mingled...had lusty relations....and one survived onto this point”

Or perhaps less intermingling went on, and six or eight of them have survived to this point.


27 posted on 12/06/2013 10:27:58 AM PST by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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To: jsanders2001

“Hey we have white women mating with black men”

And don’t forget the thousands and thousands of white men who rape negro women every year.

Oh...wait a minute...

Perhaps if white men had more control over white women, there would hardly be any intermingling at all.


28 posted on 12/06/2013 10:35:36 AM PST by dsc (Any attempt to move a government to the left is a crime against humanity.)
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To: dsc

> Perhaps if white men had more control over white women, there would hardly be any intermingling at all.

I can hardly wait to see the comments from female Fr’pers on that one ^...: )


29 posted on 12/06/2013 11:17:56 AM PST by jsanders2001
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To: Born to Conserve

No.


30 posted on 12/06/2013 12:18:47 PM PST by AEMILIUS PAULUS (It is a shame that when these people give a riot)
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To: old and tired

You raised a good point in that early “man” is not Homo Sapiens by the biologists own terms, and frankly I’m not impressed with the “dating” of genetic sequences. The claim is made that the line leading to Homo Sapiens and the line leading to the Chimps diverged 7 to 7.5 millions years ago. The method used to reach that time period is really based on a number of weak assumptions such as the duration of a generation.


31 posted on 12/06/2013 12:24:41 PM PST by AEMILIUS PAULUS (It is a shame that when these people give a riot)
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To: Grimmy

Chuckle!


32 posted on 12/06/2013 12:25:24 PM PST by AEMILIUS PAULUS (It is a shame that when these people give a riot)
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To: Russ
Sorry, but I’m not falling for any of this. God created Adam and Steve... beginning and end of story.

LOL!

33 posted on 12/06/2013 3:24:57 PM PST by Eaker (Sweat dries, blood clots and bones heal so suck it up buttercup.)
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To: arthurus

Um, that’s dirt. Soap hadn’t been invented yet.
Any way I’m reading a great book...
One day in the life of Ivan Denisovian...


34 posted on 12/06/2013 3:32:21 PM PST by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: MestaMachine

That guy in the middle of the back row looks like
he should atar on the World Wrestling Federation.

Giant gnomes?
What do you call a dwarf writing under an assumed name?

A gnome de plume...


35 posted on 12/06/2013 3:35:02 PM PST by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)
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To: Toucan Dance

Ah, you must have met her after she started dyeing it.

That flat spot on top her head came in useful, didn’t it?


36 posted on 12/06/2013 5:51:47 PM PST by ExGeeEye (The enemy's gate is down...and to the left.)
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To: tet68

Laying bricks?


37 posted on 12/06/2013 6:12:58 PM PST by arthurus (Read Hazlitt's Economics In One Lesson ONLINEhttp://steshaw.org/economics-in-one-lesson/)
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To: NTHockey
"From the picture, two have slanted eyes, the old man looks like a Viking, the boy in the center has a flat nose, the one in the back loks more ape-like than the others while the one in the lower left corner looks like modern day man."

They all look like Mexicans to me.

38 posted on 12/07/2013 9:21:53 AM PST by Godebert
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