45,000-Year-Old Man Was Human-Neanderthal Mix

[n2doc]

A bone found by chance on the banks of a Siberian river has yielded the oldest modern human genome yet recovered, according to a new study that sheds light on when people left Africa and first interbred with Neanderthals living in Europe and Asia.

The man, who lived 45,000 years ago, was definitely related to both humans and Neanderthals, the study published in the journal Nature reports. His DNA showed that the two human groups first mated around 60,000 years ago.

Project leader Chris Stringer of the Natural History Museum in London explained to Discovery News that the Siberian man belonged to a population that was closely related to the ancestors of today’s Europeans and Asians. He carried only slightly more Neanderthal DNA than they do.

“But his genomic segments of Neanderthal ancestry are on average about three times the length of those found in genomes today,” Stringer said.

more

http://news.discovery.com/human/evolution/45000-year-old-man-was-human-neanderthal-mix-141022.htm

[muriel_volestrangler]

1. Link to Nature article - subscription needed apart from for the abstract

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v514/n7523/full/nature13810.html

Other coverage:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29649499
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/10/141022-siberian-genome-ancient-science-discovery/
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/oct/22/ancient-human-bone-sex-neanderthals-oldest-genome-dna

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Can you post this in anthropology too?

Anyway this is big news

[Feral Child]

3. Very cool!

Thanks, n2doc.


REC

[wilt the stilt]

4. Hannity is a neanderthal- mix

and he is alive today. what gives?

[Android3.14]

7. That's uncalled for

Neanderthals do not deserve that comparison.

[gordianot]

9. Hannity and his kind are a new predatory sub species of human.

They will eventually live under ground in bunkers out of fear and all develop a pasty white complexion. Since they do no real work they will depend on surface dwelling humans for sustenance. H.G. Wells had it wrong the cave dwellers will be the regressives of modern humans.

[LongTomH]

10. The neanderthalers actually cared for their sick and injured!

Modern Republicans have nothing in common with neanderthalers!

[Enthusiast]

5. I love it. Thank you, n2doc!

[AlbertCat]

6. Traditional Marriage!

This marrying between like species will destroy the fabric of Stone Age society!!! Marriage has always between a Sapien and a Neaenderthal!

[jtuck004]

8. Damn man, that baby just don't look like you!

And he sure don't have the big head like you do.



Some things never change...

Thank you for that - interesting. Seems it would have been about the time they went extinct, though that removes one of my explanations for the Teaparty.

[Warpy]

11. I find that weirdly satisfying

because it seems the two subspecies merged instead of the newcomers slaughtering the old timers. It gives me hope that we don't have to live by constant slaughter, that we can take the best of the new and the best of the old and merge them.

Besides, Neanderthals clearly had superior technology in many respects. I'm thinking about their multi substance formula for what was a hot glue stick.

[Odin2005]

13. A hypothesis that has been growing in popularity is that we simply absorbed...

...the Neanderthal population by interbreeding. Apparently Neanderthals always had a very low population density while the innovative Upper Paleolithic tool-kit allow us much higher population densities, especially on the coast.

Also, Africa always generally had much larger populations of early humans than other continents so there was always an outward flow of population from Africa being back almost 2 million years.

[Warpy]

14. The Neanderthals had some pretty amazing tools

I remember reading about a substance that was their version of hot glue gun adhesive. It took 14 different plants, all modified in some way, and then combined. It liquefied when heated and then stuck to whatever it was dripped on. They also had a decent array of stone and bone tools, although not as refined as the Clovis points would eventually be.

They were at least as intelligent as we are. I think we absorbed them only because of our greater numbers, period, and the fact that we were better at coping with a warmer climate. For one thing, we were faster.

[genwah]

12. "He gets that from YOUR side of the family..."