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Where are all the Neanderthals? (Pre-History)
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Hatty
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In: Berkshire
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DPCrisp wrote:
But when the best places are already taken, you take the next best...

It's clear that despite having the opportunity to live in urban areas Saami and other groups often, probably mostly, choose to carry on with their old way of life, taking full advantage of modern aids (though often, probably mostly, modern aids aren't always effective... clothing for example). This was most likely always the case, people inhabiting harsh environments using or discarding modern technology but preferring to maintain their traditions.

the ability to develop technologies and establish supply lines until forward posts can fend for themselves is all city-network stuff.

In Victorian times large numbers of people were forced to emigrate because of technological advances depriving them of their livelihoods. It's often assumed that people went off into the unknown because they ran out of land or food but technology and 'city life' can be a factor too.

There is the question of continuity: do the Saami ever go off to lay claim to or bring back a wild herd? Or have these families of Saami been herding these families of reindeer for as long as anyone can remember?

The herders count on the reindeer calving much as a British farmer checks his herds of cows. It's possible there aren't any unclaimed 'wild' reindeer left.
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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can I at least claim to be the very first person in the known universe (TVFPITKU) to claim that cheetahs are a domesticated species gone feral?

I didn't remember you saying it before, like Ishmael did. Still, what I said was true: "I got the impression the other day (that cheetahs were bred as hunters)" coz something they said rang a bell. But anyone reading back would be forgiven for thinking I'm losing it. I did. On re-reading, I see it was the genetic coversity [Must drop the quotes and treat it like a proper word.] that sparked the comment in the first place. When I said the genetics would clinch it, you were talking about wolves. But I remembered it as being about cheetahs. Oh boy...

NSOED doesn't say what cita/citraka literally means, but it's the Hindi/Sanskrit whence cheetah, and means leopard -- from which the cheetah was bred?

Why an Indian name? Why not 2 separate names if they were 2 distinct wild (African) animals?

Where did we waffle on about the confusion between lions and leopards in heraldry and what panther really means...?

I need something for the tombstone.

How about "Their stately gliding was due to being dragged about on my coat tails."?

(Although "I told you I was ill." is better.)
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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Why an Indian name? Why not 2 separate names if they were 2 distinct wild (African) animals?

Leopards are still found in India and until the early nineteen hundreds, so too were cheetahs.
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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Which two?

These two:
herbivores were understood and exploited in the wild

and
the nomadic or pastoral lifestyle can only follow from the sedentary lifestyle

If you aren’t saying you think they are mutually exclusive, then I’m sorry…I must have misunderstood.
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Mick Harper
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Leopards are still found in India and until the early nineteen hundreds, so too were cheetahs.

We need a list of cats that are common to Africa and Asia and a list of cats that aren't. That should solve the problem.
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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Just to complicate things...the two species said to be most similar, genetically, to the cheetah, are the puma and the jaguarondi (both New World species).

Now isn't that something to ponder?
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DPCrisp


In: Bedfordshire
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This was most likely always the case, people inhabiting harsh environments using or discarding modern technology but preferring to maintain their traditions.

Indeed. But a) not always (vid. Mongols keeping houses in town, increasingly repairing to them for good -- which gave me a pang, until I realised these were not the last vestiges of a primitive way of life) and b) the tradition always had to include a regular exchange with the sedentaries: they can't make their own steel tools, f'rinstance. (Remember the tribe that didn't know how to re-make their stone axe heads?) Mongols with satellite dishes and Eskimos with skidoos are not aberrations, just the latest incarnation of the traditional mode.

And remember, crappiness has got nothing to do with whether the lifestyle is judged to be comfortable or satisfying or anything like that (by the insiders or outsiders).

It's often assumed that people went off into the unknown because they ran out of land or food...

And in this, the hunter-gatherer is an isolated blip in the chart of all species across all times.

The herders count on the reindeer calving much as a British farmer checks his herds of cows. It's possible there aren't any unclaimed 'wild' reindeer left.

In Saami-land, you mean? There are wild herds of reindeer and caribou in Siberia and North America.
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Grant



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http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2010/may/06/neanderthals-dna-humans-genome

I'm surprised no-one has commented on the latest news on Neanderthals. For the past ten years we have been told by seemingly everyone that Neanderthals were a totally separate breed to us. Now the latest genetic evidence shows that Europeans have 4% Neanderthal genes, but Africans have none. Surely this blows "Out of Africa" out of the water.

We also know that some Neanderthals had red hair and that Neanderthal fossils are only found in Europe and the Middle East.

The Victorians were right - modern Europeans evolved from Neanderthals. And their Neanderthal ancestry gave them something Africans didn't possess.
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DPCrisp


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Now the latest genetic evidence shows that Europeans have 4% Neanderthal genes, but Africans have none. Surely this blows "Out of Africa" out of the water.

Doesn't it reinforce Out-of-Africa, as the article suggests? Neanderthals were in Europe/Middle East already... AMHumans met them on the way out of Africa and their traces have been carried to the other end of the Earth.

If Europeans had evolved from Neanderthals, there would be a lot more than a trace, surely? And the Africans would be a separate species. Is there any evidence that this is so? What about everyone else?

I hate the image this conjures of people journeying, as if purposefully, to the Bering Strait and all that...

Actually, I hate this whole article: it's not worth the cyber-paper it's written on.

    "The first comparison of the complete genomes of humans and Neanderthals reveals that up to 4% of our DNA is Neanderthal"
S'funny I thought. If we're only 2% non-chimpanzee, how can some of us be 4% Neanderthal?

    "Neanderthal DNA may be commonplace in human genomes outside Africa as a result of interbreeding around 60,000 years ago."
Can't tell if this a genetic figure or just the accepted figure. (Dunno how to tell 'em apart either.)

    "Anthropologists have long speculated that early humans may have mated with Neanderthals, but the latest study provides the strongest evidence so far..."
Strong evidence? Oh good.

    "...suggesting that such encounters took place around 60,000 years ago in the Fertile Crescent region of the Middle East."
Funny that the Neanderthal Genetic Input Hot Spot should be so close to Africa -- in the bit seamlessly integrated with North Africa, in fact -- and there not be any movement back that way. Still, this is the best evidence so far.

    "The researchers found that modern humans and Neanderthals shared 99.7% of their DNA, which was inherited from a common ancestor 400,000 years ago."
OK, that makes more sense alongside the chimpanzee figure. And 400,000 years ago sounds like it was derived from the genetic data: I'm not already familiar with it as a landmark figure.

    "Further analysis revealed that Neanderthals were more closely related to modern humans who left Africa than to the descendants of those who stayed. Between 1% and 4% of the DNA in modern Europeans, Asians and those as far afield as Papua New Guinea, was inherited from Neanderthals."
Now I'm lost. What 1-4% is this? Is it a statistically calculated spread?

Who cares? The data set is abysmal: three [Neanderthal] females who lived in Europe 40,000 years ago and five people from France, China, southern Africa, western Africa and Papua New Guinea.

No one from north or east Africa, let alone the Fertile Crescent. No one from... almost anywhere in fact.

And we're to get all excited about this? {Well, yes: it took 4 years to do it, so they better spin it into something worthwhile.}

    "The study, reported in the journal Science, was greeted by scientists as almost certain confirmation that modern humans and Neanderthals mated when the groups crossed paths."
Typical.

    "We found the genetic signal of Neanderthals in all the non-African genomes, meaning that the admixture occurred early on, probably in the Middle East, and is shared with all descendants of the early humans who migrated out of Africa."
Er, no. You found the genetic signal of Neanderthal in 3 individuals, meaning... nothing at all.

    "The German group has yet to investigate what purpose, if any, the Neanderthal genes play in modern humans."
So there is no telling whether they get carried around on a statistical basis, or actively encouraged in some circumstances, actively destroyed in others, as we suggested with blood types and endemic diseases. Generated in moderns humans independently of any Neanderthal connection, perhaps? We don't have the merest beginning of a map of these Neanderthal genes, let alone an explanation for their distribution.

Wretched curs.

By the way, we talk glibly about genes being passed on... and sometimes lessening the chances of reproducing... blah blah... and generally treat it as a simple matter of mixing genes and seeing where they end up. But does anyone have the faintest idea how many failed pregnancies there are? Does anyone know what the false starts tell us about the viability of genetic mixtures?
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Grant



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Doesn't it reinforce Out-of-Africa, as the article suggests?


The principle of Out-of-Africa - as I have understood it from Readers' Digest - is that about 200,000 years ago hominids were widespread across the world. Then, as recently as 50-100,000 BP a new species evolved in Africa which rapidly spread around the world with no interbreeding with the earlier hominids.
We have been told again and again that the DNA evidence shows no evidence of admixture, but now it's 4% - as you note, a massive amount.
And you're right, some of the early humans who bred with Neanderthals would have gone back to Africa.
Surely the Victorian hypothesis is simpler - we Europeans are Neanderthals!
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DPCrisp


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Then, as recently as 50-100,000 BP a new species evolved in Africa which rapidly spread around the world with no interbreeding with the earlier hominids.

Well, yes, it has something to say about interbreeding, but a) I don't think that part is an especially big deal, since b) it's still Africa (they say) we came out of and c) we're nowhere near talking about some sort of hybrid species.

We have been told again and again that the DNA evidence shows no evidence of admixture, but now it's 4% - as you note, a massive amount.

We've also been told we have 99.7% in common, so I don't know what to make of it.

Surely the Victorian hypothesis is simpler - we Europeans are Neanderthals!

Only if we're not as human as everyone else.
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Pulp History


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Surely for 'us' Europeans to end up with 4% Neanderthal DNA, there must have been an Adam who was 50 /50, then a 2nd generation who was 75 / 25..... etcetera. This would imply that the first generation hybrid was fertile and therefore the two 'types' of human not that distant in the first place.... also - wouldn't there be skeletons in a region showing a higher percentage Neanderthal DNA in the past, but where are these?
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Chad


In: Ramsbottom
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Grant wrote:
Surely the Victorian hypothesis is simpler - we Europeans are Neanderthals!


Only Grant could reach this conclusion from the evidence before him.

Dan got this just about right... it's a badly flawed piece of research (the sample size is laughably small) and the conclusions drawn by the researchers are highly speculative... but Grant's are unreasonable and illogical.

You really need to drop the preconceived notions and and analyse the data dispassionately.
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Grant



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Dan got this just about right... it's a badly flawed piece of research (the sample size is laughably small) and the conclusions drawn by the researchers are highly speculative... but Grant's are unreasonable and illogical.


I'm not saying - except hyperbolically - that we are definitely the descendants of Neanders, just that that argument is now just as valid as Out of Africa. We were told time and again that there is no evidence of Neanderthal genes in our make-up but now it's 4%. That casts doubt on all earlier suppositions.
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Rocky



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http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1283104/Neanderthal-man-arrived-Britain-40-000-years-earlier-thought.html

Neanderthal man was living in Britain at the start of the last ice age - 40,000 years earlier than previously thought, archaeologists said today.

Tests on sediment burying two ancient flint hand tools used to cut meat showed they date from around 100,000 years ago - proving Neanderthals were living in Britain at this time.

Until now, scientists have believed that the country was uninhabited during this period


Now let's take for granted that the sediment dating is correct, how do they deduce it was Neanderthals, and not some other hominid?
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