In Neanderthal DNA, Signs of a Mysterious Human Migration

[rangerrebew]

In Neanderthal DNA, Signs of a Mysterious Human Migration
 

Carl Zimmer

MATTER JULY 4, 2017
 

With fossils and DNA, scientists are piecing together a picture of humanity’s beginnings, an origin story with more twists than anything you would find at the movie theater.

The expert consensus now is that Homo sapiens evolved at least 300,000 years ago in Africa. Only much later — roughly 70,000 years ago — did a small group of Africans establish themselves on other continents, giving rise to other populations of people today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/science/neanderthals-dna-homo-sapiens-human-evolution.html

[Quix]

In Neanderthal DNA, Signs of a Mysterious Human Migration
 

Carl Zimmer

MATTER JULY 4, 2017
 

With fossils and DNA, scientists are piecing together a picture of humanity’s beginnings, an origin story with more twists than anything you would find at the movie theater.

The expert consensus now is that Homo sapiens evolved at least 300,000 years ago in Africa. Only much later — roughly 70,000 years ago — did a small group of Africans establish themselves on other continents, giving rise to other populations of people today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/science/neanderthals-dna-homo-sapiens-human-evolution.html

I think other evidence is surfacing and will surface more and more . . .

IIRC, there's beginning grounds to assert that the Balkins & even some Chinese regions had folks at least AS early as Africa, if not earlier.

[skeeter]

In Neanderthal DNA, Signs of a Mysterious Human Migration
 

Carl Zimmer

MATTER JULY 4, 2017
 

With fossils and DNA, scientists are piecing together a picture of humanity’s beginnings, an origin story with more twists than anything you would find at the movie theater.

The expert consensus now is that Homo sapiens evolved at least 300,000 years ago in Africa. Only much later — roughly 70,000 years ago — did a small group of Africans establish themselves on other continents, giving rise to other populations of people today.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/science/neanderthals-dna-homo-sapiens-human-evolution.html

A friend of mine sent a swabbed sample to 23 and Me and was told he has Neanderthal DNA. I thought that was hilarious.

[Sanguine]

Bookmark.

[SunkenCiv]

[snip] Researchers sequenced ancient DNA from the mitochondria -- tiny energy factories inside cells -- from a Neandertal who lived about 100,000 years ago in southwest Germany. They found that this DNA, which is inherited only from the mother, resembled that of early modern humans.

After comparing the mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) with that of other archaic and modern humans, the researchers reached a startling conclusion: A female member of the lineage that gave rise to Homo sapiens in Africa mated with a Neandertal male more than 220,000 years ago -- much earlier than other known encounters between the two groups. Her children spread her genetic legacy through the Neandertal lineage, and in time her African mtDNA completely replaced the ancestral Neandertal mtDNA...

Researchers also have analyzed the complete nuclear and mtDNA genomes of another archaic group from Siberia, called the Denisovans. The nuclear DNA suggested that Neandertals and Denisovans were each other's closest kin and that their lineage split from ours more than 600,000 years ago.

But the Neandertal mtDNA from these samples posed a mystery: It was not like Denisovans' and was closely related to that of modern humans -- a pattern at odds with the ancient, 600,000 year divergence date. [/snip]

Neandertals And Modern Humans Started Mating Early
By Ann Gibbons
Jul. 4, 2017 , 11:00 AM
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/07/neandertals-and-modern-humans-started-mating-early