Neanderthals

[Stan]

Nope, not a thread ablout @CaaC (John) or @Bluewolf, sorry.

But actually something really exciting! Swedish scientist Svante Paabo has won the Nobel Prize for finding the genetic code for neanderthals, a species that went extinct over 40,000yrs ago. It was thought to be an impossible task! 

 

 

[nudge]

Took them a while to recognise his work, considering that the genome of Neanderthals has been sequenced fully in 2013... 

[CaaC (John)+]

Me and my soul mate, @Bluewolf and tribe

[Dr. Gonzo]

Thought this was going to be a very different thread, tbh 

[Gunnersaurus]

3 hours ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Thought this was going to be a very different thread, tbh 

Lol. Yeah I thought it was gonna be about the government 

[Waylander]

Just over 2,000 years ago Alexander the Great and his army were marching back along the southern coast in modern Pakistan towards Babylon and were suprised to encounter a group or tribe of people with no clothes, no intelligible language and with lots of body hair who were living near the beaches and surviving on shellfish.

[nudge]

9 minutes ago, Waylander said:

Just over 2,000 years ago Alexander the Great and his army were marching back along the southern coast in modern Pakistan towards Babylon and were suprised to encounter a group or tribe of people with no clothes, no intelligible language and with lots of body hair who were living near the beaches and surviving on shellfish.

That's interesting, but what does it have to do with Neanderthals? 

[Waylander]

2 hours ago, nudge said:

That's interesting, but what does it have to do with Neanderthals? 

Just the closest and earliest reference I have read to uncivilised people.

I don't think they had the technology to determine whether they were neanderthals or not.

[Rucksackfranzose]

12 minutes ago, Waylander said:

Just the closest and earliest reference I have read to uncivilised people.

I don't think they had the technology to determine whether they were neanderthals or not.

They didn't know about neanderthals though, since them died out about 40,000 years ago.

By the way they wouldn't need to have had any technology since there were anatomical differences between neanderthals and homo sapiens.

[nudge]

16 minutes ago, Waylander said:

Just the closest and earliest reference I have read to uncivilised people.

I don't think they had the technology to determine whether they were neanderthals or not.

Why would they be Neanderthals though? Even if you disregard the well-established fact that Neanderthals became extinct some 30000-40000 years ago, the description doesn't make much sense, either, as Neanderthals didn't have excessive body hair and actually wore clothes. They also used complex tools and had quite sophisticated technology, with the latest research suggesting they also made art and had the ability to perceive and produce language.

You don't have to look 2000 years back to find "uncivilised" people, by the way. There are still hundreds of uncontacted tribes with "primitive lifestyles" alive today. Also none of them are Neanderthals

 

[Waylander]

The missing link perhaps, over 20 years since I read the book.

[Tommy]

2 minutes ago, nudge said:

You don't have to look 2000 years back to find "uncivilised" people, by the way. 

[Gunnersaurus]

You seriously didn't know that Neanderthals went extinct tens of thousands of years ago 

[CaaC (John)+]

Explained | 2022 Nobel Prize winner Svante Pääbo’s research on human evolution

 

 

[nudge]

2 minutes ago, Waylander said:

The missing link perhaps, over 20 years since I read the book.

Many things have changed in paleoanthropology in over 20 years due to new evidence, that's for sure. The missing link hypothesis is completely archaic and is not used anymore either, because evolution of species is not a linear chain; it's a tree with many branches with certain species (either currently living or extinct) sharing a common ancestor. Sapiens aren't any different. 

[nudge]

I'd also highly recommend this book for the most up-to-date information on Neanderthals.

[CaaC (John)+]

Quote

Nobel prize: What’s so special about the DNA of extinct hominids?

Scientist rewrote the book on Neanderthal genome

DNA is no friend to time. As the millennia wear on, DNA degrades to a point that sequencing the genome is almost entirely impossible, but only by revealing genetic differences that distinguish all living humans from extinct hominins, can we provide the basis for exploring what makes us unique.

That is why the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has gone to Svante Pääbo – whose team published the first Neanderthal genome sequence in 2010 and has since pioneered genomic analysis into both Neanderthals and the mysterious ‘Denisovans’.

The researcher has been awarded the prize ‘for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution’ and his research gave rise to an entirely new scientific discipline – paleogenomics.

Paleogenomics

Our genes tell a story about our history. Where we’ve come from and who we’ve mingled with along the way.

But as biologist Eric Lander, who helped lead the effort to sequence the first human genome put it: “Genome: Bought the book; hard to read.” Ancient DNA has a different problem – the book is in tatters.

Because DNA degrades over time, being able to extract even limited information is difficult. In 1997 Pääbo made his first breakthrough by reconstructing the first mitochondrial DNA from a Neanderthal.

Mitochondria – known as the ‘powerhouse of the cell’ – has its own set of DNA which is passed down from the mother.

Because there’s so many mitochondria in each cell, this DNA – which is called mtDNA – is the most accessible, and easiest to sequence – especially in ancient, degraded cells.

Pääbo was conducting his work only seven years after the Human Genome Project had begun and six years before it would be even moderately completed – DNA sequencing was still in its relative infancy.

The researchers continued refining the mitochondrial DNA, and also began looking a step further – trying to sequence the nuclear DNA of a Neanderthal.

Neanderthal DNA

Pääbo and his team steadily improved the methods to isolate and analyse DNA from archaic bone remains. The research team exploited new technical developments, which made sequencing of DNA much more efficient. Pääbo also engaged several critical collaborators with expertise on population genetics and advanced sequence analyses.

In 2010 Pääbo’s team made a second major breakthrough – they published a paper with the first draft of the Neanderthal nuclear genome sequence. Imagine this as a carefully reconstructed book, some pages sticky taped back together, while others having to be brought in from elsewhere to fill the gaps.

Having this entire genome means that we can now work out how Neanderthals and humans are different. Comparative analyses demonstrated that the most recent common ancestor of Neanderthals and Homo sapiens lived around 800,000 years ago, while more recently we discovered that Neanderthals and humans likely interbred, meaning that most of us have a few percentage points of DNA from this cross over.

Denisovans

In 2008 a 40,000-year-old fragment from a finger bone was discovered in the Denisova cave in the southern part of Siberia. The bone contained exceptionally well-preserved DNA, which Pääbo’s team sequenced.

The results caused a sensation – the DNA sequence was unique when compared to all known sequences from Neanderthals and present-day humans.

Pääbo and the team had discovered a previously unknown hominin, which was given the name Denisova. And, seemingly as these things go, comparisons with contemporary human genomes from different parts of the world showed that gene flow had also occurred between Denisova and Homo sapiens too.

“Pääbo’s discoveries have had a profound impact on the understanding of our evolutionary history, and they have galvanized research in the area,” wrote Gunilla Karlsson Hedestam and Anna Wedell, professors at the Karolinska Institute, in a background article about the prize.

“We now know that at least two distinct hominin groups, Neanderthals and Denisovans, inhabited Eurasia when anatomically modern humans (Homo sapiens) emerged from Africa.”

You can read more about Pääbo’s Nobel prize announcement here.

https://cosmosmagazine.com/history/nobel-prize-2022-svante-paabo-paleogenomics-dna-neanderthals/

 

[Bluebird Hewitt]

4 hours ago, Tommy said:

Wait a tick. I recognise that guy without the shirt.

Cheers to @Panna King I believe for this.

[Waylander]

17 hours ago, Tommy said:

Haha, though seriously don't have the body hair nor much elsewhere,

[nudge]

The Kennis brothers and Elisabeth Daynes do incredible paleo reconstructions. This is my favourite one of the Neanderthals:

 

More here: https://www.kenniskennis.com/summary/

And here: https://www.elisabethdaynes.com/paleoart-reconstructions/

[Dr. Gonzo]

Is it true we ate the Neanderthals out of existence? 

[nudge]

1 hour ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

Is it true we ate the Neanderthals out of existence? 

The current working hypothesis is that assimilation/absorption was the key to their extinction; as opposed to being outcompeted for resources or wiped out brutally by the Sapiens. As always, it was probably a multitude of different factors at play. Other ones frequently discusses are inbreeding and climate change.

[Rucksackfranzose]

14 minutes ago, nudge said:

The current working hypothesis is that assimilation/absorption was the key to their extinction; as opposed to being outcompeted for resources or wiped out brutally by the Sapiens. As always, it was probably a multitude of different factors at play. Other ones frequently discusses are inbreeding and climate change.

Wasn't there also theories by Sapiens imported diseases and Neanderthals cannibalizing human brains for ritual reasons and therefore consuming deadly prions might have played a role?

[nudge]

6 minutes ago, Rucksackfranzose said:

Wasn't there also theories by Sapiens imported diseases and Neanderthals cannibalizing human brains for reasons and therefore consuming deadly prions might have played a role?

Yes, there was such hypothesis, but as much as I'm aware, it is not supported and has been more or less abandoned. The main reason being that one specific disease probably can't be used to sufficiently explain the extinction of populations spread throughout whole Eurasia + the fact that their extinction appears to have been slow and steady as opposed to sudden and abrupt. That said, it could have well been the case with some of the Neanderthal groups in some specific region.

What's interesting in recent research is that latest fossils in Europe appear to suggest that Sapiens have replaced Neanderthals only to be replaced by them and then replace them again (this time forever). So it kind of suggests a cyclical change of very unstable and vulnerable populations of the two human groups throughout some 10000 years, where sometimes one of the subspecies had advantage over the other and vice versa, based on living/natural conditions and other factors.

[Panna King]

On 04/10/2022 at 21:05, Bluebird Hewitt said:

Wait a tick. I recognise that guy without the shirt.

Cheers to @Panna King I believe for this.

Thats Tango