Neanderthals Died Out Earlier Than Previously Thought

[xonenine]

Neanderthals Died out Earlier Than Previously Thought, New Evidence Suggests

ScienceDaily (May 11, 2011) Direct dating of a fossil of a Neanderthal infant suggests that Neanderthals probably died out earlier than previously thought...

Science Daily

Edit, it was worth reading just to learn this turn of phrase...

"Previously, research teams have provided younger dates which we now know are not robust..."

Edited May 12, 2011 by xonenine

[Nicholas]

I've heard about these findings, although given my work schoolwork lately I haven't had time for a lot of pleasure reading of the academics. From what I know this is going to be another anthropological argument for a while, my favourite kind

[oilshale]

Definitely not true! They didn't die out. You meet them everywhere. One of my former bosses is a convincing evidence!

Thomas.

Edited May 12, 2011 by oilshale

[MarkGelbart]

So scientists determine the terminal date of a species of mammal from one cave, and extrapolate that to mean the species didn't occur anywhere else after the terminal date of that specimen.

Scientists can be so illogical.

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[Fossildude19]

Definitely not true! They didn't die out. You meet them everywhere. One of my former bosses is a convincing evidence!

Thomas.

Yeah,... I'm pretty sure I've met a few, as well.

Thanks for posting the link, Carmine.

Regards,

[PaleoRon]

About the same time this article came out, another stated that they survived much longer than previously thought.

[Jesse]

So scientists determine the terminal date of a species of mammal from one cave, and extrapolate that to mean the species didn't occur anywhere else after the terminal date of that specimen.

Scientists can be so illogical.

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www.markgelbart.wordpress.com

You misspoke!

Anthropologists are not scientists!!

[xonenine]

About the same time this article came out, another stated that they survived much longer than previously thought.

yes we have a thread for that one too, here it is...Neanderthal Survived Longer Than Thought: Article

[davehunt]

Joris and Street (2008) put together a pretty convincing analysis that argues that all the reliably dated Neanderthal specimens pre-date Modern arrival in western Eurasia, perhaps by a couple thousand years. What is interesting about this analysis is that it has the Neanderthals disappearing from Europe (probably due to repeat climatic extinctions and genetic bottlenecks) prior to the Campanian Ignimbrite (CI) eruption which many want to use as the bookend for Neanderthals. CI (and following Heinrich Event 4) then basically made western Eurasia uninhabitable for a while and Moderns built up on the periphery and then poured into Europe in a wave around 34 ka 14C BP (the arrival of the Aurignacian).

There is still a question about prior contact between Neanderthals and Moderns. Green et. al ("A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome." Science. 328.5979 (2010): 710-722) assert there are Neanderthal genes in human DNA. Some suggest Moderns and Neanderthals mixed it up in the Levant around 80,000 BP. What is curious is that the Neanderthals studied didn't seem to have human DNA, just the other way around.

Joris and Street c14 time scale Eurasia 2008.pdf

[ashcraft]

There is still a question about prior contact between Neanderthals and Moderns. Green et. al ("A Draft Sequence of the Neandertal Genome." Science. 328.5979 (2010): 710-722) assert there are Neanderthal genes in human DNA. Some suggest Moderns and Neanderthals mixed it up in the Levant around 80,000 BP. What is curious is that the Neanderthals studied didn't seem to have human DNA, just the other way around.

Joris and Street c14 time scale Eurasia 2008.pdf

I would add that I assume you mean that Neanderthals didn't have the specific genetic markers they were looking for, or something similar. They way you stated it sounds like Neanderthals weren't human, which the last time I looked they were classified as homo sapiens neanderthalis, versus us "modern" humans at homo sapiens sapiens. This would mean we have many (most) of the same genes, and hence DNA.

That being said, I look forward to reading the article, as it sounds very interesting.

Brent Ashcraft

Edited June 13, 2011 by ashcraft

[davehunt]

I think the context of the paragraph implies I meant Modern humans,which I did.

That being said, there isn't broad consensus on whether the correct name is H. neanderthalensis or H. s. neanderthalensis and much if the conclusion rides on whether Neanderthals and Moderns could interbred. As mentioned earlier on this thread, this stuff is changing constantly. I refer to the Green et. al. (2010) article which implies some marker presence, where just two years earlier Green et. al. (2008) had come to the conclusion that there was absolutely no indication of Modern genes in Neanderthal mtDNA and go so far as to state:

"establishes that the Neandertal mtDNA falls outside the variation of extant human mtDNAs" (416) - meaning they didn't find any linkage in that case.

It is amazingly complex science and rife with possibilities for contamination, so we haven't heard the last either.

Here's the 2008 reference: Green, Richard E, Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, and Johannes Krause. "A Complete Neandertal Mitochondrial Genome Sequence Determined by High-Throughput Sequencing." Cell. 134.3 (2008): 416-26.

Edited June 13, 2011 by davehunt

[ashcraft]

I think the context of the paragraph implies I meant Modern humans,which I did.

That being said, there isn't broad consensus on whether the correct name is H. neanderthalensis or H. s. neanderthalensis and much if the conclusion rides on whether Neanderthals and Moderns could interbred. As mentioned earlier on this thread, this stuff is changing constantly. I refer to the Green et. al. (2010) article which implies some marker presence, where just two years earlier Green et. al. (2008) had come to the conclusion that there was absolutely no indication of Modern genes in Neanderthal mtDNA and go so far as to state:

"establishes that the Neandertal mtDNA falls outside the variation of extant human mtDNAs" (416) - meaning they didn't find any linkage in that case.

It is amazingly complex science and rife with possibilities for contamination, so we haven't heard the last either.

Here's the 2008 reference: Green, Richard E, Anna-Sapfo Malaspinas, and Johannes Krause. "A Complete Neandertal Mitochondrial Genome Sequence Determined by High-Throughput Sequencing." Cell. 134.3 (2008): 416-26.

I am not trying qo quibble, or be difficult, well not much anyway, but what you are actually saying is that we do not have any of the same genetic information as H. (sapien) neanderthalis. You and I both know what you are talking about, but in an open forum like this, you are speaking to many who are not well versed in evolutionary theory. People who read this may (will) think that we have absolutely none of the same genes as our ancestors/cousins, when in actuality, we (modern humans) probably share 99.9% of the same genes as the neanderthal. As I recall, we share some 90% of the same genes with chimps. They are looking (I assume)at some specific genes that code for a trait that is a derived character, mutated since separation from the Neanderthals. Since it was unlikely to have evolved the same way twice, finding it in a particular neanderthal genome would imply that he/she had an ancestor that would be considered a "modern" human. This would be no different if they are talking about mitochondrial DNA either (which only comes from your mother).

It is a fascinating topic, but the whole problem boils down to the fact that you could take every human fossil and put them in the back of a pickup truck. They work with what they have, but it is VERY easy to come to false conclusions, shearly from lack of sample size.

You would be amazed at what a student will tell me after they read something.

Of course, once I have actually read the article, I may realize that I am a complete _____________ (choose your own appropriate metaphor).

This may make a good topic for class tomorrow.

Brent Ashcraft

[davehunt]

==speaking to many who are not well versed in evolutionary theory==

Agreed, your points add clarity.

Neanderthals were very thin on the landscape, it is really amazing that we have any fossils at all considering. I think it is also hard to grasp the scale of time involved, even on a forum about fossils where we're used to tossing around tens of millions of years. Neanderthals and archaic humans have a common ancestor anywhere from 300,000 to 900,000 years ago, depending on which fossil you grab out of that pickup truck load of fossils and hold up to the light. That is still a long time to adapt biologically and culturally to completely different environs (N. in Eurasia, archaic humans in Africa).

Here is another good article that makes some use of Green, without as much procedural discussion. I think it came about before Green et. al.(2010). Endicott et. al. (2010) are making an argument for a split around 430ka BP based on genetic variation (of a very small section of mtDNA). There is still a wide margin of error in these numbers though. It is mostly "interesting", not something to live or die by.

Endicott - genetics Neandertal - 2010.pdf

What do you teach?