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It seems that this is the year that some landmark studies into the Neandertal genome will be completed. Hawks gives us an update here on the FOXP2 gene. It has been felt for some time that this gene was recently introgressed into the human genome. This gene is important in language ability. Researchers now say definately that it introgressed about 42,000 yrs. ago. That's a lot to ponder on.Now, the more interesting news. Coop and colleagues verify that the selective sweep affecting human FOXP2 was indeed recent -- they estimate 42,000 years ago:
To demonstrate this, we estimated the time of the most recent common ancestor (tMRCA) of the selected haplotype (see Figure 1), using an approach sometimes called phylogenetic dating (Thomson et al. 2000; Hudson 2007). This method does not make assumptions about demography and selection, but only requires that the mutations in the intron be neutral or nearly neutral. Taking this approach, we obtained a mean tMRCA of 42 Kya (see SOM for details). While there is considerable uncertainty associated with this estimate, it is surprisingly recent if selection took place over 300 Kya (see SOM). In other words, the selective scenario proposed by the authors cannot account readily for patterns of variation in modern humans. Given that we have no power to detect a beneficial substitution that occurred over 250 Kya, (cf. Sabeti et al. 2006) yet we see a footprint of positive selection at FOXP2, the conclusion of a recent selective sweep at FOXP2 is not surprising (Coop et al. 2008:3-4).
FOXP2 is in one of the ENCODE regions, so its variation is pretty well known. This is not a problematic case: it has a very limited amount of variation around it, and has a strong excess of rare alleles, both signs of a recent sweep.
Given the seriousness of the situation as regards that individual's followers-child abuse and worse-could you please edit that link-it's in terrible taste.Forum Monk wrote:Here is 9 minutes of a neanderthal man speaking - though you may only be able to stomach about 30 seconds of it.
Alright, so two distinct species wind up with the FOXP2 gene by 42,000ybp while, coincidentally, they were in contact with each other in Europe. It would be humbling to our species if HN provided that gene to HS where, due to different morphology, sophisticated speech was born. The D allele for large brain size also shows up in HS at about the same time.It seems that this is the year that some landmark studies into the Neandertal genome will be completed. Hawks gives us an update here on the FOXP2 gene. It has been felt for some time that this gene was recently introgressed into the human genome. This gene is important in language ability. Researchers now say definately that it introgressed about 42,000 yrs. ago. That's a lot to ponder on.
In southern Africa there are a number of 'click languages'. Spoken by millions of people. Like Zulu, Swazi, Xhosa, and in the Namib. However, those are normally vocalized languages, with vowels, consonants and tonal inflections, just like other languages. The clicks are indeed that, clicks, injected into, and part of, the normal language. But the clicks are only a very small percentage of those languages. Put differently: those languages do not consist of clicks. Clicks are just a very small part of them.kbs2244 wrote:aren’t there, even today, “click” languages that seemed to be used quite well in getting ideas across?
Is there any reason the Neanderthals could not have used such a language?
Here is another study on the Neanderthal diet. As we know, they mainly ate meat. From Arch. News.April 23, 2008 -- Neanderthals living in southwestern France 55,000 to 40,000 years ago mostly ate red meat from extinct ancestors of modern bison, cattle and horses, according to a new study on a large, worn Neanderthal tooth.
The extinct hominids were not above eating every edible bit of an animal, since they were dining for survival, explained Teresa Steele, one of the study's co-authors.
While a steak dinner "is probably the closest modern comparison," Steele said, "remember too that they were consuming all parts of the animals, definitely the bone marrow and probably also the organs, not just the 'prime cuts.'"
I've been actively arguing this case about Neandertals for 20 years. And now it ends with the revelation that the key fossil evidence about modern man in Europe has been falsified. This is very similar to the famous "Piltdown Man" debacle. I've checked this morning and the news is spreading among the forums on the internet. It needs to, as we obviously cannot count on the Archaeological establishment to do anything but sweep this under the rug.It appeared to be one of archaeology's most sensational finds. The skull fragment discovered in a peat bog near Hamburg was more than 36,000 years old - and was the vital missing link between modern humans and Neanderthals.
This, at least, is what Professor Reiner Protsch von Zieten - a distinguished, cigar-smoking German anthropologist - told his scientific colleagues, to global acclaim, after being invited to date the extremely rare skull.
However, the professor's 30-year-old academic career has now ended in disgrace after the revelation that he systematically falsified the dates on this and numerous other "stone age" relics.
Yesterday his university in Frankfurt announced the professor had been forced to retire because of numerous "falsehoods and manipulations". According to experts, his deceptions may mean an entire tranche of the history of man's development will have to be rewritten.
