Neanderthal News

[Digit]

I have to agree with RS' analysis, but I still find the population figures too low. It simply does not make sense!
I can think of no species with such a low figure in such a large area. If it is correct somebody needs to explain why I think.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

I'm not even sure what the science is behind that number. Wasn't it based on some sort of a statistical model of the number of bones that they've found?

Every time they find another bone the total will go up.

[Digit]

I thought it was based on the size of somebody's hat!

Roy.

[Minimalist]

[Digit]

Thinking on the bone count Min, that's crazy! We have no way of knowing how they disposed of their dead. They may have buried some, may have exposed them, burnt them or even placed them on a raft and sent down river for all we know! Even ritual cannibalism isn't unknown.

Roy.

[Minimalist]

Preaching to the choir, my friend.

[Digit]

As I recall Min the burials of HSN that have been recovered were in caves. If that was in areas of intense winter cold it could be that they were buried within the living area till the weather warmed, then they decided not to disturb them. Perhaps something made them decide to keep a particular person close to them.
We'll probably never know.

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Perhaps something made them decide to keep a particular person close to them.
We'll probably never know.

But we know what that 'something' was, Roy: when your mother dies you keep her body in your house to collect her pension. For years! US$ 150,000!
It was in the news, yesterday.

[Digit]

Let's hope they had better pensions than we do here in the UK then RS!

Roy.

[Rokcet Scientist]

Let's hope they had better pensions than we do here in the UK then RS!

You like paying more taxes?

[Digit]

Nope! But according to those who are supposed to know we are the most highly taxed in Europe and the lousiest pensions!
We have had 6? socialist governments since the first in the 1930s and every one of them has taxed everything and then run out of money!
It seems that none of the Labour Party have any interest in history, if they had they might not repeat the same mistakes endlessly!

Roy.

[jw1815]

"But to rule out interbreeding will require mapping the wealth of DNA in the cell’s nucleus......

The mitochondrial DNA represents “just a fraction of the information,” Wall says.

At least nuclear DNA should give a better picture since mtDNA represents such a small portion of genetic inheritance. According to mtDNA, Barack Obama is a white man of northern European ancestry and his children are black, of sub Saharan African ancestry. Obama's African father's heritage isn't traceable in mtDNA and his mother's white European heritage isn't traceable in his children's mtDNA.


"Green and colleagues have in fact been mapping nuclear DNA from Neanderthals. In February, Pääbo reported that the team already had mapped at least one DNA sequence to cover more than 60 percent of the entire Neanderthal genome, using DNA from the ancient bones of three different individuals."

If it's possible, I'd like to see more than 3 individuals mapped before drawing any conclusions. Wonder if each of the 3 was from a different region or if they were all from the same area.

During his talk at UCSF, Green noted a few specific chromosomal genes of interest to researchers. One is FOXP2, which plays a role in speech. The human gene differs from the chimp gene. But so far, humans and Neanderthals appear to share the same variants of this gene. A few other genes thought to encode uniquely human attributes also were the same in the Neanderthal samples.

Who knew? HN is more closely related to HSS than to chimps. Clever deduction.

[jw1815]

What they need is to find an HE dna specimen so we can figure out if we'll all descended from them.

I'd love to see some HE DNA comparisons. But, I think I read that, as of yet, no one's able to extract usable DNA from HE.

[Minimalist]

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/world/story/997118.html


HNS finds in Poland.

The researchers also found a hammer made of reindeer antler and bones of cave bears bearing cut marks, indicating they were eaten by the Neanderthals, Urbanowski said.

"The cave bears were big, dangerous animals and this supports the view the Neanderthals were really efficient hunters," he said.

The findings were reported by the German science journal Naturwissenschaften in an online article dated Jan. 28.

One can expect the HSS Fan Club to strike back soon.

[circumspice]

Oh boy...

http://www.archaeology.org/1003/etc/neanderthals.html