Neanderthal DNA

[Digit]

The most likely suggestion that I have seen is smoke Min. Any area that is regular swept by forest/grass fires etc would logically suggest to people that there was land 'over there'.
Another idea, my own for better or worse, did or does, any bird fly south and return with immature young? Again, our ancestors with their knowledge of bush craft would have put two and two together.
The largest problem they would have faced is the fierce currents in and around the Sunda Strait, many a poor sailor has reached 'Davey Jone's Locker' in that area.
Those currents tell me that boats, not rafts, plus sea going knowledge was available to them. Or they were damned lucky, and that luck would have to have been repeated as I doubt that one small boat load were the only pioneers.

[Minimalist]

The Club tells us that only HSS has the brain power to master navigation and, even then, not until relatively recent times.

Seems to be a preposterous argument in that Erectus seems to have spread far and wide and had a much longer time to do so.

As for "smoke"? Depends on the winds, I guess. If you had a strong wind from the Southeast it could blow smoke that far. I don't know how much of an advertisement that would be for the place, though.

[Beagle]

http://mc2.vicnet.net.au/home/mariners/ ... iner1.html

The amazing facts that are shown by Robert Bednarik. Homo Erectus seafaring 800,000 ya.

[Cognito]

On a consistent basis, I find that many assumptions made about ancient peoples (Neanderthals, Erectus, and even Sapiens) are made in error. Since someone did not possess our technology 50,000 years ago, we are drawn to assume that they lacked intelligence and/or imagination. This idea is pandemic, out of context, and false.

Beags, I am aware of the belief that Erectus could boat around almost 800,000 years ago. Yet, at the same time scientists will tell you that they were incapable of navigation. A better answer would be, "We don't believe they could navigate, but we don't know yet."

Nobody really knows yet whether there was interbreeding between Sapiens and Neanderthals or Erectus. However, scientists keep jumping to conclusions without all the data at hand. For one, I believe that Sapiens did fan out from Africa 50-60,000 years ago, supplanting other species, but interbreeding as they went, creating hybrids that were not wildly successful in general. Very little, if any, of that interbreeding is evident today; however, traces of it just won't go away to allow anyone to bundle up a neat and tidy package.

In an ongoing effort to annoy and bore people here, take a look at John Hawks' site regarding admixture and Alan Rogers' presentation regarding the same. Rogers' presentation is in slide format so some of it is simplistic and repetitive, but it's a decent basic primer on why the Out of Africa Replacement Model still has problems.

http://johnhawks.net/weblog/reviews/gen ... _2005.html

http://www.anthro.utah.edu/~rogers/ant5 ... albq06.pdf

Some of my African-American friends get a kick out of my statement that we were all black 50,000 years ago. Basically, that is true; however, I suspect there were a few Neanderthals and Erectoids in the woodpile along the way to modern humans.

[Digit]

A forest fire of sufficient size Min tends to draw in air from its surroundings and can result in a column of smoke that can be seen from a considerable distance. Colonisation is not likely to be the result of an accidental stranding, apart from anything else the number of women swept out to sea with men to accompany them, and survive to make a sucessful landfall must be seen to be remote.
I know of no viable case of colonisation by accident. How did they know land was there? How about the Polynesian colonisation of the pacific? The distances they covered were far greater, and they went.

[Digit]

Cog, look up David Reich on the subject of hybrids, you might be surprised.

[Cognito]

Reich: "Either we're the hybrids or the chimpanzees are the hybrids, but we can't tell which."

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/200 ... chimp.html

[Charlie Hatchett]

Reich: "Either we're the hybrids or the chimpanzees are the hybrids, but we can't tell which."

http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/200 ... chimp.html

The research, conducted by scientists at Harvard Medical School, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT, indicates that humans and chimpanzees developed into distinct species less than 6.3 million years ago and probably more recently than 5.4 million years ago. That is about a million years later than the previously accepted range of 6.5 million to 7.4 million years ago.

That's some serious, positive mutations, happening very rapidly. Smacks of a fairy tale to me.

How in the hell do you go from the common ancestor of chimps and humans to humans (Ergaster) in 3.4 million years. To a lot of these guys, random mutations appear to be their God. With all of man's collective intelligence, we could never hope to pull off such a trick, but matter, interacting randomly, some how got er' done...cough, cough...B.S.

[Digit]

Which of course Cog is the point I have tried to make about a HSS+HSN hybrids in the past. Unless somebody comes up with DNA from before any possibilty of a cross we will never know, but as you pointed out earlier as HSS spread into areas occupied by earlier migrants interbreeding was likely, even probable, as apart from inbreeding with members of your party who else was available?

[Charlie Hatchett]

Some of my African-American friends get a kick out of my statement that we were all black 50,000 years ago. Basically, that is true; however, I suspect there were a few Neanderthals and Erectoids in the woodpile along the way to modern humans.

Down with whitey!!

[Cognito]

Smacks of a fairy tale to me.

Charlie, you can have your opinion but please don't bag on the Tooth Fairy. The Tooth Fairy is real, OK?

[Charlie Hatchett]

Smacks of a fairy tale to me.

Charlie, you can have your opinion but please don't bag on the Tooth Fairy. The Tooth Fairy is real, OK?

Cute dress.

[Charlie Hatchett]

Reich: "Either we're the hybrids or the chimpanzees are the hybrids, but we can't tell which."

I'm still laughing my ass off. These are supposed to be the elite of anthropology.

How about a third option: Neither. They're not related at all, except for the fact that they're both mammals.

[Digit]

Charley, 25 yrs is the 'normal' span given to a generation of our ancestors, and if that is correct, 3.4Myrs equates 136000 generations.
Reich claims that only 400 to 500 genes separates us from Chimps, and that equates to one genetic change per 270 generations and that equates to one per 5000+ years.
Not exactly a windstorm of visible change my friend.

[Charlie Hatchett]

Charley, 25 yrs is the 'normal' span given to a generation of our ancestors, and if that is correct, 3.4Myrs equates 136000 generations.
Reich claims that only 400 to 500 genes separates us from Chimps, and that equates to one genetic change per 270 generations and that equates to one per 5000+ years.
Not exactly a windstorm of visible change my friend.

Problem , Digit, is where else in the world do we observe matter increasing in complexity? Do we see the horse drawn buggy evolving into a Ferrari:





No. We see it rotting away, just like everything else in the universe. Humans, chimps, etc...are not immune to the Second Law.

No matter in the universe is increasing in complexity, without the involvement of intelligence.

Observation should always override theory.