[Kosmo]

The tip of a girl’s 40,000-year-old pinky finger found in a cold Siberian cave, paired with faster and cheaper genetic sequencing technology, is helping scientists draw a surprisingly complex new picture of human origins.
The new view is fast supplanting the traditional idea that modern humans triumphantly marched out of Africa about 50,000 years ago, replacing all other types that had gone before.

Instead, the genetic analysis shows, modern humans encountered and bred with at least two groups of ancient humans in relatively recent times: the Neanderthals, who lived in Europe and Asia, dying out roughly 30,000 years ago, and a mysterious group known as the Denisovans, who lived in Asia and most likely vanished around the same time.

http://www.nytimes.c...an-origins.html

[Centurion-Macro]

It is so interesting how there were many species of humans. I had never heard of the Denisovans before. Although hearing the scant evidence (a pinky bone and a molar), I can see why a creationaist would find these discoveries lies.

[caldrail]

I'm not that suprised. Many years ago I pondered the question of Darwin's evolution theory and whilst I couldn't disagree with it, there was something missing. As elegant a theory as it was, it didn't explain the pattern of evolution that the fossil record displays. Why was there such diversity of life if the process is so visibly slow? And why are we so easily able to discern between species if they're slowly changing all the time?

Then it occured to me that looking at Darwins theory in isolation was the error. Once you realise how it fits in with the ecology of the world it makes more sense. What I mean is that as things normally are, life is more or less stable and species well defined. They know what to eat, where to find the food, and how to behave in polite society. That's fine.

Now the process of evolution kicks in. Occaisionally, if a number of creatures are physically isolated, they diverge from the others as the smal mutations that suit their seperate enviroment prove better suited. Occaisionally though you must get mutant adaptions or behaviour that are part of the stable regime. That makes these individual creatures anomalies, non-conformists, and potential troublemakers. These non-comformal individuals might try to eke out a living in a different enviroment - but unfortunately, in the stable world, this alternative neighbourhood is already full of species who sorted out who eats what a long time before, so our non-conformal animal struggles and very likely dies before his new found talent is passed on.

But what happens after an event that clears a territory? All of a sudden, there are new frontiers, new possibilities, and these non-conformal animals can pick and choose whatever food and housing they like. So we get a sudden meteoric diversity of species to populate this new territory until populations rise and the enviroment stabilises so everyone understands where the fences are.

Humans are animals too. Some people don't like that idea, either because their priest bangs on about human ascendancy or simply in some victorian-esque outrage that they're no better than monkeys. But be honest - how did you get here? Basically because mom and dad bonked each other. That's a pretty primeval act as it happens, whatever Ovid said in the days of the Roman Empire.

So although we have sophisticated nests and breeding sites, we are essentially doing little more than our primitive ancestors, and as such, our species follows the same rules as life everywhere else. Eat, drink, and get laid. Life goes on. So if, in the distant past, our primitive ancestors found new enviroments open to them, you would expect diversity of species, especially if these groups become isolated for long periods of time. It seems then in the light of recent evidence that the African Diaspora of 50,000 years ago had the unusual property of re-uniting species, where the weaker lot basically merged with the stronger.

Who knows? Maybe the chinese are right and they are a seperate species of human being? After all, they're the only population of human beings on the planet who know how to make sweet and sour pork.

This post has been edited by caldrail: 02 February 2012 - 11:56 AM

[DecimusCaesar]

Centurion-Macro, on 31 January 2012 - 10:06 PM, said:

It is so interesting how there were many species of humans. I had never heard of the Denisovans before. Although hearing the scant evidence (a pinky bone and a molar), I can see why a creationaist would find these discoveries lies.

Neither have I. I remember reading an article in a book many years ago and being blown away at the thought that homo sapines shared the world with other'species' of human beings, from Neanderthals and Homo Erectus to Homo Floresiensis and now Denisovans too.