Ancient DNA Provides New Insights Into Cave Paintings of Horses

ScienceDaily (Nov. 7, 2011) — An international team of researchers has used ancient DNA to shed new light on the realism of horses depicted in prehistoric cave paintings.

Miniature horse
The team, which includes researchers from the University of York, has found that all the colour variations seen in Paleolithic cave paintings -- including distinctive 'leopard' spotting -- existed in pre-domestic horse populations, lending weight to the argument that the artists were reflecting their natural environment.
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), is also the first to produce evidence for white spotted phenotypes in pre-domestic horses. Previous ancient DNA studies have only produced evidence for bay and black horses.
Archaeologists have long debated whether works of art from the Paleolithic period, particularly cave paintings, are reflections of the natural environment or have deeper abstract or symbolic meanings.
This is particularly true of the cave painting "The Dappled Horses of Pech-Merle" in France, which dates back more than 25,000 years and clearly depicts white horses with dark spots.
The dappled horses' spotted coat pattern bears a strong resemblance to a pattern known as 'leopard' in modern horses. However, as some researchers believed a spotted coat phenotype unlikely at this time, pre-historians have often argued for more complex explanations, suggesting the spotted pattern was in some way symbolic or abstract.
Researchers from the UK, Germany, USA, Spain, Russia and Mexico genotyped and analysed nine coat-colour loci in 31 pre-domestic horses dating back as far as 35,000 years ago from Siberia, Eastern and Western Europe and the Iberian Peninsula. This involved analysing bones and teeth specimens from 15 locations.
They found that four Pleistocene and two Copper Age samples from Western and Eastern Europe shared a gene associated with leopard spotting, providing the first evidence that spotted horses existed at this time.
In addition, 18 horses had a bay coat colour and seven were black, meaning that all colour phenotypes distinguishable in cave paintings -- bay, black and spotted -- existed in pre-domestic horse populations.
Professor Michi Hofreiter, from the Department of Biology at the University of York, said: "Our results suggest that, at least for wild horses, Paleolithic cave paintings, including the remarkable depictions of spotted horses, were closely rooted in the real-life appearance of animals.
"While previous DNA studies have produced evidence for bay and black horses, our study has demonstrated that the leopard complex spotting phenotype was also already present in ancient horses and was accurately depicted by their human contemporaries nearly 25,000 years ago.
"Our findings lend support to hypotheses that argue that cave paintings constitute reflections of the natural environment of humans at the time and may contain less of a symbolic or transcendental connotation than often assumed."
The data and laboratory work were led by Dr Melanie Pruvost, from the Department of Evolutionary Genetics at the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research and the Department of Natural Sciences at the German Archaeological Institute, both in Berlin. The results were replicated in laboratories at the University of York.
Dr Pruvost said: "We are just starting to have the genetic tools to access the appearance of past animals and there are still a lot of question marks and phenotypes for which the genetic process has not yet been described. However, we can already see that this kind of study will greatly improve our knowledge about the past. Knowing that leopard spotting horses were present during the Pleistocene in Europe provides new arguments or insights for archaeologists to interpret cave arts."
Dr Arne Ludwig, from the Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, added: "Although taken as a whole, images of horses are often quite rudimentary in their execution, some detailed representations, from both Western Europe and the Ural mountains, are realistic enough to at least potentially represent the actual appearance of the animals when alive.
"In these cases, attributes of coat colours may also have been depicted with deliberate naturalism, emphasizing colours or patterns that characterised contemporary horses."
Exact numbers of Upper Paleolithic sites with animal depictions are uncertain because of ongoing debates about the taxonomic identification of some images and dating. However, art of this period has been identified in at least 40 sites in the Dordogne-Périgord region, a similar number in coastal Cantabria and around a dozen sites in both the Ardèche and Ariège regions.
Where animal species can be confidently identified, horses are depicted at the majority of these sites.
Professor Terry O'Connor from the University of York's Department of Archaeology was involved in the interpretation of the results. He said: "Representations of animals from the Paleolithic period have the potential to provide first-hand insights into the physical environment that humans encountered thousands of years ago. However, the motivation behind, and therefore the degree of realism in these depictions is hotly debated.
"The depictions of horses at Pech-Merle in particular have generated a great deal of debate. The spotted horses are featured in a frieze which includes hand outlines and abstract patterns of spots. The juxtaposition of elements has raised the question of whether the spotted pattern is in some way symbolic or abstract, especially since many researchers considered a spotted coat phenotype unlikely for Paleolithic horses.
"However, our research removes the need for any symbolic explanation of the horses. People drew what they saw, and that gives us greater confidence in understanding Paleolithic depictions of other species as naturalistic illustrations."
Leopard complex spotting in modern horses is characterised by white spotting patterns that range from horses having a few white spots on the rump to horses that are almost completely white. The white area of these horses can also have pigmented oval spots known as 'leopard spots'.
Dr. Monika Reissmann, from Humboldt University's Department for Crop and Animal Sciences, explained: "This phenotype was in great demand during the Baroque Age. But in the following centuries the leopard complex phenotype went out of fashion and became very rare. Today leopard complex is a popular phenotype in several horse breeds including Knabstrupper, Appaloosa and Noriker and breeding efforts have intensified again because there is a growing interest in the restoration of these horses."
The fact that four out of 10 of the Western European horses from the Pleistocene had a genotype indicative of the leopard complex phenotype, suggests that this phenotype was not rare in Western Europe during this period.
However, bay seems to have been the most common colour phenotype in pre-domestic times with 18 out of the 31 samples having bay genotypes. This is also the most commonly painted phenotype in the Paeolithic period.READ IT HERE

Ancient DNA Provides New Insights Into Cave Paintings of Horses

New Giant Lizard in Phillipines

New species of giant lizard found in Philippines
April 6, 2010

Enlarge
A Varanus bitatawa, pictured in 2009 in the Philippines. Scientists reported on the "spectacular" discovery a previously unknown species of fruit-eating lizard as big as a full-grown man. Astonished researchers found the secretive but brightly-coloured beast, a close cousin of the fearsome Komodo Dragons of Indonesia, in a hard-to-reach river valley of northern Luzon Island in the Philippines.
Biologists on Wednesday reported the spectacular discovery of a species of giant lizard, a reptile as long as a full-grown man is tall, and endowed with a double penis.

5

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The secretive but brightly-coloured beast, a monitor lizard, is a close cousin of the Komodo Dragon of Indonesia.
But unlike the fearsone Dragon, it is not a carnivore, nor does it feast on rotting meat. Instead, it is entirely peaceable and tucks into fruit.
Dubbed Varanus bitatawa, the lizard measures two metres (6.5 feet) in length, according to the account, published by Britain's Royal Society.
It was found in a river valley on northern Luzon Island in the Philippines, surviving loss of habitat and hunting by local people who use it for food.
How many of the lizards have survived is unclear.
The species is almost certainly critically endangered, and might well have disappeared entirely without ever being catalogued had a large male specimen not been rescued alive from a hunter last June.
Finding such a distinctive species in a heavily populated, highly deforested location "comes as an unprecedented surprise," note the authors, writing in the journal Biology Letters.
The only finds of comparable importance in recent decades are the Kipunji monkey, which inhabits a tiny range of forest in Tanzania, and the Saola, a forest-dwelling bovine found only in Vietnam and Laos.
V. bitatawa has unique markings and an unusual sexual anatomy, according to the study.
Its scaly body and legs are a blue-black mottled with pale yellow-green dots, while its tail is marked in alternating segments of black and green.
Males have a double penis, called hemipenes, also found in some snakes and other lizards.
The two penises are often used in alternation, and sometimes contain spines or hooks that serve to anchor the male within the female during intercourse.
V. bitatawa has a relative in southern Luzon, V. olivaceus, but the species are separated by three river valleys and a gap of 150 kilometers (95 miles) and may never have met up.
One reason that the new lizard has gone undetected, the researchers speculate, is that it never leaves the forests of its native Sierra Madre mountains to traverse open spaces.
The discovery "adds to the recognition of the Philippines as a global conservation hotspot and a regional superpower of biodiversity," the authors conclude.
The giant lizard should become a "flagship species" for conservation efforts aimed at preserving the remaining forests of northern Luzon, which are rapidly disappearing under the pressure of expanding human population and deforestation.More

New Giant Lizard in Phillipines

New Giant Lizard: Komodo Cousin "A Nasty Piece of Work"

New Giant Lizard: Komodo Cousin "A Nasty Piece of Work"
Christine Dell'Amore
National Geographic News
October 6, 2009
A possible new species of giant prehistoric lizard—bigger and badder than the deadly Komodo dragon—may have stalked the ancient Australian outback, a new study says.

Three fossilized bones of the mysterious 13-foot-long (4-meter-long) lizard were collected in 1966 in western Timor island, part of Indonesia (Timor map).


Six-Foot Lizards Invading Military Runway in Florida
Virgin Birth Expected at Christmas -- By Komodo Dragon
VIDEO: Indonesia's Flying Reptiles
When study leader Scott Hocknull recently examined the fossils, he was "astounded" to find that they belonged neither to the Komodo dragon—the only giant lizard species alive today—nor Megalania, a 16-foot-long (5-meter-long) extinct monster that's among the largest lizards known to have ever lived.

Giant Lizard "a Nasty Piece of Work"

The "tantalizing bones"—which date to the middle of the Pleistocene epoch (1.8 million to 11,500 years ago)—are unique enough that Hocknull suspects they represent a new species. But only "more fossils and time will tell," said Hocknull, senior curator of geosciences at Australia's Queensland Museum.

The newfound predator would have lived in open landscapes alongside giant tortoises, dwarf elephants, and perhaps even the extinct human ancestral species Homo erectus, Hocknull said.

Like the Komodo, the lizard would have ambushed its prey.

(Related: "Komodo Dragons Kill With Venom, Researchers Find.")

"Being a large terrestrial carnivore," he said, "it would have been quite a nasty piece of work."

Komodo Dragon Born in Australia?

The new analysis also notes that numerous Komodo dragon fossils at least 300,000 years old have recently been found in Australia. This is among the evidence that the animals originated, and evolved into their giant form, on the island continent, then radiated west to what is now Indonesia, the study says.

And though the new giant lizard has yet to be definitively identified as a new species, "one thing is for sure," Hocknull said: There were many more giant lizards in Australia than anybody knew.

Climate accounts for some of his certainty. Australia began to dry up about eight million years ago, creating a perfect environment for lizards, Hocknull said.

To keep up with the ever increasing sizes of their prey, prehistoric Australian lizards got beefier over time—culminating in the titanic Megalania.

But just as Australia's giant lizards were "on their way up in the evolutionary stake," they suddenly died out, Hocknull said.

No one knows how the sole survivor, the Komodo dragon, managed to scrape by in Indonesia yet disappeared in its Australian birthplace.

"Climate, or humans, or both?" Hocknull said. "The jury will remain out on this one for a while."Source

New Giant Lizard: Komodo Cousin "A Nasty Piece of Work"

Viking Blood Courses Through Veins Of Many A Northwest Englander

ScienceDaily (Feb. 8, 2008) — The blood of the Vikings is still coursing through the veins of men living in the North West of England — according to a new study.
See Also:
Fossils & Ruins
Archaeology
Ancient Civilizations
Early Humans
Fossils
Early Climate
Anthropology
Reference
The Genographic Project
Introduction to genetics
Multiregional hypothesis
Recent single-origin hypothesis
Focusing on the Wirral in Merseyside and West Lancashire the study of 100 men, whose surnames were in existence as far back as medieval times, has revealed that 50 per cent of their DNA is specifically linked to Scandinavian ancestry.
The collaborative study, by The University of Nottingham, the University of Leicester and University College London, reveals that the population in parts of northwest England carries up to 50 per cent male Norse origins, about the same as modern Orkney.
Stephen Harding, Professor of Physical Biochemistry in the School of Biosciences said; “DNA on the male Y-chromosome is passed along the paternal line from generation to generation with very little change, providing a powerful probe into ancestry. So a man's Y-chromosome type is a marker to his paternal past. The method is most powerful when populations rather than individuals are compared with each other. We can also take advantage of the fact that surnames are also passed along the paternal generations. Using tax and other records the team selected volunteers who possess a surname present in the region prior to 1600. This gets round the problems of large population movements that have occurred since the Industrial revolution in places like Merseyside.”
After their expulsion from Dublin in 902AD the Wirral Vikings, initially led by the Norwegian Viking INGIMUND, landed in their boats along the north Wirral coastline. Place names still reflect the North West's Viking past. Aigburth, Formby, Crosby, Toxteth, Croxteth are all Viking names — even the football team Tranmere is Viking. Thingwall is the name of a Viking parliament or assembly (Thingvellir in Iceland) and the only two in England are both in the North West — one in Wirral and one in Liverpool.
The results of this research have just been published by Molecular Biology and Evolution. The 14-strong research team, funded by the Wellcome Trust and a Watson-Crick DNA anniversary award from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), was led by the University of Nottingham's Professor Stephen Harding and Professor Judith Jesch and the University of Leicester's Professor Mark Jobling.Source

Viking Blood Courses Through Veins Of Many A Northwest Englander

Archaeologists Find Blade 'Production Lines' Existed as Much as 400,000 Years Ago

ScienceDaily (Oct. 17, 2011) — Archaeology has long associated advanced blade production with the Upper Palaeolithic period, about 30,000-40,000 years ago, linked with the emergence of Homo Sapiens and cultural features such as cave art. Now researchers at Tel Aviv University have uncovered evidence which shows that "modern" blade production was also an element of Amudian industry during the late Lower Paleolithic period, 200,000-400,000 years ago as part of the Acheulo-Yabrudian cultural complex, a geographically limited group of hominins who lived in modern-day Israel, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

The evolution of human intelligence
Prof. Avi Gopher, Dr. Ran Barkai and Dr. Ron Shimelmitz of TAU's Department of Archaeology and Ancient Near Eastern Civilizations say that large numbers of long, slender cutting tools were discovered at Qesem Cave, located outside of Tel Aviv, Israel. This discovery challenges the notion that blade production is exclusively linked with recent modern humans.
The blades, which were described recently in the Journal of Human Evolution, are the product of a well planned "production line," says Dr. Barkai. Every element of the blades, from the choice of raw material to the production method itself, points to a sophisticated tool production system to rival the blade technology used hundreds of thousands of years later.
An innovative product
Though blades have been found in earlier archaeological sites in Africa, Dr. Barkai and Prof. Gopher say that the blades found in Qesem Cave distinguish themselves through the sophistication of the technology used for manufacturing and mass production.
Evidence suggests that the process began with the careful selection of raw materials. The hominins collected raw material from the surface or quarried it from underground, seeking specific pieces of flint that would best fit their blade making technology, explains Dr. Barkai. With the right blocks of material, they were able to use a systematic and efficient method to produce the desired blades, which involved powerful and controlled blows that took into account the mechanics of stone fracture. Most of the blades of were made to have one sharp cutting edge and one naturally dull edge so it could be easily gripped in a human hand.
This is perhaps the first time that such technology was standardized, notes Prof. Gopher, who points out that the blades were produced with relatively small amounts of waste materials. This systematic industry enabled the inhabitants of the cave to produce tools, normally considered costly in raw material and time, with relative ease.
Thousands of these blades have been discovered at the site. "Because they could be produced so efficiently, they were almost used as expendable items," he says.
Prof. Cristina Lemorini from Sapienza University of Rome conducted a closer analysis of markings on the blades under a microscope and conducted a series of experiments determining that the tools were primarily used for butchering.
Modern tools a part of modern behaviors
According to the researchers, this innovative industry and technology is one of a score of new behaviors exhibited by the inhabitants of Qesem Cave. "There is clear evidence of daily and habitual use of fire, which is news to archaeologists," says Dr. Barkai. Previously, it was unknown if the Amudian culture made use of fire, and to what extent. There is also evidence of a division of space within the cave, he notes. The cave inhabitants used each space in a regular manner, conducting specific tasks in predetermined places. Hunted prey, for instance, was taken to an appointed area to be butchered, barbequed and later shared within the group, while the animal hide was processed elsewhere.Here

Archaeologists Find Blade 'Production Lines' Existed as Much as 400,000 Years Ago

Portuguese Hybrid 30,000-Year-Old Child's Teeth Shed New Light On Human Evolution

30,000-Year-Old Child's Teeth Shed New Light On Human Evolution
ScienceDaily (Jan. 7, 2010) — The teeth of a 30,000-year-old child are shedding new light on the evolution of modern humans, thanks to research from the University of Bristol published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The teeth are part of the remarkably complete remains of a child found in the Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Portugal and excavated in 1998-9 under the leadership of Professor João Zilhão of the University of Bristol. Classified as a modern human with Neanderthal ancestry, the child raises controversial questions about how extensively Neanderthals and modern human groups of African descent interbred when they came into contact in Europe.
'Early modern humans', whose anatomy is basically similar to that of the human race today, emerged over 50,000 years ago and it has long been the common perception that little has changed in human biology since then.
When considering the biology of late archaic humans such as the Neanderthals, it is thus common to compare them with living humans and largely ignore the biology of the early modern humans who were close in time to the Neanderthals.
With this in mind, an international team, including Professor Zilhão, reanalysed the dentition of the Lagar Velho child (all of its deciduous -- milk -- teeth and almost all of its permanent teeth) to see how they compared to the teeth of Neanderthals, later Pleistocene (12,000-year-old) humans and modern humans.
Employing a technique called micro-tomography which uses x-rays to create cross-sections of 3D-objects, the researchers investigated the relative stages of formation of the developing teeth and the proportions of crown enamel, dentin and pulp in the teeth.
They found that, for a given stage of development of the cheek teeth, the front teeth were relatively delayed in their degree of formation. Moreover, the front teeth had a greater volume of dentin and pulp but proportionally less enamel than the teeth of recent humans.
The teeth of the Lagar Velho child thus fit the pattern evident in the preceding Neanderthals, and contrast with the teeth of later Pleistocene (12,000-year-old) humans and living modern humans.
Professor Zilhão said: "This new analysis of the Lagar Velho child joins a growing body of information from other early modern human fossils found across Europe (in Mladeč in the Czech Republic, Peştera cu Oase and Peştera Muierii in Romania, and Les Rois in France) that shows these 'early modern humans' were 'modern' without being 'fully modern'. Human anatomical evolution continued after they lived 30,000 to 40,000 years ago."
The team was led by Priscilla Bayle (Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, France) and Roberto Macchiarelli (Université de Poitiers, France) and included Erik Trinkaus (Professor of Anthropology at Washington University, St.-Louis, Cidália Duarte (Câmara Municipal do Porto, Portugal), and Arnaud Mazurier (CRI-Biopôle-Poitiers, France).Source

Portuguese Hybrid 30,000-Year-Old Child's Teeth Shed New Light On Human Evolution

Ancient Teeth Raise New Questions About Origins of Modern Humans

Ancient Teeth Raise New Questions About Origins of Modern Humans
ScienceDaily (Feb. 9, 2011) — Eight small teeth found in a cave near Rosh Haain, central Israel, are raising big questions about the earliest existence of humans and where we may have originated, says Binghamton University anthropologist Rolf Quam.

Part of a team of international researchers led by Dr. Israel Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University, Qaum and his colleagues have been examining the dental discovery and recently published their joint findings in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
Excavated at Qesem cave, a pre-historic site that was uncovered in 2000, the size and shape of the teeth are very similar to those of modern humans, Homo sapiens, which have been found at other sites is Israel, such as Oafzeh and Skhul -- but they're a lot older than any previously discovered remains.
"The Qesem teeth come from a time period between 200,000 -- 400,000 years ago when human remains from the Middle East are very scarce," Quam said. "We have numerous remains of Neandertals and Homo sapiens from more recent times, that is around 60,00 -- 150,000 years ago, but fossils from earlier time periods are rare. So these teeth are providing us with some new information about who the earlier occupants of this region were as well as their potential evolutionary relationships with the later fossils from this same region."
The teeth also present new evidence as to where modern humans might have originated. Currently, anthropologists believe that modern humans and Neandertals shared a common ancestor who lived in Africa over 700,000 years ago. Some of the descendants of this common ancestor migrated to Europe and developed into Neandertals. Another group stayed in Africa and evolved into Homo sapiens, who later migrated out of the continent. If the remains from Qesem can be linked directly to the Homo sapiens species, it could mean that modern humans either originated in what is now Israel or may have migrated from Africa far earlier that is presently accepted.
But according to Quam, the verdict is still out as to what species is represented by these eight teeth, which poses somewhat of a challenge for any kind of positive identification.
"While a few of the teeth come from the same individual, most of them are isolated specimens," Quam said. "We know for sure that we're dealing with six individuals of differing ages. Two of the teeth are actually deciduous or 'milk' teeth, which means that these individuals were young children. But the problem is that all the teeth are separate so it's been really hard to determine which species we're dealing with."
According to Quam, rather than rely on individual features, anthropologists use a combination of characteristics to get an accurate reading on species type. For instance, Neandertal teeth have relatively large incisors and very distinctive molars and premolars whereas Homo sapiens teeth are smaller with incisors that are straighter along the 'lip' side of the face. Sometimes the differences are subtle but it's these small changes that make having a number of teeth from the same individual that much more important.
But even though Quam and the team of researchers don't know for sure exactly who the teeth belong to, these dental 'records' are still telling them a lot about the past.
"Teeth are evolutionarily very conservative structures," Quam said. "And so any differences in their features can provide us with all sorts of interesting information about an individual. It can tell us what they ate, what their growth and development patterns looked like as well as what their general health was like during their lifetime. They can also tell us about the evolutionary relationships between species, all of which adds to our knowledge of who we are and where we came from."
Excavation continues at the Qesem site under the direction of Professor Avi Gopher and Dr. Ran Barkai of Tel Aviv University. The archaeological material already recovered includes abundant stone tools and animal remains, all of which are providing researchers with a very informative 'picture' of daily life and hunting practices of the site's former inhabitants.
"This is a very exciting time for archeological discovery," Quam said. "Our hope is that the continuing excavation at the site will result in the discover of more complex remains which would help us pinpoint exactly which species we are dealing with."
Quam continues to be in touch with the on-site archeologists and hopes to collaborate in the project when and if more complete human remains are recovered.Source

Ancient Teeth Raise New Questions About Origins of Modern Humans

Black History Professor Rejects Afrocentrism

Black History Professor Rejects Afrocentrism
DECEMBER 20, 2009

Clarence E. Walker. We Can't Go Home Again: an Argument about Afrocentrism

By Fred R. van Hartesveldt
Teaching History: A Journal of Methods
Fall, 2003

The factual flaws in much of the writing about Afrocentrism have been exposed in the past. Clarence Walker does so again in We Can't Go Home Again, and does so effectively. In this regard he focuses particularly on the Afrocentric assertion that Egyptians were black and the wellspring of Western civilization. He makes very clear that the modern concept of race as identity simply does not apply to the variegated population of Egypt and would not have been understood there. The importance of his book, however, does not lie in renewing and expanding the critique of the factual and analytical content of Afrocentric literature.

Walker refers to Afrocentrism as "therapeutic mythology" asserted as a way to promote the self-esteem of African Americans (a term he does not like) "by creating a past that never was." He understands it as black nationalism; in fact he argues that the origins of Afrocentrism lay in black nationalism of the Romantic era, but rejects it as history. Were Afrocentrism a means of creating African American community and thus empowering a minority, it would be comparable to such mythologies used by other minorities. Such mythologies, however, have been grounded in historical thought, while Afrocentrism is factually errant and theoretically flawed.

By urging black Americans to seek empowerment in a misconstructed Egyptian history, Afrocentrists not only mislead, opening their students to ridicule, but they also assert that culture is "transhistoric" — that is, it can be transferred through time and space intact. Culture, Walker asserts, is always changing and will be different as a result of any transfer, willing or unwilling, on the part of those living it. African Americans have created a culture of their own — a culture of which to be proud, but not an Egyptian or African culture. To Walker's way of thinking, Afrocentrism turns African Americans into helpless victims whose ancestors created a glorious culture and then for thousands of years accomplished little. They became the dupes and victims of Europeans, enslaved and exploited, and now their descendants must look to a mythical African past for purpose and meaning. Such a denigration of the African-American struggle, which Walker regards as a triumph, clearly angers him.

Given the popularity of Afrocentrism and its spread through the academic community and popular culture, anyone teaching history or otherwise interested in the nature of historical methodology should read Walker. The manipulation of history to create a particular attitude or support a political point of view is, as Walker acknowledges, sometimes a way of creating unity and gaining power. To deny a people the heritage they and their forefathers built is not acceptable. Walker shows that historians should help African-American students to appreciate their own real history and not pursue distortions of the past in the name of identity, especially since their actual past offers them an identity worthy of enormous pride.

Walker's prose conveys his ideas and passions effectively, despite a painful tendency to fall into the jargon of social science. His arguments are clear, thoughtful, and easy to read. His concern for the discipline and its practitioners comes through forcefully. Even those who disagree with his conclusions will be engaged and will find much to think about if they are sincerely interested in historical scholarship and how it influences those who study it.

The value of this book for courses in historiography and methodology is obvious. It offers useful examples of how historians analyze material, and historical knowledge can shape our understanding of contemporary culture. Its applications go beyond metahistory, however. Students of modern American society and education will find much to explore in its pages, and anyone investigating African-American history should examine Walker's conclusions. Walker will help such students understand not only one way African Americans have come to view themselves but also an element in their contemporary efforts at gaining a sense of identity within American culture. Thus, although the title might not suggest it, this book can be a valuable part of a variety of courses.

Black History Professor Rejects Afrocentrism

100k Anatomically Modern Human in Asia

100,000 year old anatomically modern humans from Zhirendong
I'm sure I'll have a lot to say about this paper once I read it, but right now I'm focusing on the pilot phase of the Dodecad Project.

I'll post my comments later in this post; For now, I'll just say: those pesky ancestors have a way of upsetting scientific theories. But, in a sense, that's the beauty of science.

Press release, National Geographic, Anthropology.net, and Razib have more info.

Related: the previous "oldest modern human" was Liujiang.

The paper's section on populational implications:
Populational Implications. Assuming that modern human biology
emerged initially in the late Middle Pleistocene of equatorial
Africa (8, 31, 36), the presence of derived, modern human
mandibular features in East Asia by early MIS 5 implies early
modern human population dispersal or gene flow across at least
southern Asia sometime before the age of the Zhiren Cave human
remains or independent emergence of these features in East
Asia. The early modern human MIS 5 dispersal into Southwest
Asia may therefore have included further population dispersal or
gene flow eastward across southern Asia.

However, the Zhiren 3 complex mosaic of distinctly derived,
modern human features of the anterior mandibular symphysis,
combined with archaic features of the lingual symphysis and
overall mandibular robustness, indicates that any “dispersal”
involved substantial admixture between dispersing early modern
human populations (cf. 5) or gene flow into regional populations
(cf. 37, 38). The paleontological data are insufficient to assess the
levels of such gene flow or admixture, but the morphological
mosaic of Zhiren 3 is most parsimoniously explained as the result
of such populational processes. It is not easily accommodated
into any Out-of-Africa with populational replacement scenario.
The short story: anatomically modern humans (AMHs) first emerge in East Africa in examples like Omo and Herto about 200-150ky. The first undeniably modern finds in Eurasia were from Qafzeh in the Levant, roughly contemporaneous with the new Zhiren sample.

These Qafzeh AMHs were usually interpreted as the Out-of-Africa-that-failed, an early excursion of anatomically modern humans into Eurasia that seems to have fizzled as AMHs appear, first as isolated teeth, and then as skulls like the Oase mandible and Mladec in Europe, and Liujiang in East Asia only 50-60 thousand years later.

Until now, it was supposed that these later AMHs were descendants of the Out-of-Africa-that succeeded, which postdated Qafzeh, was contemporaneous with the Aurignacian and the emergence of full-blown behavioral modernity.

The new Zhirendong find upsets this standard model: anatomically modern humans existed 100 thousand years ago in Africa, the Levant, and East Asia. It's extremely difficult to make the argument now that two of these AMH populations died out and the African one repopulated the world.

The two pillars of Out of Africa are (i) the genetics, i.e., the evidence for greater African genetic diversity, diminution of heterozygosity from east Africa, and increase of linkage disequilibrium, (ii) the palaeoanthropology, i.e., the temporal gap between AMHs in Africa and Eurasia.

Factor (ii) has just taken a huge blow. Moreover, Out-of-Africa supporters must now either (a) come up with scenarios for dispersal of AMHs 50,000 years at least before their current models, or (b) accept the emergence of modernity in Eurasia without dispersals from Africa.

UPDATE: John Hawks questions the chin=African equation.

PNAS doi: 10.1073/pnas.1014386107

Human remains from Zhirendong, South China, and modern human emergence in East Asia

Wu Liu et al.

The 2007 discovery of fragmentary human remains (two molars and an anterior mandible) at Zhirendong (Zhiren Cave) in South China provides insight in the processes involved in the establishment of modern humans in eastern Eurasia. The human remains are securely dated by U-series on overlying flowstones and a rich associated faunal sample to the initial Late Pleistocene, >100 kya. As such, they are the oldest modern human fossils in East Asia and predate by >60,000 y the oldest previously known modern human remains in the region. The Zhiren 3 mandible in particular presents derived modern human anterior symphyseal morphology, with a projecting tuber symphyseos, distinct mental fossae, modest lateral tubercles, and a vertical symphysis; it is separate from any known late archaic human mandible. However, it also exhibits a lingual symphyseal morphology and corpus robustness that place it close to later Pleistocene archaic humans. The age and morphology of the Zhiren Cave human remains support a modern human emergence scenario for East Asia involving dispersal with assimilation or populational continuity with gene flow. It also places the Late Pleistocene Asian emergence of modern humans in a pre-Upper Paleolithic context and raises issues concerning the long-term Late Pleistocene coexistence of late archaic and early modern humans across Eurasia.
Source

100k Anatomically Modern Human in Asia

The Denisovans and the mystery of blonde hair…

Yeah, we know about Neanderthal and Homo Floresiensis but who the hell were the Denisovans?!
The Denisovans and the mystery of blonde hair…
Ethnic monitoring forms could be about to get even more complicated – that’s if you consider the whole of your ancestry to be important. Before paleogeneticists Svante Pääbo, and David Riech and the team at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology decoded hominidae genomes of the living (humans and great apes) and the extinct (Neanderthal and Denisovan) the “Single-origin model”, of human evolution was popular with several scientists such as, paleoanthropologist
Chris Stringer and geneticist Brian Sykes. Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon were thought of as biologically separate species, unable to breed and produce viable hybrids. But in Stringer’s new book, The Origin of our Species and again during his recent talk at the Royal Institute, Stringer declared he was wrong about the “single-origin model”. (But neither does he fully support the multi-regional hypothesis) A band of Early Homo sapiens migrating out of Africa between 100,000 to 60,000 years ago, didn’t simply replace independently evolved populations from earlier out-of-Africa exoduses, (such as the Neanderthal), they bred with them. Many would convincingly argue the once controversial "multiregional hypothesis" is now proven by DNA evidence. And “Rhodesian Man” and “Iwo Eleru” fossils are no longer confusing anomalies. Stringer, head of Human Origins at the Natural History Museum, is an accessible, modest and world-class academic and clearly inspired by the fossils and the new DNA data that has proved him wrong.

Populations of people outside of Africa have far less genetic diversity than modern Africans, but they carry approximately 2.5% Neanderthal DNA - but not the same 2.5 of genetic material. Thus, which modern non-African regional groups inherited what particular Neanderthal genes and under what selection pressures and what benefit those genes give, if any, remains to be determined. DNA is best preserved cold, the small Siberian Denisovan fossils yielded both mitochondrial and autosomnal DNA. Denisovan Mitochondrial DNA analysis shows the shared ancestor of modern humans, Denisovans and Neanderthal lived 1M years ago, whereas the Mitochondrial ancestor of Neanderthal and modern humans lived 500,000 years ago. Both Homo heidelbergensis and Antecessor split and speciated away from their Homo Erectus origins around 1.5 million years ago. It is possible that H. heidelbergensis gave rise to Neanderthal and the Denisovans were a hybrid of Antecessor and early Neanderthal. The Denisovan morphology (a very large molar was found) and their genome suggests these were a robust and archaic-looking people. Yet they made tools and ornaments (before the Denisovan fossil discovery artifacts of this sort were attributed to modern humans) and were living in Southern Siberia up until at least 30,000 years ago.

Lake Baikol in Southern Siberia, largest freshwater lake in the world.
Denisovans colonised vast areas of East Asia, whereas Neanderthal populated Western Asia and Europe. When anatomically modern humans migrated from Africa they subsequently met and bred with the Neanderthal, somewhere around 60,000 years ago and those that went East subsequently met and successfully bred with the Denisovans – people with regions of their genome more similar to a chimpanzee than a Neanderthal. Some of these hybridised archaic people continued Eastwards and around 40,000 years ago became the early Melanesian (and probably Australasian) settlers. Thus, today’s Melanesians have 7.5% archaic genes, approx 2.5 Neanderthal and 5% Denisovan. This would help to explain the Australian 10,000yr old Kow Swamp skull’s archaic robusticity. Tests of Tasmanian bones are now important for future sampling.

Tasmanian Aboriginies


The YALI tribe of Papua New Guinea are believed to be direct descendents of the Denisovans.
Yali man Papua New Guinea
DNA from late populations of Southern European Neanderthal show they had evolved genes for red hair and fair skin. Some Melanesians and the Australian Aborigine are blond, in the pre-genetic-testing past this pigmentation confounded anthropologists. It was wrongly assumed Dutch sailors had left behind their genetic admixture for blond pigment. But as these groups exhibit a combination of blond hair and dark skin this theory was always doubted. I wondered if the Denisovans might have been blondes? At the Max Plank Institute pigmentation is not a major interest and they have not pursued this particular line of research, so, we must wait for another team to take up this challenge.

Blond hair is frequnetly seen in Melanesian children

African Bushmen (particularly groups that use a “click” in their language), also appear to carry archaic DNA. It’s possible some Erectus groups did not evolve into Heidelbergensis or Antecessor and, in turn, some of these did not evolve into Homo sapiens. Some isolated groups had a slower development and remained in confined regions of Africa, but were opportunist breeders when they encountered others, including emerging anatomically modern Africans. The archaic looking but recent “Iwo Eleru” fossil from Nigeria suggests hybridisation of archaic and emerging moderns continued up to as recently as 10,000 years ago. The “Rhodensian Man” specimen is 200,000 years old, (Homo sapiens Mitochondrial Eve lived 150,000 year ago) yet this fossil has the robusticity of a 2M year old H. erectus. Speciation of our direct ancestors away from archaic chimps took some 4 million years from approximately 9M to 5M yrs ago. Hybrids were born and they mated with both our ancestors and ancestral chimps giving rise to various Australopithecines. Stringer now believes that diverse ancestral groups developed in separate niches, 120,000 years ago the Sahara supported oases of grassland and interconnected rivers leading to the Mediterranean. It’s possible some relic populations of Australopithecines also held on in isolated regions. Homo floresiensis (Hobbit) is now thought to be an australopithecine and may be re-classified, even though these dinky bipeds had human faces, sailed boats, made tools, made fire, hunted co-operatively and lived as recently as 17,000 years ago.

Hobbit skull next to modern human skull and an artist impression of the Hobbit


There is no doubt that Africa is the continent of our origin, but the story of human evolution is complex, involving the hybridization of several highly divergent lineages. Stringer pays homage to Darwin in the naming of his book, but at the close of his Ri lecture Stringer commented, “As there seems to be archaic DNA input into all modern humans, even within Africa, I possibly should have called the book, ‘Origins of our Species’, instead of ‘Origin’.”

Below artist impressions of the multi-regional bushy hominid lineage and a Denisovan
Denisovan/Melanesian admixture in a Polynesian princess

I'm going to push the boat out here a little bit further and say that odd accounts of supposed proto-humans such as "Zana" require modern DNA testing. Could Zana have been a descendent of the Denisovans?
It's possible that archaic populations found niches in remote forested and mountainous areas of Europe, such as the Caucuses, Urals and Altai ranges and they may have lived on in these isolated areas until recent times. The Medieval accounts of "hairy men" and the "wood woo" may actually be anecdotal sightings of archaic hominids.Source

The Denisovans and the mystery of blonde hair…

Late Archaic in Africa (15k years ago)

Background
In recent years the Later Stone Age has been redated to a much deeper time depth than previously thought. At the same time, human remains from this time period are scarce in Africa, and even rarer in West Africa. The Iwo Eleru burial is one of the few human skeletal remains associated with Later Stone Age artifacts in that region with a proposed Pleistocene date. We undertook a morphometric reanalysis of this cranium in order to better assess its affinities. We also conducted Uranium-series dating to re-evaluate its chronology.

Methodology/Principal Findings
A 3-D geometric morphometric analysis of cranial landmarks and semilandmarks was conducted using a large comparative fossil and modern human sample. The measurements were collected in the form of three dimensional coordinates and processed using Generalized Procrustes Analysis. Principal components, canonical variates, Mahalanobis D2 and Procrustes distance analyses were performed. The results were further visualized by comparing specimen and mean configurations. Results point to a morphological similarity with late archaic African specimens dating to the Late Pleistocene. A long bone cortical fragment was made available for U-series analysis in order to re-date the specimen. The results (~11.7–16.3 ka) support a terminal Pleistocene chronology for the Iwo Eleru burial as was also suggested by the original radiocarbon dating results and by stratigraphic evidence.

Conclusions/Significance
Our findings are in accordance with suggestions of deep population substructure in Africa and a complex evolutionary process for the origin of modern humans. They further highlight the dearth of hominin finds from West Africa, and underscore our real lack of knowledge of human evolution in that region.
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0024024

More from BBC

Late Archaic in Africa (15k years ago)

Archaic genes in Some Africans

A long-debated question concerns the fate of archaic forms of the genus Homo: did they go extinct without interbreeding with anatomically modern humans, or are their genes present in contemporary populations? This question is typically focused on the genetic contribution of archaic forms outside of Africa. Here we use DNA sequence data gathered from 61 noncoding autosomal regions in a sample of three sub-Saharan African populations (Mandenka, Biaka, and San) to test models of African archaic admixture. We use two complementary approximate-likelihood approaches and a model of human evolution that involves recent population structure, with and without gene flow from an archaic population. Extensive simulation results reject the null model of no admixture and allow us to infer that contemporary African populations contain a small proportion of genetic material (≈2%) that introgressed ≈35 kya from an archaic population that split from the ancestors of anatomically modern humans ≈700 kya. Three candidate regions showing deep haplotype divergence, unusual patterns of linkage disequilibrium, and small basal clade size are identified and the distributions of introgressive haplotypes surveyed in a sample of populations from across sub-Saharan Africa. One candidate locus with an unusual segment of DNA that extends for >31 kb on chromosome 4 seems to have introgressed into modern Africans from a now-extinct taxon that may have lived in central Africa. Taken together our results suggest that polymorphisms present in extant populations introgressed via relatively recent interbreeding with hominin forms that diverged from the ancestors of modern humans in the Lower-Middle Pleistocene.Source

Archaic genes in Some Africans