Four Other Humans Species Lived Alongside Modern Humans

[Opmmur]

Four Other Humans Species Lived Alongside Modern Humans – New Study Suggests

MessageToEagle.com – Evolutionary scientists are trying to re-construct the ancient world and identify four other human species that lived alongside modern humans.

Recent archaeological discoveries are rewriting the story of human origins after uncovering new human species and surprising evidence of complex behavior.

Scientists have been able to determine that Neanderthals and Denisovans, interbred with modern humans. New DNA evidence suggests that the Denisovans were a large population that lived over much of Asia for ten thousands of years.

Denisovan or Denisova hominin is an extinct species of human in the genus Homo. The Denisovans had very large and unusual teeth, unlike those of Neanderthals and modern humans.


Image credit: Discovery News

The other archaic human species also believed to have been around at the same time are the ‘hobbits’ who were discovered in Indonesia, and the Red Deer Cave people from south-west China.

“It’s revolutionary and heady stuff. It’s changing the narrative of the human evolutionary story very, very quickly,” says Darren Curnoe, Associate Professor of biological anthropology and archaeology at University of New South Wales.

Associate Professor Curnoe led the team that discovered the remains of the Red Deer People.

While they appear to resemble more archaic human ancestors from 2 million years ago, their bones date back to just 13,000 years ago.

Australian PhD student Elen Feuerriegel was part of a team of specialist cavers and archaeologists – the so-called underground astronauts – who uncovered a new human species, Homo naledi, in southern Africa last year.


Artist’s impression of the Hobbit – a small brain but able to use stone tools. One of the big outstanding questions is how did they get to Flores?

She told ABC’s Lateline the discovery involved shimmying down a 12 metre-long shaft without safety gear.

“It was one of the most awe-inspiring experiences of my life so far.”


A reconstruction of the face of a young Neanderthal woman who lived about 35,000 years ago in France. Photo: AFP

Evidence suggests they used fire and sophisticated hunting weapons, buried their dead, wore jewellery and cared for the weak and elderly.

“Some of this evidence and its interpretation is controversial and is still being debated. But I think there’s enough new evidence that we should get out of our minds the idea that we were superior, that we were more intelligent or sophisticated than other human species.

There may be more accidental reasons we are still here and they are not, because they have all gone and we are left alone. It might be that we made better use of the DNA they passed on to us. We may have had the mongrel advantage allowing us to survive and thrive,” Professor Curnoe says.

Genetic testing has shown that non-Africans carry up to 4 per cent of Neanderthal DNA, while Indigenous Australians and Papua New Guineans carry up to 6 per cent of Denisovan DNA.

It is believed that Neanderthals may have passed on red hair and improved immunity.

The Denisovans are believed to have also passed on better immunity as well as providing the gene found in Tibetans for surviving high altitudes.

Much research is still needed before we can learn more about our ancestors and other species that co-existed with humans, but the recent discoveries in the field are just as controversial to some as exciting.

It is now believed that modern humans, or Homo sapiens, emerged in Africa about 200,000 years ago and migrated around the globe in multiple waves, settling first in Asia and as far south as Australia before finally getting to Europe about 40,000 years ago.

Associate Professor Curnoe says as new archaeological expeditions focus on Asia, it is likely that more species will be identified.

“Asia has been neglected by archaeologists, but it’s an evolutionary cauldron,” he said.

All these new findings combined with new methods of extracting ancient DNA is now challenging traditional beliefs about what it means to be human. We may have to forget the idea that Homo sapiens were intrinsically smarter and more sophisticated than other human species.

Modern discoveries have revealed that that pre-human species used stone tools 3 million years ago and that early humans like Homo erectus may have carved engravings and engaged in some kind burial practice more than 400,000 years ago.

Neanderthals had brains the same size or even slightly larger than modern humans.

Read more: http://www.messagetoeagle.com/four-other-humans-species-lived-alongside-modern-humans-new-study-suggests/#ixzz40pyFdbLx

 

[Opmmur]

Red Deer Cave People – Mysterious New Human Species Baffles Scientists

MessageToEagle.com – A new mysterious human species has been uncovered by archaeologists.

Known as the Red Deer Cave people, these beings co-existed with our ancestors as recently as 11,000 – 14,000 years ago.

In March 2012, Australian paleoanthropologist Darren Curnoe and Chinese palaeontologist Ji Xueping announced the startling discovery of prehistoric human remains from a remote cave in southwest China. Unearthed in 1989 by mine workers in southern Yunnan, they were dubbed the “Red Deer Cave people” as they lay next to the bones of the animals that had onced roamed the hills and caves, and they were unlike any human remains known to science. They included a skull with holes drilled in both sides.

The remains of the ”Red Deer Cave people” reveal that they were similar, yet very physically different from us. Since they are younger than our Neanderthal relatives a number of seriously interesting questions arise. Were they really another human species? And if so, what happened to them? Why did they die out? How did they live? What were their interactions with our own early relatives?

Darren Curnoe points out that 1250 cm3 is the average brain size for modern humans.

In comparison to modern humans in the late Pleistocene when the Red Deer Cave People were running around, that average was between 1400 and 1600 cm3

The individuals had rounded brain cases with prominent brow ridges.

Their skull bones were quite thick. Their faces were quite short and flat and tucked under the brain, and they had broad noses.

“The fossils just don’t fit with the dominant view in science at the moment about who was around 11,000 years ago or 14,000 years ago, how they relate to us, and how we think of ourselves as humans in relation to nature.

We tend to think of ourselves as special. So it raises some pretty deep and challenging questions, “Darren Curnoe says.

Dr Curnoe and colleagues put forward two possible scenarios in their PLoS One paper for the origin of the Red Deer Cave population.


Left: Scientists say the specimens display features that are quite distinct from fully modern humans. Right: How the Red Deer Cave people might have looked 11,500 years ago.

One posits that they represent a very early migration of a primitive-looking Homo sapiens that lived separately from other forms in Asia before dying out.

Another possibility contends that they were indeed a distinct Homo species that evolved in Asia and lived alongside our own kind until remarkably recently.

A third scenario being suggested by scientists not connected with the research is that the Red Deer Cave people could be hybrids.

“It’s possible these were modern humans who inter-mixed or bred with archaic humans that were around at the time,” explained Dr Isabelle De Groote, a palaeoanthropologist from London’s Natural History Museum.

“The other option is that they evolved these more primitive features independently because of genetic drift or isolation, or in a response to an environmental pressure such as climate.”

The implications of the discovery for understanding the evolution of our own species, and the broader human story, are profound.

The scientific orthodoxy is that our modern human ancestors inhabited east Asia only after the disappearance of earlier ancient humans. The existence of the Red Deer Cave people is evidence that the truth may be something else entirely. Our own species may have coexisted with the Red Deer Cave people until very recently, for tens of thousands of years.

Currently attempts are being made to extract DNA from the remains.

Read more: http://www.messagetoeagle.com/red-deer-cave-people-mysterious-new-human-species-baffles-scientists/#ixzz40pzRF7US

 

[PaulaJedi]

Another fascinating post. We are finding our more and more about evolution as time goes by. Is there any particular reason why they chose blue eyes (or hazel?) for the first photo?

 

[Krish]

I am wondering...How can we develop face design from mummies? What is the criteria? The thing is, every one looks bad and hence the design?... or is there a specific structure to it? May be they looked great, we did not know...

The reason I say this is because, from UFO side, there were Nordic people on Earth for a long time...what if some of them stayed here helping out and died here at the end...just a thought...

 

[PaulaJedi]

I am wondering...How can we develop face design from mummies? What is the criteria? The thing is, every one looks bad and hence the design?... or is there a specific structure to it? May be they looked great, we did not know...

The reason I say this is because, from UFO side, there were Nordic people on Earth for a long time...what if some of them stayed here helping out and died here at the end...just a thought...

Good question. Has DNA testing been done on all of these samples?

 

[Krish]

I am wondering...How can we develop face design from mummies? What is the criteria? The thing is, every one looks bad and hence the design?... or is there a specific structure to it? May be they looked great, we did not know...

The reason I say this is because, from UFO side, there were Nordic people on Earth for a long time...what if some of them stayed here helping out and died here at the end...just a thought...

Good question. Has DNA testing been done on all of these samples?

DNA was expensive before. Lately it can be done OK. But I think it is insignificant...

As to facial features and DNA, some years ago, i tried to raise money to collect one million DNA and facial feature design using a computer...but did not get the money for it...so, it did not go anywhere...may be someday, someone can do that...