Ancient DNA Tells a New Human Story

Ancient DNA Tells a New Human Story

Armed with old bones and new DNA sequencing technology, scientists are getting a much better understanding of the prehistory of the human species, writes Matt Ridley....

In a study published late last year in the journal Nature, Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for the Science of Human History in Jena, Germany, and his colleagues found that all human strains of tuberculosis share a common ancestor in Africa about 6,000 years ago. The implication is that this is when and where human beings first picked up TB. It is much later than other scientists had thought, but Dr. Krause’s finding only deepened the mystery of the Peruvian mummies, since by then, their ancestors had long since left Africa.

Modern DNA cannot help with this problem, but reading the DNA of the tuberculosis bacteria in the mummies allowed Dr. Krause to suggest an extraordinary explanation...

Good morning

I thought I'd post this here for those of you who enjoy these new discoveries. This is an interesting little read which may lead to a better understanding of who we are and what transpired in our past to get us here. The mystery of our true history is unfolding at an accelerated pace due mainly to newer technology and a willingness to set aside long held beliefs imho. I'm sure that before too much longer there will be a few revelations which will be game changers..


As Always, Stay tuned.

a reply to: SLAYER69

Finally, a breath of fresh air over and above the crud that has over flowing on ATS recently.
thanks SLAYER69.

They talk about the Americas as a melting pot, but it always seemed obvious to me that the mixer was going on no matter where people went. Ancestors my come from this area or that, but they were all over the place before coming into any particular area. No race or ethnic variety is pure in any given place or time.

a reply to: SLAYER69

Holy Chichén Itzá Teotihuacán, are you sure this is accurate? and also how does this stack up to what university wants me to know?

a reply to: SLAYER69

Splendid post and a fascinating analysis at the link too

More detail/methodology to be found at and via this link

Eta: there are some bloody good links branching off the article you linked in the OP Slayer, i'm almost tempted to put my hand in my pocket :/

So is this telling us there was contact between the continent's 6000 years ago?

a reply to: SLAYER69

Morning Slayer,
The article is an interesting synopsis of some of the current work on genetics.

S & F

But, your quoted study about TB is bollocks, the authors conveniently, ignored previous genetic and archeological work, that shows TB was endemic in new world bovine and sheep populations during the LGM, the dates are around 17-24k years ago.


There is a good discussion of the tb question on Austin Whitall's blog "Patagonian Monsters"

The researchers concluded that seals somehow picked up TB from African humans and then carried it across the ocean to the New World where it spread among the native seal-hunters. [1]



I find the 6 kya date for the origin of TB too recent, and the theory of an "African to seal to Amerindian" infection route too complicated. Allow me to explain:



TB in seals



Tuberculosis in seals was studied in 2003 (D. Cousins et al.) [2], they compared genes from six species of seals taken in the UK, New Zealand, Argentina, Australia and Uruguay. They found that pinnipeds share their own strain of MTBC (Mycobacterium pinnipedii) which can also infect other creatures: "guinea pigs, rabbits, humans, Brazilian tapir (Tapirus terrestris) and, possibly, cattle" [2].



How does it spread in nature? "As with other members of the M. tuberculosis complex, aerosols are the most likely route of transmission" [2]. Seal TB is quite contagious, in fact, 6 out of 25 animal keepers at a zoo in The Netherlands became infected with M. pinnipedii when 13 out of 29 sea lions contracted the disease. [6] so no eating was necessary, just close contact with living seals was enough to pass on TB from seal to man.



But, does it work the other way round? Did Africans infect seals? or did they eat a dead Dassie or vole and became infected?



Note that African L5 and L6 strains are similar but not identical to seal TB. So it would have had to mutate in Seals and then jump again to infect Amerindians and mutate again... By the way, why didn't seals infect other seal hunting populations around the world? Only Amerindians?


Now, the interesting point is that "There seems to be a common ancestral source of M. pinnipedii across geographic locations, which raises questions about the original distribution of the seal bacillus in animals of different continents and the potential role of marine mammals in the spread and transmission of tubercle bacilli across oceans". [3]



Bos et al., assume that Africans infected seals with TB. The microbe then mutated among seals and led to a seal-specific lineage which they spread across the globe among seals and sea lions. It later infected some Peruvian seal hunters, and mutated into the Peruvian TB variety which spread among Amerindians. The image below shows this process:

And mine and Austin's comments,

Austin,

I saw this same study posted at Dienekes blog, and I also found thier conclusions odd.

The six k dating is almost rediculous, since TB has been endemic in north American bovids, bison, and big horn sheep, but oddly not prohorn antelopes , for at least 25k years.

Signs of tb have been found in fossils from all over Na.

I pondered the question , just on the anthropological aspects, the nitty gritty of genetics is to much like work so I leave that for others.

So what I noticed is ,like you illustrated, the piniped strain was down stream of both Peruvian human and Na bovid strains

The question I asked myself is how can a disease that is found in such disparate animals as seal and big horn sheep, who's habitats never coincide, be related?

The one thing they have in common is human hunters. I know that in many hunter gatherer societies, great reverence is placed upon the prey. If the hunter is lucky enough to catch the last breaths of the prey they can be used to catch or transport the spirit of the prey. I belive that is how it was spread from humans to bovids and pinnepeds or visa versa.

Since TB is endemic in the new world by 25 k years ago it supports a very early human entry to the new world.

ReplyDelete

Replies


AWAugust 27, 2014 at 7:38 PM

Ron,

Thanks for your comment! Indeed TB is far older than 6 ky. And your suggestion that humans are the vector that infected big horns, bovids and seals makes sense. 

Your conclusion that TB has been around for at least 25 ky, and reached the Americas long ago is right on the mark!


Reply


ron quirorianoAugust 27, 2014 at 8:50 PM

Austin ,

My date was off it is actually, 17,870 ± 230 .

And here is the link to the paper 

m.cid.oxfordjournals.org...

patagoniamonsters.blogspot.com...

This is real evidence. They may still need to research it more and tune the interpretation, but it seems to be more real than the interpretations of the migrations that is being taught to us now. Now if they could convince archeologists that there is evidence to show this is relevant, then maybe they will change their flawed interpretation which is based only on evidence they have already found. Lack of evidence makes it unreal in the sciences yet we actually have just scratched the surface, new evidence is found every day and much of this is discarded because it does not comply with our present accepted consensus by those in the sciences.

Hopefully they do not just toss this on the side because they deem it irrelevant.

Hey thanks for all the replies both pro and con. Does make one wonder though eh?

Seagulls and seals co-habitat the same areas. Wherever there is a source of fish they will be there, and both species migrate throughout the year. Who knows where they might end up due to storms and tidal currents.

This is great, and one of my biggest interest areas.

I firmly believe one of the biggest conspiracy theories of our time is a huge coverup of the true human timeline going on within the archaeological community.

They're finding stuff all the time that doesn't match or fit in with the official time line of human history, and much has been swept under the carpet instead of being explained.

Cities from 17,000 years ago when we were supposed to have only crawled out of caves 12,000 years ago just after the last ice age.

Objects found in rock strata millions or even billions of years old. Objects being found that are way before their time. Descriptions of nuclear war and airplanes from centuries ago. Unexplained areas of radiation that are thousands of years old.

How much is this becoming more mainstream with scientists and researchers..[url=http://www.ancient-origins.net/unexplained-phenomena/establishment-has-already-acknowledged-lost-race-giants-part-1-003109]Giants[/u rl]

originally posted by: babybunnies
This is great, and one of my biggest interest areas.

I firmly believe one of the biggest conspiracy theories of our time is a huge coverup of the true human timeline going on within the archaeological community.

They're finding stuff all the time that doesn't match or fit in with the official time line of human history, and much has been swept under the carpet instead of being explained.

Cities from 17,000 years ago when we were supposed to have only crawled out of caves 12,000 years ago just after the last ice age.

There were no cities 17,000 years ago. And we didn't hide in caves during the Ice Age.

Go back to your Flintstones documentary now.

originally posted by: babybunnies
Objects found in rock strata millions or even billions of years old. Objects being found that are way before their time. Descriptions of nuclear war and airplanes from centuries ago. Unexplained areas of radiation that are thousands of years old.

Claptrap, though not Flintstonian claptrap, to be sure.

Harte

a reply to: SLAYER69

Interesting stuff as always Slayer. Haven't seen you for a while good to see you posting.