Man's Genetic voyage. Fact, Speculation and Theories...

Originally posted by Tinman67
I wonder why Boskops is consistantly ignored. Since learning of them, I find their absence from the debate on human origins interestingly suspect.

discovermagazine.com...

As a professor of anthropology and human evolution, I was stunned that I had never heard of these 'Boskops', until I dug further:

"The portrayal of "Boskops" in the Discover excerpt is so out of line with anthropology of the last forty years, that I am amazed the magazine printed it. I am unaware of any credible biological anthropologist or archaeologist who would confirm their description of the "Boskopoids," except as an obsolete category from the history of anthropology."

SOURCE

Note: John Hawks is an extremely well-respected palaeoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Exactly! I can't imagine such a find to be left just sitting on the back burner.

Can you imagine what we could learn if we took 100 million out of the defense budget and used it to look for clues to our origins in Africa and Asia? I think the Air Force wouldn't miss one fighter jet.

reply to post by ArchaeologyUnderground


Just finished the Weblog on the subject, interesting. I wonder (maybe I am missing it) who holds those fossils? and has anyone recently completed a modern analysis of them?

reply to post by ArchaeologyUnderground



Same source

IQ of fossils

We have no credible way of estimating the IQ of a fossil skull. The excerpt claims:

Even if brain size accounts for just 10 to 20 percent of an IQ test score, it is possible to conjecture what kind of average scores would be made by a group of people with 30 percent larger brains. We can readily calculate that a population with a mean brain size of 1,750 cc would be expected to have an average IQ of 149.

reply to post by SLAYER69


The problem with this is that (based on my understanding) 1) only a partial cranial bone was used to estimate the size of the skull 2) the bone was quite thick, adding to the difficulty in estimating full size 3) even at the maximums projected, these fall within the range of currently-living human males. On the high end, yes, but still within the range.

Neanderthals also had larger brains on average than any living AMH (although in their case it was a cold adaptation so having a group in S. Africa displaying that traits would be odd). My point is, brain size, in and of itself, does not necessarily equate to higher intelligence. Homo floresiensis for instance had extremely small brains and yet fashioned tools that were as complex (or more so) than their larger-brained mainland contemporaries.

As I mentioned in the earlier post, I was not familiar with this find at all until reading about it here, so i am simply speculating based on the limited amount I have read on the group this afternoon. It is interesting, to be certain, but I'll need to look into it more deeply.

Originally posted by ArchaeologyUnderground
As a professor of anthropology and human evolution, I was stunned that I had never heard of these 'Boskops', until I dug further:

"The portrayal of "Boskops" in the Discover excerpt is so out of line with anthropology of the last forty years, that I am amazed the magazine printed it. I am unaware of any credible biological anthropologist or archaeologist who would confirm their description of the "Boskopoids," except as an obsolete category from the history of anthropology."

SOURCE

Note: John Hawks is an extremely well-respected palaeoanthropologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

I should add that JSTOR has a rather interesting article on it from "back in the day (1940) " www.jstor.org...

For those unable to get the article, anthropologists and paleontologists did a lot of reviewing of existing bones that they had found, and found that it wasn't a unique species but rather was a one of a group of humans (H. sapiens, I beleive) from South Africa who lived in the area before it became the homeland of the Bushmen.

And yes, it's impossible to determine IQ from brain size or even endocasts (they indicated they had endocast material (this is a paleontology term meaning "we took a cast of the inside of the skull and it tells us something about the wrinkles of the brain". It's a valid method and will give you a GENERAL idea of what the brain of that individual looked like. (you can find all sorts of things on bone, including the small channels where your blood vessels rest.)) Einstein's brain is not larger in size than the brain of any other member of this board.

Brain size has to do with head size. IQ, however... it's not firmly established what the physical features are but it's suspected that it involves the "wiring" of the brain.

Originally posted by Wolfenz
reply to post by Byrd

 

Hi Wolfenz here

the question you have asked I have Posted on this thread the credentials the clarifications

Please check my previous post if you will find some Answers !
ohh by the way Julia Pastrana's DNA was Never been examined ! it was People that had the same symptoms of her conditions and it was studied on a group of Chinese of the result of the Findings!

Actually, I did look up the autopsy report (and read it rather carefully) as well as the report on her son and a number of other things about her.

The "bigfoot encounters" site that you point out has sort of ignored some of the recent tv specials and so forth about Oliver, where they actually get his DNA and send it to labs for testing. He's a chimpanzee. Wikipedia has a lot of references about the tests and so forth.
en.wikipedia.org...(chimpanzee)

Congenital Hypertrichosis Lanuginosa
Ambras syndrome
(etc)

Yes, that's one of the ones I reviewed. This syndrome does NOT give the same kind of skeletal changes that "a throwback to a previous human" would have.

The idea of a "throwback" is one that comes from the world of "adventure fiction" and "science fiction adventure" where people were fascinated by tribes of ape men and so forth. You can (if you are running a genetics program) breed something that LOOKS like a much more primitive version of that animal (they've "re-created" some of the ancient horses from horses living in that range and are breeding for looks) but in the end it's not a throwback but a created modern breed.

Originally posted by Versa
reply to post by Byrd

 

What is the current academically accepted theory regarding the layer of subcutaneous fat, hairlessness and ability to control our breathing?

Dunno, to be honest, but at a quick guess (gotta get back to homework) these are simply mammalian traits. Lots of animals have subcutaneous fat (including the whitetail deer here in Texas) which varies according to how much food they get. Humans living in conditions similar to our ancestors (like the K!ung) don't have a lot of subcutaneous fat -- those living up north, however, do (a survival trait.)

The ability to control breathing isn't unique to humans or aquatic animals -- and frankly we can't hold our breaths as long as (say) an otter or even a duck (a few of us can after long practice but it's not something we can do from infancy (unlike ducks and otters and so forth.) And there are a number of basically hairless animals such as elephants and rhinos.

So, I don't have a good answer (maybe Anthro will) but I do know that the theory simply doesn't match up, even in its more recent incarnations.

When Earth's Human Population Was 18,500!

www.dailygalaxy.com...

Scientists have calculated that for a period lasting one million years and beginning 1.2 million years ago, at a time when our ancestors were spreading through Africa, Europe and Asia, there were probably between 18,500 to 26,000 individuals capable of breeding (and no more than 26,000). This made them an endangered species with a smaller population than today’s species such as gorillas which number 25,000 breeding individuals and chimpanzees (21,000).
Researchers have proposed a number of explanations , such as events in which a significant proportion of the population is killed or prevented from reproducing. One such event was the Toba super-volcano in Indonesia that erupted around 70,000 years ago, triggering a nuclear winter. Only an estimated 15,000 humans are thought to have survived. Another explanation is that the numbers of humans and our ancestors were chronically low throughout the last two million years, sometimes with only 10,000 breeding individuals surviving.

The new research is concerned with the entire genome rather than specific genetic lineages studied in the earlier research work. Using a new method of studying genetic markers of DNA in the genome has allowed geneticists to study the genetics not only modern humans, but also our early ancestors such as Homo erectus (thought the most likely to be our direct ancestors), H. ergaster and archaic H. sapiens. Remarkably, they found there was enough information in only two human DNA sequences to estimate the ancient population size.

Human geneticist Lynn B. Jorde and colleagues at the University of Utah studied parts of the genome containing mobile elements called Alu sequences, which are sections of DNA around 300 base-pairs long that randomly insert themselves into the genome. This is a rare occurrence, but once inserted, they tend to stay in place over generations, and act as markers, rather like fossils, for ancient parts of the genome.

From theirstudies, they calculated there was more genetic diversity in our early ancestors than there is in modern humans. They also came to the conclusion that there had been a catastrophic event around one million years ago that was at least as devastating as the Toba volcanic eruption, and which had almost wiped out the species.

There again is that 70,000 years ago marker

Originally posted by Stormdancer777
There again is that 70,000 years ago marker

If you look at all the major cave sites plotted on a map there are very few in the area that would have been worst affected by the volcano itself and huge clusters in the Northern hemisphere, suggesting higher survival rates, initially, in the north. That there are cave sites at all in the regions closer to the eruption suggests a nuclear winter, but it could just be that they represent a retreat to the mountains due to a fear of the sea, following a tidal wave or some such thing. It is interesting that homo florensis, though an island dweller with access to a diverse range of edible fish, didn't eat sea food at all, this has been implied by some as indicative of a fear of water. These were humans that survived, seemingly, by going back to the trees, and who without the threat of large predators had no need to develop bulk. I think there is evidence for there being a number of possible bottlenecks in our development that changed our behaviour, dependent upon our location at the time. These bottlenecks could possibly create genotypes but due to the robustness of AMM they are absorbed.

I have read somewhere that although numbers of survivors may have been into five figures, that that only equated to about 1,500 breeding pairs. The repeated process of expansion and contraction is the basis of survival of the fittest, and all life on this planet has experienced that process and evolved according to it. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger. In theory. I would be surprised if that many humans again would survive such an event. Too much success makes you soft.

Originally posted by Byrd
The ability to control breathing isn't unique to humans or aquatic animals -- and frankly we can't hold our breaths as long as (say) an otter or even a duck (a few of us can after long practice but it's not something we can do from infancy (unlike ducks and otters and so forth.) And there are a number of basically hairless animals such as elephants and rhinos.

Well to be fair if we haven't used the ability to hold our breath for sustained periods for a long long time we may be losing that trait? Elephants certainly do spend time in water although I'm not sure about Rhinos and there is a possibility that their ancestors where more aquatic than they are now.

reply to post by Versa


Human hairlessness is not an aquatic adaptation but rather gives us the ability to sweat, thus enabling long-distance running. Early hominans (Homo erectus) likely hunted by means of simply chasing their prey repeatedly, not allowing the animal to rest, until it passed out from heat exhaustion. The !Kung people ("bushmen" of the Kalihari) still hunt this way.

Thank you SO much for putting all of this together!

Originally posted by danishguru
Thank you SO much for putting all of this together!

great thread Slayer. thanks to everyone for their replies because I really enjoyed reading them.

edit to add: Byrd I love reading your posts

Originally posted by Byrd

Originally posted by Versa
reply to post by Byrd

 

What is the current academically accepted theory regarding the layer of subcutaneous fat, hairlessness and ability to control our breathing?

Dunno, to be honest, but at a quick guess (gotta get back to homework) these are simply mammalian traits. Lots of animals have subcutaneous fat (including the whitetail deer here in Texas) which varies according to how much food they get. Humans living in conditions similar to our ancestors (like the K!ung) don't have a lot of subcutaneous fat -- those living up north, however, do (a survival trait.)

The ability to control breathing isn't unique to humans or aquatic animals -- and frankly we can't hold our breaths as long as (say) an otter or even a duck (a few of us can after long practice but it's not something we can do from infancy (unlike ducks and otters and so forth.) And there are a number of basically hairless animals such as elephants and rhinos.

So, I don't have a good answer (maybe Anthro will) but I do know that the theory simply doesn't match up, even in its more recent incarnations.

OR! At some point in human history, the Annunaki combined our DNA with theirs which eventually led to modern man.

Scientists can't find the missing link because there isn't one perhaps? Unless you consider alien tinkering with human genes, the missing link heh.

Our intelligence also grew at a break-neck pace, which some scientists say would have been impossible without outside meddling.

Originally posted by Topato

Scientists can't find the missing link because there isn't one perhaps? Unless you consider alien tinkering with human genes, the missing link heh.

Science found the 'missing link' in the late 19th century. It's only the public that doesn't seem to want to hear it.

Originally posted by Topato
OR! At some point in human history, the Annunaki combined our DNA with theirs which eventually led to modern man.

In that case, our genes would be radically different than any other species on earth. We wouldn't show a close kinship with any of the great apes or Neanderthals or anything else. Take the case of dogs, for instance, which have been forcefully evolved by specific breeding over a period of a mere 5,000 years. Their genes do show signs of this manipulation, by the way. There was an interesting program on this on NOVA within the past 2 years.

Other domesticated animals also show this.

Our intelligence also grew at a break-neck pace, which some scientists say would have been impossible without outside meddling.

Name some of these scientists?

And what do you mean by "break-neck pace"? During which time period?

This may seem picky, but innovation doesn't come until you get a lot of people living in the same area at the same time so they can share ideas. Part of this also means that there has to be some sort of city or tribe area (settled area) that makes food easily available (so you're not spending most of your time looking for food and can have time for social interaction.)

There are advances that increased our ability to make changes and discoveries -- one of them is the invention of writing. Our ability to innovate began with making symbols which eventually become writing.

Originally posted by Byrd


Name some of these scientists?

And what do you mean by "break-neck pace"? During which time period?

I don't remember, just stuff I've watched on History channel and tidbits in books I've read.

As for time period, they said it would take many more millions of years to get to where we are today by natural evolution. Something drastic happened to the human mind a few thousand years ago.

Originally posted by Versa

Originally posted by Byrd
The ability to control breathing isn't unique to humans or aquatic animals -- and frankly we can't hold our breaths as long as (say) an otter or even a duck (a few of us can after long practice but it's not something we can do from infancy (unlike ducks and otters and so forth.) And there are a number of basically hairless animals such as elephants and rhinos.

Well to be fair if we haven't used the ability to hold our breath for sustained periods for a long long time we may be losing that trait? Elephants certainly do spend time in water although I'm not sure about Rhinos and there is a possibility that their ancestors where more aquatic than they are now.

An excellent question -- but it highlights some of the problems with the "aquatic ape" idea. Animals that moved from the water to the land take quite awhile to go through the process. In the case of the Rhino (which you mentioned), their group evolved 14 million years ago (en.wikipedia.org...).

Now... otters did become animals that used both the shore and the land about the same time that the hominid line appears (6 million years ago): www.kidsplanet.org... They have several traits that indicate an ability to live in the water, including:
* subcutaneous fat
* skin that does not shrink in water (unlike humans, who get pruny after awhile. This is critical, because the pruny skin means your cells are losing water to the surrounding water)
* larger lung capacity (there's no evidence of this in fossil humans)
* ability to drink salty water (the "aquatic ape" theory (when I last read it) talked about humans evolving on brackish shore areas. The evidence seems to be that our ancestors evolved on the grasslands.

Originally posted by Topato
I don't remember, just stuff I've watched on History channel and tidbits in books I've read.

As for time period, they said it would take many more millions of years to get to where we are today by natural evolution. Something drastic happened to the human mind a few thousand years ago.

Well, it DID take us millions of years to get to this place.

And yes, something drastic happened to the mind a few thousand years ago -- and something else at least two million years ago.

The first was writing, which enabled us to communicate and understand thoughts from people far away or people long dead. So we quickly increased our understanding.

The second was the development of complex language. Once we know how to say things other than "oops! lion! run!" and can instead say "Bungu makes glue for his spearpoint bindings using impala hooves and it lasts better than the glue made from elephant toenails", we develop complex behaviors. When we have words to allow us to compare and contrast and evaluate things, we can increase our knowledge.

Knowledge passing within members of a species whose vocabulary (to borrow from Terry Pratchett consists of screaming abuse at the hominids in the next tree and flinging poo is pretty limited.