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Humans Interbred with Four Extinct Hominin Species, Research Finds
- WalterSear 7y agoThen they aren't extinct.
- nkozyra 7y agoNo? Neanderthals are certainly classified as extinct.
- BurningFrog 7y ago2.3% Neanderthal Pride checking in!
- 1000units 7y agoWomen love the brow ridge.
- BurningFrog 7y ago"Brow bros forever!" Of course, that's an outdated stereotype, and women have as much 'thal DNA!
- hanniabu 7y agoPut that on your college application and you'll get a free ride so they can meet their diversity quota.
- haihaibye 7y agoThe opposite is true - people with Neanderthal ancestry require higher grades for acceptance than those without.
- inawarminister 7y agoYes. Caucasians and Asians have the highest amount of Neanderthal genes. Isn't it funny how in English, Neanderthal is an insult?
- digitaltrees 7y agoOh wow. So witty. Really interesting intelligent post. Take that drivel back to 4chan.
- dang 7y agoPlease don't post flamebait to HN. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- baddox 7y agoDo you think that any ancestors of Homo sapiens are extinct?
- corodra 7y agoYes and no, there's a very blurry line as to when a creature can be called one species and has evolved to another. It's sort of like, you can't state the exact day when a creature has started their "adult" stage of life (including humans). We have arbitrary days, like 18 years old. But from a biological stand point, it's blurry when a person is an "adult". So how much DNA of a species, in another, means it's "that" species. Or is it brand new and different? I mean, technically, we're more related to fungi than we are plants, by quite a bit. But it's easy to differentiate humans from fungi. Still, we're related, relatively speaking compared to plants. Does that make us fungi? Obviously that's bat shit absurd. But just because a lot of homo sapiens have 1%-3% neanderthal in them, that doesn't make them neanderthal. I don't think neanderthals should be taken off the extinction list. The same, we share 85%-92% of dna with mice (this number fluctuates depending on sources). Does that make us mice?
- c3534l 7y agoIf we interbred with them, how are they actually species? It seems more to me you're talking more about racial or breed differences akin to breeds of dogs if two species actually successfuly had viable offspring in the wild.
- joe_the_user 7y agoYeah, seems more logical to say ancient human experienced a number genetic divergences which were then folded into the mainline of the genetic stream.
- 0x8BADF00D 7y agoEnvironment plays a huge role. If a nomadic group was in a jungle-like environment, wouldn’t they more likely develop the traits of the other species well suited for jungle living? Over a long enough timescale.
- Haga 7y agoThe habitat also swings, so behavior specialist sub species for every part of the cycle, which allow long term adjustment to circumstances by percentages would be quite beneficial.
- rjf72 7y agoEpigenetics is indicating that our traditional view of genetics is probably just completely wrong, but going with that traditional view - it's not that an environment changes a species, but randomness. And traits randomly evolved that end up beneficial are preserved in the lineage due to increased survivability. Jungle like environments tend to be extremely favorable for the survival of intelligent species which means natural selection starts to play less of a role. Well it does play a role, but in different ways. For instance modern humans are continuing to evolve even though natural selection, in terms of man against environment, is now playing very near 0 role. Instead the factor being selected for now is simple fertility. Humanity will tend to evolve along the characteristics of those families have 3, 4 and more children - while those having 2 or fewer children will gradually fade from the gene pool. So natural selection has in some ways become voluntary, which is quite paradoxical. However in less developed areas, it's still alive in some ways. For instance if an individual in subsahara Africa somehow developed a genetically heritable mutation making him immune to malaria, it's reasonably likely that all subsaharan Africans would, gradually, become immune to malaria. We can only conclude, putting aside epigenetic factors once again, that such mutations are much less common than e.g. those to the shape of a bird's beak.
- 40acres 7y agoThis theory was one of the most interesting ideas in Sapiens, take a look at a model of what other great apes look like, if so many types of dog can interbreed why wouldn't these great apes?
- solipsism 7y agoThis is misleading. Superficial physical appearance isn't always a good indicator of genetic similarity or sexual compatibility.
- ajross 7y agoWho's downvoting this? This is exactly correct. In fact domestic dogs have IIRC considerably less genetic diversity than their wolf ancestors do.
- sadness2 7y agoWhat is the difference between the genes identifies as "extra-species sourced" and those which are a nominal part of homo sapiens DNA? How do we know they don't originate from intra-species mutation, for example?
- ajross 7y agoGenes tend to to accumulate mutations at a constant rate (lots of caveats here, but that's the general idea). If you find that a population has a family of gene variants that are very different from the same ones in another population, then it's a good bet it arrived from external breeding. And the relative differences between the modern descendant genes can tell you when it happened. Again, I'm sure the real models get really complicated and are no doubt still a little controversial. But that's the basic idea.
- flukus 7y agoHow do they differentiate multiple parallel lines lines of mutations coming back together from a separate subspecies existing for much longer?
- ajross 7y agoGenes don't "come back together". If you have a given gene, it's a direct descendant from exactly one of your ancestors in each generation.
- corodra 7y agoHi everyone, just letting you all know, it's no surprise that modern homo sapiens ancestors bumped uglies with other species in the genus of homo back in the day. The enlightening part of this article is there are some unknown species in homo that we have genetic evidence of, but no fossil record. The thing you should be fascinated by, there were many contemporary relatives to homo sapiens that could have been as much or somewhat as intelligent. But they all disappeared and we are all that's left. We either killed them all or snoo-snooed them out of existence because homo sapiens seemed to have spawned faster and had more offspring in comparison. So, please stop relating this to dogs fucking or being surprised that different species can tango under moonlight. Please stop. Yes, different species, of different genders, of the same genus can warm up at night and spawn little hellions 7-9ish months later. There's plenty of evidence that these other homo species were sophisticated, like the neanderthal. As much, if not more, that ancient homo sapiens (at the time). Does that make a new species? Maybe. Current taxonomy guidelines are not perfect. There are other taxonomy systems out there that would spell this out, just not considered the universal standard we all know today. The problem is, how do you draw sharp lines in a blurry distinction without just creating a new "species" for every sexual adventurous encounter that results in a screaming child. At the end, this article was cool and we should all be excited over this.
- shrimp_emoji 7y agoIs this a dog whistle of some kind? Otherwise, so unprovoked. >So, please stop relating this to dogs fucking or being surprised that different species can tango under moonlight. Please stop. Hot take: we had a common ancestor with dogs just 60 million years ago; a human and a dog is just like a reunion for old times' sake! With horrifyingly asymmetric power dynamics.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoNot sure why this is down-voted. It's spot on albeit devoid of the usual literary bubble wrap used when discussing this kind of thing in polite company. That there exist other similar species that we don't (yet) have a fossil record of is the interesting part here.
- JoeAltmaier 7y ago
- tropo 7y agoSuppose we found enough DNA to recreate these hominins. Would they be citizens or zoo animals? Either way, what if they want to interbreed? Do we determine this based on looks? What if the attraction is unidirectional?
- lkrubner 7y agoSome of these species are thought to be smarter than us, so you better be careful or you will end up the specimen in the zoo.
- rjf72 7y agoNo, they're not. The only 'evidence' for this is cranial size. Neanderthals had larger brain sizes than modern humans. Now let's look at all the other evidence. Neanderthals existed longer than the entire existence of humans. And in that time they never managed to get out of the stone age. Stone age sounds nicer than it is. Beat two rocks together, sharp stuff falls off, use it => you're in the stone age. Contrary to pop media, there is also literally no clear evidence they even engaged in the most basic of symbolic behavior such as self adornment or even primitive art. [1] Now mostly disregarded efforts to show such were highly optimistic. This included things like bird bones being laid near a corpse = self adornment, or scratches on a cave floor = art. Even in what they did do - hunt, despite engaging in hunting for hundreds of thousands of years there are extremely high rates of traumatic injury among neanderthal corpses which suggests they never even managed to refine their hunting ability. And the brain size : intelligence correlation is just so broken in so many ways. If you go based on raw size sperm whales should be, by far, the most intelligent species there is. If you go based on the ratio of brain matter to mass, ants should be, again by far, the most intelligent species there is. Suffice to say you're probably not too worried about being put in zoos by sperm whales or ants. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Culture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Culture
- lkrubner 7y agoThe earliest homo sapien skeletons were found in Morocco and are dated almost 300,000 years old. So our species was around for hundreds of thousands of years and we didn’t do much more than the Neanderthals. So Neanderthals not demonstrating culture doesn’t mean much, since our own species also went a long time without demonstrating culture. Indeed, it is an interesting question , what were we using these enormous brains for?
- Leader2light 7y agoNobody wants to hear this, but modern Africans have been left behind for a reason. They never left Africa.
- peter_retief 7y agoSo its possible that modern races of humans are actually our archaic ancestors?
- runarberg 7y agoNo, what most people refer to as races of humans are a set of traits that are surprisingly shared across populations, albeit in different quantities. The traits that we’ve inherited from our archaic ancestors aren’t really the types of traits people use a distinguishing features between populations.
- peter_retief 7y agoQuestion is would the Neanderthals have also shared traits with other hominids? I find that religion and politics kind of muddies the science with human evolution
- runarberg 7y agoI am not an expert. But it seems less likely since the Neanderthals existed for a shorter timespan over shorter distances then modern humans, so they must have encountered fewer hominin along their way. If anything it is more likely that the deninsovans aquired genes from the decedents of the groups of Homo Erectus that migrated throughout south east asia and quite probably remained in small quantities in remote areas (like Homo Floresiensis did) when the denisovans arrived. --- Edit: Then it is the question of: Say that the Denisovans acquired genes from other hominin through interbreeding, would these genes then be passed on to us when our homo sapien ancestors interbreed with the Denisovans? That is a question I have no confidence in answering and should probably be deferred to geneticist or a genetic statistician.
- HelloNurse 7y agoArchaic ancestors, by definition, died a very long time ago. Modern "races" are all equally modern.
- 7y ago
- hashberry 7y ago"Homo sapiens" is Latin for "wise man," but there were many Hominin species who possessed comparative culture, art, and intelligence. Neanderthals actually had larger brains compared to modern humans[0]. There are many theories on why Neanderthals became extinct[1]; my favorite is that we simply outbred them because of our sex appeal. What is Latin for "sexy human?" [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Anatomy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#Anatomy [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_extinction
- ethiclub 7y agoBrain size correlates to intelligence, but not aware of any causation that makes this worthwhile comparing. Any new literature worth reading?
- ethiclub 7y agoTo clarify: Referring to peer reviewed papers on inter-species, rather than intra-species of course.
- orange8 7y agoThey had greater cranial capacity than us, but so do elephants and whales. And the animal with the greatest brain-to-body-size ratio is tree shrew, suggesting that size doesn't really matter when it comes to intelligence.
- 1000units 7y agoNeither of those animals has the appropriate morphology to build tools or use complex language. How do we know they aren't actually smarter than us?
- Juliate 7y ago> or use complex language. That we know of. They might completely have complex language using different mediums (infra sounds, vibrations, movements, smells, etc.).
- grinsekatze 7y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20190730011623/https://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/anthropology/humans-hominin-introgression-07438.html https://web.archive.org/web/20190730011623/https://www.sci-n...
- BasDirks 7y agoCan these species be said to be extinct when their DNA is very much alive?
- ben-schaaf 7y agoBirds evolved from dinosaurs, certainly those are extinct, yet they share a large portion of DNA.
- firecall 7y agoI'm curious; can we assume they were similar enough to be attractive or desirable as mates? It's obvious different cultural standards may have applied. Or am I asking a stupid question?
- JulianMorrison 7y agoThey've done reconstructions of neanderthals based on forensic understanding of muscles over bone, etc. They look like people. If you're attracted to Homo Sapiens you're probably attracted to Homo Neanderthalensis.
- danieltillett 7y agoOr maybe the production of alcohol was discovered earlier than we thought.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- PeterisP 7y agoSince we have documented cases of e.g. orangutans being used in prostitution, debating whether different hominids would attempt sex with each other isn't necessary. Yes, they would, it it's somehow physically possible.
- brohee 7y agoDatapoint : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#/media/File:Reconstruction_of_Neanderthal_woman.jpg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal#/media/File:Recons... Uglier Homo Sapiens found mates
- booleandilemma 7y agoHumans nowadays are attracted to everything from anime characters to people dressed in furry animal costumes. The set of things we’re attracted to knows no bounds.
- keiru 7y agoPerhaps the real evolutionary advantage of Sapiens was abstract thinking put to use in advanced sexualization of different species.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- anentropic 7y agotypical
- bratbag 7y agoGiven that we carry the genetic legacy of all these Hominin species, are we still homo-sapiens? Should modern humans be classified as something else, distinct from the original pre-interbreeding homo-sapiens? If so, given how randy we have been, I propose Homo-Amatorius.
- gervu 7y agoThe two named species from the research are Homo sapiens denisova and Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. We're Homo sapiens sapiens, because we ate the wise-wise fruit. (The other two are nameless data ghosts at this point, due to lack of corresponding archeological records, but presumably Homo sapiens whateveris and Homo sapiens someotheris.) It's kind of open to debate whether those should be independent species, or their own species, but basically we're all Homo sapiens of one sort or another unless you want to get into a long unresolvable highly technical argument about it, which revolves around what precise definition of "species" is useful in some arbitrary context.
- oflannabhra 7y agoIf you are even vaguely interested in ancient human DNA, human migration, or human evolution I highly recommend Insito.me's[0] podcast, The Insight [1]. Improvements in genomics DNA extraction techniques combined with several key paleontological finds, have resulted in a revolution in human paleontology and anthropology. [0] - http://insito.me http://insito.me [1] - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-insight/id1324744423?mt=2 https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-insight/id13247444...
- excalibur 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_ancestors_point https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_ancestors_point > In 2004, Rohde, Olson and Chang showed through simulations that the Identical Ancestors Point for all humans is surprisingly recent, on the order of 5,000-15,000 years ago. How can different populations of modern humans have interbred with different hominin species around 50k years ago when ALL of today's humans had the EXACT SAME SET OF ANCESTORS as recently as 15k years ago?
- dragonwriter 7y ago> How can different populations of modern humans have interbred with different hominin species around 50k years ago when ALL of today's humans had the EXACT SAME SET OF ANCESTORS as recently as 15k years ago? Differences in past populations, including the interbreeding at issue, can be inferred from modern genes for reasons actually laid out in your own link, in the paragraph after the one you quoted: All living people share exactly the same set of ancestors from this point back, all the way to the very first single-celled organism. However, people will vary widely in how much ancestry and genes they inherit from each ancestor, which will cause them to have very different genotypes and phenotypes.
- excalibur 7y agoThis actually makes sense, thank you for actually reading the Wikipedia page rather than just searching for a quote :) It doesn't really contradict this article, but there were a number of articles a couple of years ago about how Europeans had Neanderthal DNA that other ethnicities didn't share. In reality all modern humans are descended from the exact same Neanderthals, but Europeans still retain more of their genes.
- mabbo 7y ago15k years isn't so short a period. Suppose a generation every 20 years or so. 50 per millennium. 750 generations in 15k years. If one person per generation settles 120 km further east than he/she was born (and odds are there would be more than just one) then 750 generations would be long enough to circle the planet twice. Genes travel slowly, but in many directions at once. And there may be some advantage to the offspring of two people genetically "far" from each other, reinforcing via evolution whatever instinct lead to them travel. 15k years is more than enough time for all of us to share an ancestry.
- snackematician 7y agoI would be very cautious interpreting these results. There are no DNA samples from the putative EH1 and EH2 hominin populations -- these populations are statistical constructs used to explain the data, but not (yet) directly observed. I do think it's likely that H. sapiens intermixed with other hominins besides Neanderthal and Denisovan, but the models used to infer these results make a lot of assumptions and are at best a drastic simplification of reality.
- keiru 7y agoGoes to show that every field has its own inferred "dark matter" of sorts.
- Jeff_Brown 7y ago*homonym
- mirimir 7y ago> “For example, all present-day populations show about 2% of Neanderthal ancestry which means that Neanderthal mixing with the ancestors of modern humans occurred soon after they left Africa, probably around 50,000 to 55,000 years ago somewhere in the Middle East.” I gotta wonder what people are thinking when they write this stuff. I mean, "Neanderthal mixing with the ancestors of modern humans occurred soon after they left Africa". Do they imply that those whose ancestors never left Africa are not "modern humans"? I doubt it. So they're just being sloppy.
- tabtab 7y agoHumpo Sapiens
- dang 7y agoPlease don't do this here.