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Monthly Archives: January 2014
Why the hunters moved down from the hills
But this was a period of great change – environmental and social. The northern hemisphere was coming out of a glacial age, nomadic hunter-gatherers were “settling down” and the age of agriculture was approaching. I can imagine that dwellings at lower altitude would have been more suitable for continuous occupation whereas the caves and grottos at high altitude were probably only occupied seasonally. Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Ancestors, Evolution, Hunter-gatherer, Origins of Agriculture
Tagged dwelling places, hunter-gatherers, Spain
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Neanderthal genes are everywhere
Neanderthals may have provided the genes favourable to cold resistance which were then selected forin Northern climes. They may also have thus provided the genes for skin and hair colour changes. But they also provided the genes which increased the susceptibility to some new diseases. Hybrid Neanderthal – modern human males may have been infertile and so the assimilation of Neanderthal genes may primarily have been through the hybrid females. All this probably between 80,000 years ago and 40,000 years ago – over about 2,000 generations. Continue reading
Posted in AMH, Ancestors, Denisovans, Homo Erectus, Homo Neanderthalensis, Peopling the world
Tagged admixture, Denisovans, modern humans, Natural selection, Neanderthals, Svante Pääbo
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Promiscuity in the Pleistocene
At some point there must have been children who were 50% Neanderthal and 50% AMH. And some who were 50% Neanderthal and 50% Denisovan. How did they survive? What kind of society existed in these ancient times that would permit such offspring not only to survive but also to mate and produce offspring in their turn? But however it happened, our ancestors in the pleistocene were a promiscuous lot. Continue reading
SE Asia rainforests shaped by humans for 11,000 years
A new study comes to the brave conclusion – based on ancient pollen samples which contain charcoal and and therefore suggest that land was cleared and planted – that the rain forests of SE Asia have been “managed” by humans since about 11,000 years ago! Continue reading
Light skin genes in Europe less than 7,000 years old
The first European genome sequence that predates the appearance of agriculture from skeletons in La Brana show that these hunter gatherers had dark skin and blue eyes. The dark skin is a very interesting finding, as light skin is nearly universal across Europe today. These results suggest that the light skin seen across Europe today is a development of the last at least 7,000 years. Continue reading
Posted in AMH, Ancestors, Evolution, Homo Sapiens, Hunter-gatherer
Tagged Europe, genetic analysis, hunter-gatheres, la Brana, light skin gene
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