tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post2072961116087712573..comments2024-01-04T04:11:55.717+02:00Comments on Dienekes’ Anthropology Blog: The mother of us all lived 200 thousand years agoDienekeshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02082684850093948970noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7785493.post-83735419229327169712010-08-23T23:13:51.880+03:002010-08-23T23:13:51.880+03:00The authors document a shift from the chimpanzee-h...The authors document a shift from the chimpanzee-human divergence rate estimates to, slowly from 1997 on, to Neandertal-human divergence rate estimates. From the paper:<br /><br />"Since it seems from the genetic <br />data (Kringset al., 1999; Greenet al., 2008; Briggset al., 2009) <br />that Neanderthals did not contribute mtDNA to the lineages of <br />presently living modern humans, the time of the mtEve should <br />be placed after the H. sapiens – H. neanderthalensis divergence. <br />Even if later studies(Serré et al., 2004;Cyran and Kimmel, 2005) <br />indicated that interbreeding between two human forms could not <br />be excluded, and moreover that there is an evidence of a small- <br />scale gene flow (Greenetal.,2010),it remains true that the root of currently living humans should be placed after that of humans and Neanderthals. As light admixture of atmost 25% (Serré etal., 2004) or15% (CyranandKimmel, 2005) disappeared <br />as a result of the genetic drift. Therefore, even if the results of <br />the Neanderthal Genome Project suggest possible interbreeding <br />between the Neanderthals and the archaic Europeans yielding <br />about 3% admixture of the nuclear DNA (Plagnol and Wall, 2006; <br />Pennisi, 2006;Green etal., 2010), treating the Neanderthals as a <br />mtDNA outgroup is justified." <br /><br />The question arises: how do we know that what, e.g., Green et al. 2010 detected as "Neandertal admixture" in humans is in fact admixture and not common descent? Otherwise, this statement sounds like retrofitting new data into old models but still hedging against it to make room for progress in divergence estimate methods.German Dziebelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10703679732205862495noreply@blogger.com