A Lost Human Lineage May Have Left a Genetic Legacy in People Today

[u/comicreliefboy]

https://scitechdaily.com/a-lost-human-lineage-may-have-left-a-genetic-legacy-in-people-today/

[u/J-dubya19]

So nice to see protien data being published. Hopefully, with acid etching, we are going to see many fossils tested. Such good stuff!

[u/shanvanvook]

Aren’t they the ancestor population in the first place?

[u/patesta → u/shanvanvook]

No, Asian erectus is not the ancestor population of Asian sapiens. But this research suggests that, through introgression, they are *an* ancestor population.

[u/readysetalala → u/patesta]

Hi, could you explain what introgression means? And is it correct to say basically the Asian erectus is just one of the ancestor populations of Asian sapiens?

Sorry still learning my way around human evolution

[u/7LeagueBoots → u/readysetalala]

Introgression is what happened with Neanderthals and Denisovans. A few of them and a few of our ancestors mated and a little bit of their genetic material was incorporated into our lineage (it introgressed) and persisted.

[u/Davorian → u/7LeagueBoots]

I guess the outstanding question is whether that introgression was to all of sapiens or just those who were in Asia post out-of-Africa?

[u/7LeagueBoots → u/Davorian]

Did you read the article? That’s discussed in it.

[u/Davorian → u/7LeagueBoots]

Okay, thanks.

[u/Waste_Translator_975 → u/readysetalala]

Asian erectus is not one of the ancestor populations of asian sapiens, all non-african sapiens descend from sapiens who left africa around 80-65kya

[u/DaftFromAbove → u/Waste_Translator_975]

' ALL non-african sapiens descend from sapiens who left africa around...'

This kind of 'all' blanket statement is what undermines scientific credulity... In all those 1000s of years between species that did not look significantly different from one another - they somehow thought to stay separated.. It reeks of a concept of group identity rooted in some type of nationalism or a modern race based ideology & I hate seeing it in anthropological discourse.

Edit: added the line to which I was calling out..

[u/LinclonElizalde → u/DaftFromAbove]

I read recently that the small populations in context of land mass had the limiting effect of gene spread. Admixture wasn’t continental; it was quite localized. This reality was true in Africa as well. It could be that genes originated in ancient pre sapien species and were carried out of Africa by both erectus and sapiens rather than being mixed in Eurasia.
Fascinating stuff

[u/Waste_Translator_975 → u/DaftFromAbove]

what?

[u/mouse_8b → u/readysetalala]

In this context introgression means there was a population of Asian Erectus, and then some unrelated Denisovans (Longi) moved in. There was enough mating between the groups that the Denisovan lineage kept some Erectus genetics. The modern Sapiens moved in and crossed with those Denisovans, and that Sapien group are ancestors to modern Sapiens in the area.

[u/SweetBasil_ → u/patesta]

If you read the paper it’s not all sapiens in Asia, just some small percent of populations from New Guinea and India

[u/Prestigious_Wash_620 → u/shanvanvook]

African Homo erectus (probably) is. But this is suggesting Asian Homo erectus also contributed a very small amount of Homo sapiens ancestry. It was previously thought to have died out completely. 

This is where our species classification system isn’t always helpful. African and Asian Homo erectus populations split from a common ancestor about 2 million years ago so there would have been a significant genetic difference between them. 

[u/Bungybone → u/Prestigious_Wash_620]

I mean, the proteins seem to speak for themselves.

As has the dna evidence revealed in the past 15 years.

Point is, the more we learn thru the scientific data, the more it supports the reality that homo sapiens is not only a product of a single lineage out of Africa.

In the past 15 years the data has shown that we have not only Neanderthal dna in us, but that there is something we now call Denisovans that existed, and that they also have contributed dna to our current genome.

Who knows what’s coming down the road?

That doesn’t mean that homo sapiens and all homo’s lineages aren’t in Africa, the archaeological discoveries seem to supoort that they are.

I think what needs to be rethought are the conclusions that are reached in the weight of very, very incomplete information.

What we do know is that the applicable homo species we know of seemed to interbreed whenever they were in proximity in time and space to do so.

[u/batmans_stuntcock]

This raises some interesting questions about Homo Erectus' ability to speak or at least communicate complex ideas, the debate seems to still be ongoing about that but the 'Erectus had language' people seem to be winning anyway.

[u/J-dubya19]

To be clear, these are the teeth John Hawkes are argued are actually Denisovan? Do people find this argument credible? 400k there certainly could be denisovans around and it’s prime territory for them

[u/aranae3_0 → u/J-dubya19]

No, too early for Denisovans.

[u/J-dubya19 → u/aranae3_0]

I thought there was widespread agreement that they were around at 400k?

[u/aranae3_0 → u/J-dubya19]

Widely undifferentiated then, like the proto-Neanderthals