Evidences for Human Evolution Continue to be Discovered

[_Philo Sofee]

http://blogs.plos.org/scicomm/2017/12/0 ... s-of-2017/

5 more evidences enhancing our understanding of human evolution that came out in 2017. Our knowledge progresses.

[_Chap]

In a year filled with lots of alarming anti-science news stories, we pause to acknowledge the positive news when we can. There has been a remarkable number of interesting discoveries announced related to the evolution of our species or primates in general. In fact, just as we were preparing to publish this guest post by Dr. Briana Pobiner and Ms. Ella Beaudoin from the Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of Natural History, the remainder of the skeleton of a human ancestor known colloquially as “Little Foot” (belonging to the genus Australopithecus, the same genus as the famed “Lucy” fossil) was finally revealed after 20 years of cleaning and excavation from the its embedding rock. Hope you enjoy reading. –JMO

Human evolution is an exciting, interdisciplinary science. We often think of fossils and artifacts as the only evidence for the grand narrative that is our evolutionary history, but just as important are discoveries based on genetics and living primates, as well as those that happen in museum collections: re-discovering new information from evidence that has already been unearthed. In this blog post, though, we’re going “back to basics” and highlighting (in chronological order) five discoveries published between May and August of 2017 of things that were actually dug up from the ground.

Yeah, but have they yet found a way to explain how raccoons can evolve into whales? That is, you will recall, the question that has puzzled the greatest intellects on this board for many years. Till that is answered, it's all just a theory. They need to teach this controversy in our schools.

[_Chap]

For me, this was the most interesting item of the five listed in that article.

Basically, we don't any longer need bones to find that humans were in a given site, or to identify which group of our ancestors those humans (or at least hominids) came from. We can, in effect, treat each place where we suspect people may have lived using the same techniques nowadays used at crime scenes. DNA traces in the soil are enough - and of course those traces have to potential to tell us a lot more than a fragment of bone was able to tell us.

There's certainly more to come.

2) Ancient human DNA discovered in dirt

In a study led by Viviane Slon of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany and published in the journal Science on May 12, 2017, a team of evolutionary geneticists found lots of ancient DNA from mammals in sediments from caves in Europe and Asia. This discovery was extra cool because it didn’t even involve finding fossils, or artifacts, or anything we usually associate with the past. Instead, researchers found ancient human DNA in… dirt! What?? While that sounds like something out of a science fiction novel, it really happened. The paleo-geneticists collaborated with several groups of archaeologists excavating in caves in Belgium, Croatia, France, Russia, and Spain with known early human occupation and collected 85 sediment samples from seven archaeological sites varying in age between about 14,000 and 550 thousand years ago. They found fragments of mitochondrial DNA from twelve different families of mammals in the sediments, including DNA from extinct animals like woolly mammoths, woolly rhinos, cave hyenas, and cave bears. Most exciting was the discovery of ancient human DNA in nine of those 85 samples from four of the sites: eight had Neanderthal DNA, and one had Denisovan DNA. In some cases, the researchers can even tell from the specific DNA sequences that they come from more than one individual! This discovery could be a real game-changer for human evolution research, as it allows us to identify the presence of hominins at prehistoric sites and in layers where their fossils haven’t even been found. For instance, this pushed back the known hominin (early human) occupation of Denisova Cave in Siberia by tens of thousands of years. It also demonstrates that it is possible to extract DNA from samples stored at room temperature for several years – like those collected previously for dating, understanding site formation processes, or reconstructing ancient environments.

[_Chap]

And here's more from the Press Release put out by the Max Planck Institute:


DNA from extinct humans discovered in cave sediments

Researchers have developed a new method to retrieve hominin DNA from cave sediments – even in the absence of skeletal remains

APRIL 27, 2017

While there are numerous prehistoric sites in Europe and Asia that contain tools and other human-made artefacts, skeletal remains of ancient humans are scarce. Researchers of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have therefore looked into new ways to get hold of ancient human DNA. From sediment samples collected at seven archaeological sites, the researchers “fished out” tiny DNA fragments that had once belonged to a variety of mammals, including our extinct human relatives. They retrieved DNA from Neandertals in cave sediments of four archaeological sites, also in layers where no hominin skeletal remains have been discovered. In addition, they found Denisovan DNA in sediments from Denisova Cave in Russia. These new developments now enable researchers to uncover the genetic affiliations of the former inhabitants of many archaeological sites which do not yield human remains.

By looking into the genetic composition of our extinct relatives, the Neandertals, and their cousins from Asia, the Denisovans, researchers can shed light on our own evolutionary history. However, fossils of ancient humans are rare, and they are not always available or suitable for genetic analyses. “We know that several components of sediments can bind DNA”, says Matthias Meyer of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology. “We therefore decided to investigate whether hominin DNA may survive in sediments at archaeological sites known to have been occupied by ancient hominins.”

To this aim Meyer and his team collaborated with a large network of researchers excavating at seven archaeological sites in Belgium, Croatia, France, Russia and Spain. Overall, they collected sediment samples covering a time span from 14,000 to over 550,000 years ago. Using tiny amounts of material the researchers recovered and analyzed fragments of mitochondrial DNA – genetic material from the mitochondria, the “energy factories” of the cell – and identified them as belonging to twelve different mammalian families that include extinct species such as the woolly mammoth, the woolly rhinoceros, the cave bear and the cave hyena.

The researchers then looked specifically for ancient hominin DNA in the samples. “From the preliminary results, we suspected that in most of our samples, DNA from other mammals was too abundant to detect small traces of human DNA”, says Viviane Slon, Ph.D. student at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig and first author of the study. “We then switched strategies and started targeting specifically DNA fragments of human origin.” Nine samples from four archaeological sites contained enough ancient hominin DNA for further analyses: Eight sediment samples contained Neandertal mitochondrial DNA from either one or multiple individuals, while one sample contained Denisovan DNA. Most of these samples originated from archaeological layers or sites where no Neandertal bones or teeth were previously found.

A new tool for archaeology

“By retrieving hominin DNA from sediments, we can detect the presence of hominin groups at sites and in areas where this cannot be achieved with other methods”, says Svante Pääbo, director of the Evolutionary Genetics department at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and co-author of the study. “This shows that DNA analyses of sediments are a very useful archaeological procedure, which may become routine in the future”.

Even sediment samples that were stored at room temperature for years still yielded DNA. Analyses of these and of freshly-excavated sediment samples recovered from archaeological sites where no human remains are found will shed light on these sites’ former occupants and our joint genetic history.

[_mentalgymnast]

http://blogs.plos.org/scicomm/2017/12/07/top-5-human-evolution-discoveries-of-2017/

5 more evidences enhancing our understanding of human evolution that came out in 2017. Our knowledge progresses.

Hey Kerry, sincere question here. Back in your believing days, was there a theory of evolution that you subscribed to...and with good reason? Or were you anti-evolution?

Were you a macro kind of guy? Micro? Both?

I'm wondering if the link you posted would have been troublesome to you in those days...or not.

by the way...OTHERS...would you please just let Kerry answer the question, if he chooses to...without barging in and accusing me of getting too personal...or whatever?

Thanks.

I'm asking an honest question that I'm curious about. No more. No less.

Regards,
MG

[_Res Ipsa]

Kerry can answer if he chooses, but the notion that acceptance of evolution can be divided into micro guys and macro guys is just so precious.

[_EAllusion]

Microevolution in evolutionary biology refers to the study of population genetics. Macroevolution refers to subjects like cladistics.

They aren't types of evolution based on degree of change. They are just areas of focus.

Decades ago "I believe in microevolution, but not macroevolution" became a refrain among anti-evolutionist creationists where they misrepresented the concepts so they would map onto accepting some level of change within populations, but not between "kinds" or a standin for that concept.

MG seems to be lost in that rhetoric.

[_Res Ipsa]

Lost indeed.

[_mentalgymnast]

Kerry can answer if he chooses, but the notion that acceptance of evolution can be divided into micro guys and macro guys is just so precious.

Back in the day, couldn't he have been a micro and/or macro kind of guy?

I suppose we should let him answer for himself if he chooses to.

This has been more than a few years back when he would have had his...what were then current...views of evolution along with his belief in the restoration of the gospel.

Regards,
MG

[_Themis]

Not to say that this may be the reason that some stay. But for others it may be that they've been able to reason things out to the extent that they are able to attend and be active church members in good faith. This may be the case with this couple. The fact is, I don't thing any of us actually know.

Regards,
MG

If you mean know in an absolute way then sure. If you mean know as most people use it, then yes some of us know. I certainly know the church is not what is claims far more then members who say they know it is true.