
In Neanderthal DNA, Signs of a Mysterious Human Migration - iamjeff
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/04/science/neanderthals-dna-homo-sapiens-human-evolution.html
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danieltillett
I really think it is time to come up with a better name for ancient people
from sub-Saharan Africa than "humans". If all the different hybrid people
alive today are humans, then it is very misleading to call one branch "human"
and the others Neanderthal or Denosovan.

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ricw
They aren't. They are Homo sapiens, vs homo neanderthalis, homo erectus or the
like. There used to be many closely related humans. But we eradicated them (in
all likelihood).

From that perspective, sapiens would be a better term than humans..

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danieltillett
We haven't eradicated them, we have bred with them. Most of us are the
decendents of both the sub-Saharan people and Neanderthal people and some of
us are the descendants of sub-Saharan people, Neanderthal people, and the
Denosovan people (three different species). If we are all human now then why
is only one ancient population from Africa called human.

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gwern
We bred with them, but evolution has been heavily eliminating the traces of
the breeding and they are generally often linked with diseases. So they do not
seem to be on equal grounds. And as for 'us' \- speak for yourself, but much
of the human race has no Denisovan or Neanderthal ancestry.

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Mikeb85
> much of the human race has no Denisovan or Neanderthal ancestry.

But most does. Any population originally of Asian or European descent has some
Denisovan or Neanderthal DNA, or ~80 percent of the world's population.

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gwern
A fifth of the entirety of humanity is a heck of a lot. If you want to claim
that Denisovan or Neanderthal ancestry is just as crucial as the basal homo
sapiens, you are writing off a good chunk of humanity. Combine this with the
purging of Neanderthal DNA (and the likely purging of the little bit of
Denisovan introgression), it's clear that one of these things is not like the
others. Let's not overstate the implications of these things.

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oldandtired
Questions being asked like "What is human?" or "What defines a species?" have
differing answers depending on the specific world-view of the questioner.

As I have read the comments already given, it is obvious that there are some
here who define a species very narrowly and would therefore treat the Kalhari
desert people as a different species to the run of the mill European.

Even the word hybrid as applied to living organisms has major problems,
especially when used in conjunction with some definitions of species.

The upshot of the various definitions is that any organism that breeds with
another successfully and produces viable breeding offspring are members of the
same species. In which case, Neanderthal is just one of the varieties of the
homo sapiens species, no more and no less than any existing human today.

I have heard various comments about some people today of how like they are to
the images we use for the Neanderthal. Since we only have skeletal remains and
no actual corpses, there is much that we cannot tell about how they looked and
how different any other bodily feature may have been. The experts use mostly
guess work - I am not denigrating guess work based on good evidence. What I am
saying is that we don't know with any certitude of the real differences, if
any, between modern man and ancient man.

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ianai
I think the labels aid in identifying migrations. i.e. This pattern of genes
is called A and that other one is B. If you later see something that looks
like a mixture of A & B then you know they interbred around that area at that
time.

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Yellow_Boat
I think that we might really underestimate old branches of humans regarding
how they developed.

Things like very simple trade, slavery and religious systems could exist in
some primitive, chaotic way - that would explain a lot. We are walking into
the dark and we will need probably decades before proper picture of ancient
people will emerge. Hopefully, there will be enough funding to continue this.

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codesnik
traditional view is that before agriculture and animal husbandry slavery
wasn't feasible - slaves would eat as much food as they would be able to
collect, so why bother. Egyptian "living dead" term etymology as an example.
But trade and religion, why not.

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Yellow_Boat
I think that such a slave could have many uses. Woman slave could be used for
breeding and speed up the process of recovering heard numbers after some
catastrophe. Also, it could be skill based - where slaves with unique skills
would be traded (like making ropes, sharp objects, bowls), something that
would be hard to grasp for ancient people. There is also a "mule" thing, where
slaves would be used for carrying stuff. And of course the last - religious.
Could be that group would have a "different looking" person in a heard as a
charm/talisman (breeding with it would result in healthy children - thanks to
genetic diversity).

But it could be nothing. More research is important for sure.

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snambi
Yet another attempt to establish "history" using "science".

