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Leaky Replacement: Human, Neanderthal And Denisovan Blends

 

 

by Ursula Goodenough

 

Understandings of human origins have undergone many seismic shifts since the accounts in Genesis and other sacred texts, but several findings this year might well be described as > 7 on the Richter scale.

 

Background: The oldest fossils of anatomically modern Homo sapiens date to ~160,000 years ago, and are found exclusively in Africa. The oldest Neanderthal fossils date to ~200,000 years ago, and are found exclusively in regions of Europe and Eastern Asia. Hence when humans began migrating out of Africa and into Europe and Asia some 100,000 years ago they encountered Neanderthals for the first time. Since the most recent Neanderthal fossils date to 30,000 years ago, most scientists, until this year, understandably concluded that H. sapiens had "replaced" Neanderthals. Humans won, Neanderthals lost, story over.

 

http://www.npr.org/blogs/13.7/2011/02/03/133464424/leaky-replacement-human-neanderthal-and-denisovan-blends

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