" All Human Ancestors Belonged To The Same Species But Just Looked Different "

[Guest]

"Does this skull rewrite the history of mankind? 1.8 million-year-old remains suggest all human ancestors belonged to the SAME species but just looked different"

 

It is an interessting time for BF researchers. What has been called laughable months ago, comes to reality. From a "extinct" big mamal still living (or short ago), to now morphological difference in the line homo, not believed possible before. BF becomes more and more likely, and is now far from hilarious. 
 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-2465171/Does-skull-rewrite-history-mankind-1-8-million-year-old-remains-suggest-human-ancestors-belonged-SAME-species-just-looked-different.html

 

 

 

Link to reconstruction:

 

http://www.news.com.au/technology/sci-tech/skull-18-million-years-old-may-rewrite-human-evolution-after-being-found-in-dmanisi-georgia/story-fn5fsgyc-1226742076449

 

 

Science Journal Link:

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/342/6156.cover-expansion

Edited October 19, 2013 by Data

[JDL]

The pendulum swings every time they get a new data point.  In order to get funding they've got to publish results and in order to publish results, they've got to have something significant enough to justify pushing the pendulum, or at least something they can construe as such. 

 

It's all guesswork based on sporadic findings and assumptions based on that relatively limited evidence.  Consensus will change yet again, and then again as we progress.

Edited October 19, 2013 by JDL

[Guest]

"Does this skull rewrite the history of mankind? 1.8 million-year-old remains suggest all human ancestors belonged to the SAME species but just looked different"

 

It is an interessting time for BF researchers. What has been called laughable months ago, comes to reality. 

Only laughable to some with respect to Bigfoots.  I think the idea they are "human" has been around as long as the mythology and supported by what we have known a long time in the fossil record about our ancestoral anatomy and culture.  Modern researcher reports (and unintended witnesses) also support that view significantly (albiet some staunch detractors).

I also think the trend, prior to the human modern and ancient genomics and this find, has been to recognize that the many species of hominids cited is probably a result of the archelogists eager to claim such as thier discovery, and any variation played to the hilt....  

On the genomics side ot it... we can trace our common ancestors with  Neandertal (not recalling exactly) 400K BP and almost twice that for Densiova....and that is interesting...in that some humans show a more recent common ancestory with a Neandertal than some other human groups.... 

 

Someone just sent me the paper on these skulls.   so, if it isn't too tough I might have something a little more relevant to say....in a few days...  

Edited October 19, 2013 by apehuman

[NathanFooter]

  For me this is exciting , this just shows how variant a species can be.

 

 It looks more likely all the time { in my mind anyway } that the modern sasquatch could be a severely adapted human or human like species that has abandoned the standard human social structure for a more animalistic way of life in select family groups.  Perhaps their mental capacity is now designed more around survival and avoidance abilities rather than our technological development through the massing of minds.

 

 The strange body size , proportions and bone structure could be result of the all the generations of adaptation in the forest in this manner.

 

 Only the strongest and most resistant can survive, the radical change in environment quickly weeds out the weak and creates change.

 

 Change or die , this has always been the rule of nature.

[Guest]

evolution...and maybe in isolation early, before we re-emerge from Africa 70K BP........  so at the time..say 300-100K BP....   they/we were already everywhere...and survived the India volcano event in pockets around the world. (or whatever pushed us  back to one small pool of DNA on the east coast of Africa of which we all arise...)...to fan out, yet again..and meet...Neandertal, Denisova..erectus/Florensiensis....and they were us...almost...

 

The NA mythologies almost all seem to say..BFs were here when they arrived and when we became even more culturally sphisticated they chose not to join, spurring our ways for the ancient ones...something like that..

 

an interesting tidbit... we have bone needles almost 70K BP....and it also may be (via louse genetic studies) we began to wear clothes about 100K BP....hummmm....  

 

exciting times..the genetic stuff is really confirming and refining so much...       I am anxious for this other paper to be out tho..tired of speculating!

Edited October 19, 2013 by apehuman

[Guest lightheart]

I spent some time on Friday reading up on this new information about Skull 5. They have drawn some interesting conclusions which would narrow the family tree a bit. I have always thought that Sasquatch would turn out to be some sort of Homo Erectus. If you add some longer hair to the drawings in certain places like the arms and neck area and a bit more hair on the face you might have something close to what many eye-witnesses have reported.

[BobZenor]

 

Yet we know that these individuals came from the same location and the same geological time, so they could, in principle, represent a single population of a single species,'' he said

 

I suspected before reading it that was the main reason behind the article.  Many of the researchers at Georgia claimed that one of the skulls was much different and implied a different species but that was threatening to the erectus first out of Africa crowd.  If you just expand the species erectus then erectus gets to stay first out of Africa. 

 

The way they define species varies and it is often largely a semantical distinction.  They normally define species of ancient hominids by how well they maintain a set of characteristics over time.  That is how you get Homo habilis living at the same time and place as Homo erectus long after habilis was thought to have gone extinct which is a common but highly confusing way to say it evolved into erecutus.  The timing of the fossils made the evolution of habilis into erectus dubious IMO or in other words erectus may have been an older lineage than supposed.  When there is a set of characteristics defining habilis that are maintained then it is a separate species because it isn't logical to assume just a very structurally divergent population.  Since apparently multiple species exist in Africa by that logic then there is no reason to just suppose great variation in Asia.  It is simpler to assume that variations of multiple species left Africa.  It was about the same time that erectus and habilis were cohabiting in Africa, just a few hundred thousand years earlier I believe. 

 

They could save the erectus out of Africa idea by just assuming disruptive selection rather than calling them different species.  They could also be completely isolated populations with no interbreeding and it would be very difficult to tell.  Disruptive selection normally occurs where multiple forms are favored because the species can occupy more than one niche.   You could suppose that there was some disruptive selection going on that favored various different forms and they are all the same species.  They still need to maintain distinct lineages but have limited interbreeding going on to maintain the defining sets of features.  Even without them being the same species you can still get some interbreeding going on when the definition of species is populations that are distinct and that don't normally interbreed.  There is really no difference in reality between to the two views except semantics.  One expands the species erectus to include everything that might have bred with it.  That isn't the normal way that species are defined but it would allow them to maintain erectus in its favored status.

 

Hominids are all probably going to like the same kind of shelters like caves and overhangs and that is also where fossil formation is most likely to happen.  There is no reason to assume they are necessarily the same species because they were found in the same place.  The dominant hominid, at least, is logically going to have to relocate camp periodically.  That means that others could occupy the site when the dominant hominids were in other parts of their territory waiting for the environment to replenish the food plants and animals.  If they stayed in the same place too long it would probably get foul and probably infested with lice and flees and other pests.  They could also be very nomadic but I think defined territories is much more likely.

[norseman]

Hold the phone.......we know for certain that Homo Sapien, Homo Neanderthals and Denisovan woman are all three distinct species based on DNA.

Which I take DNA a little more seriously than skull morphology.

[sheri]

Where is the dna from all the rest including this skull ?

[NathanFooter]

Sheri , this case did not involve DNA , it is about morphological differences and similarities being the way of the determination of the species placement and or consolidation on the human family tree.  

 

Hope this helps

[sheri]

No it doesn't. It needs to include dna.

[NathanFooter]

Not saying there shouldn't be DNA data to go with this, it would be much more informative if it did.

 

I was just saying this article was not presenting any at this point , they are thinking at this point that this skull may be telling us { via the morphology alone } that many of the other skulls that have been classified as their own species may all belong to this one species that may exhibit great variance among individuals.

[Guest lightheart]

I'm not sure that they can extract DNA from a skull or teeth as old as skull 5 or the others found at that location. Thus far at least they have not had the capability to do so.

[Guest]

Hold the phone.......we know for certain that Homo Sapien, Homo Neanderthals and Denisovan woman are all three distinct species based on DNA.

Which I take DNA a little more seriously than skull morphology.

seems like we were in a similar conversation in another thread..this Nova is pretty good...  and of course the neandertal genome is now much better and those phylogeny trees on their site I think....  I don't think there is any question, if it came to public policy/law that we would find a way to make certain we, as modern law abiding citizens, are of a different species...but the DNA says a lot..and it does appear interbreeding was probable early in any speciation event..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ig7yLBFv-0g

 

great discussion of skull morphology and it's relevance..almost seems predicitive of the recent Georgia dig publication.....the title of this thread!

Edited October 21, 2013 by apehuman

[sheri]

They have the dna of neanderthals. Dna does say a lot, in fact it says it all. Just as with the Bili ape. They were huge, the size of and some bigger than the gorilla. They nested on the ground like gorillas. Some had the crest like gorillas, yet they looked like chimps. They were puzzled, but dna said it all. They were chimps.