Possible new human ancestor found in Siberia

[marksiwel]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20100324/sc_ ... an_species" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Genetic material pulled from a pinky finger bone found in a Siberian cave shows a new and unknown type of pre-human lived alongside modern humans and Neanderthals, scientists reported on Wednesday.

The creature, nicknamed "Woman X" for the time being, could have lived as recently as 30,000 years ago and appears only distantly related to modern humans or Neanderthals, the researchers reported.

"It really just looked like something we had never seen before," Johannes Krause of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, told a telephone briefing.

"It was a sequence that looked something like humans but really quite different."

Writing in Nature, Krause and colleagues said they sequenced DNA from the mitochondria, a part of the cell, which is passed down virtually intact from a woman to her children. They compared it to DNA from humans, Neanderthals and apes.

The sequence indicates the hominin's line diverged about a million years ago from the line that gave rise to both humans and Neanderthals and that split about 500,000 years ago.

That makes it younger than Homo erectus, the pre-human that spread out of Africa to much of the world about 1.9 million years ago.

"It is some new creature that has not been on our radar screen so far," said Svaante Paabo, a colleague of Krause's who specializes in analyzing ancient DNA.

And it would have lived near to both modern humans and Neanderthals. "There were at least three ... different forms of humans in this area 40,000 years ago," Paabo said.

Krause and Paabo are careful not to name the creature a new species just yet. They are now working to sequence nuclear DNA -- the DNA that makes up most of the genetic code, which will tell a great deal more about "Woman X".

NEW SCIENCE OF EVOLUTION

The genetic sequence tells scientists little about what the creature would have looked like or whether it interacted with other humans living in the Altai mountains of Siberia, where the pinky finger bone was found.

The work, done using a DNA sequencer made by Illumina Ltd, suggests a new way is opening to identify the ancestors of humanity. Krause and Paabo had only a tiny fragment of bone to work with and cannot reconstruct a skeleton in the time-honored manner of most paleontologists.

But there may be more there. The cold, dry conditions of the Altai mountains preserve the DNA. Stone tools also have been found in the area, as well as the bones of woolly mammoths but only tantalizing fragments of human bone and teeth.

Researchers have sequenced DNA from mammoths frozen in Siberia and the same team has sequenced DNA from Neanderthals.

Paabo and Krause said it is theoretically possible the creature is related to another potential third species of human -- Homo floresiensis, nicknamed "hobbit" -- which lived on an island in modern-day Indonesia about 17,000 years ago.

The team has tried without success to get DNA from hobbit bones. Most skeletons of pre-humans have been found in warm places such as Africa, but hot, wet conditions break down DNA.

[TheArmedFarmer]

I thought religion was not allowed on this forum?

[marksiwel]

I thought religion was not allowed on this forum?

How is this religion? this is science

[marksiwel]

It makes you wonder what else we missed. I always worry that all the real good stuff is in Europe somewhere underneat a Housing complex or got blown up in WW2.

[TheArmedFarmer]

I thought religion was not allowed on this forum?

How is this religion? this is science

I'd say evolution can be filed neatly under the religion category.

[SQLGeek]

I thought religion was not allowed on this forum?

[marksiwel]

I thought religion was not allowed on this forum?

How is this religion? this is science

I'd say evolution can be filed neatly under the religion category.

I dont know if I should laugh or cry
I'm not looking to debate if Evolution is real or not. I just thought this was a neat article.

Also we have a whole section of this forum thats full of Prayer requests.

[The Annoyed Man]

Ignoring the religious interpretation (Christian or Darwinian), there seems to me to be a bit of a flaw here. Quoting the article:

The genetic sequence tells scientists little about what the creature would have looked like or whether it interacted with other humans living in the Altai mountains of Siberia, where the pinky finger bone was found.

The work, done using a DNA sequencer made by Illumina Ltd, suggests a new way is opening to identify the ancestors of humanity. Krause and Paabo had only a tiny fragment of bone to work with and cannot reconstruct a skeleton in the time-honored manner of most paleontologists.

Years ago, I had some "greater than the average layman's" field experience in paleontology and fossil reconstruction in a lab. Granted, it was not with hominids, but rather mostly with north American Paleocene and newer land mammals, but paleontological principles are the same, regardless of what you're studying. Even if this pinky finger doesn't look like any other pinky finger ever found before, that does not necessarily mean they've run across a new species of hominid. There exist a lot variations between individuals within any given species. Sometimes those variations are even greater than the differences between two individuals of differing species. So, even with a complete skeleton, it can be difficult at times to determine if an individual was a member of a new species, or just a variation on an already discovered species. Add to that the effects of arthritis, cancers, and/or other injuries/insults to the bone while the individual was alive, and it can muddy the waters considerably. It gets worse when the shape of the bone gets distorted by geological pressures.

Trying to do a DNA sequencing on 30,000 year old mitochondrial DNA from one individual is problematic by itself. Then when you try and compare those results to another mitochondrial DNA sample from another part of the world and 100,000 years older, it is hard to see how the conclusions could be anything more than mere speculation.

It is an interesting story, but I am skeptical. Lacking any more concrete evidence, I'm inclined to believe that the scientists involved are engaging in a bit of wishful thinking.

[marksiwel]

Thank you TAM that was very insightful, you seem to be a man of many hats

[old farmer]

Will so this is how God made an Aggie?

[The Annoyed Man]

Will so this is how God made an Aggie?

Aggies were made by Chuck Norris in a pre-cambrian underground forge. Defy us at your peril!

[HighVelocity]

The secret to receiving an uninterrupted stream of research funding is to occasionally find "something".

Just saying...

[The Annoyed Man]

The secret to receiving an uninterrupted stream of research funding is to occasionally find "something".

Just saying...

Yep. Although in this particular case, they did find something. What is questionable is what it means. As I pointed out above, that could be very much in dispute.

[marksiwel]

The secret to receiving an uninterrupted stream of research funding is to occasionally find "something".

Just saying...

Yep. Although in this particular case, they did find something. What is questionable is what it means. As I pointed out above, that could be very much in dispute.

I always wonder how much information it would take for them to find to "Prove it" to some people.