On Tue, 23 Dec 1997 00:00:02 -0600, Glenn Morton wrote:
GM>I want to thank those of y'all who have debated with me this year. Whether
>or not we agree on our approach is less important than the fact that we
>share our Lord and because of that will share eternity together.
Thanks for your thanks. I hope you and your familiy had a blessed Christmas.
Steve
On Sun, 21 Dec 1997 21:03:02 -0600, Glenn Morton wrote:
SJ>Thanks for this info. I would appreciate a reference to this report.
GM>I gave one Stephen. Look at my original report.
OK. Thanks. I did not realise it was a web page:
http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/neandertal.html
I will look it up.
>SJ>But even if it was cannibalism, it was not necessarily ritual
>>cannibalism. Life was tough for Neandertals in ice-age Europe and
>>they may have eaten their own kind as a source of protein. Even
>>among some modern day peoples (eg. Melanesia), cannibalism was just
>>for food:
GM>That is certainly an issue but in Melanesia it is not soley for food that
>they eat enemies. In some cases it is a ritual so that the person will
>serve them in the afterlife.
Agreed "In some cases", not in all. My quotes said as much.
GM>Given the widespread evidence of cannibalism among all ancient
>peoples, most authorities do not think that it is due to
>protein need. Campbell notes
>
>"Some paleoanthropologists feel that the cannibalism at
>Krapina and Hortus was dietary cannibalism--motivated by nothing
>more than hunger. They suggest that a band of Neandertals,
>having run short of other game, decided that in such an emergency
>their neighbors would make a life-saving meal...
In the case of neandertals, in the ice-age conditions of Europe,
hunger would no doubt be a very strong motive to cannibalism. The
Donner Pass tragedy of 1846-7 demonstrates that even snow-bound Homo
sapiens will eat his friends, rather than starve.
GM>Even more suggestive is the treatment of the opening at
>the base of the skull. The foramen magnum is normally about an
>inch and a quarter in diameter. In all but two of the Solo
>skulls, it had been widened considerably by hacking with stone or
>wooden tools. similar mutilation of skulls was carried out at
>choukoutien, as we have seen, and has been observed among
>cannibals of the present day, who widen the opening so they can
>reach into the skulls to scoop out the brains."~Bernard Campbell,
>Humankind Emerging, (Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1985), p.
>404-405
This argues against your point. Why go to all the trouble to
make a neat bowl out of the top of the skull, when the easiest
way to get at brains is through the existing opening at the
neck?
GM>Thank you for the examples of cannibalism. I appreciated that.
Don't mention it. But honesty demands I declare my vested interest
in cannibalism-I chew my fingernails! ;-)
>SJ>In any event, if Neandertal is only distantly related to Homo
>>sapiens, with a last common ancestor with Homo sapiens 550 kya (see
>>below), it is Biblically irrelevant whether Neandertal carried out
>>ritual cannibalism or not. The evidence is mounting that modern
>>man is very recent, and surprisingly genetically homogenous (which
>>broadly fits the Biblical picture):
GM>The evidence proves that that particular Neanderthal's mother
>didn't leave any modern offspring.
It proves much more than that. This male neandertal's mother
had no modern human mtDNA and therefore, presumably all her
female ancestors had no modern human mtDNA, ie. none of them
had mated with modern humans? If so, they were almost certainly
not the same species.
GM>But due to genetic cross over during egg and sperm formation,
>it does not rule out Neanderthal genomic nuclear contributions to
>moderm men and the authors of the cell article admit that.
While it is theoretically possible that this neandertal's nuclear DNA
might have modern human genes, while his mtDNA doesn't, this is
thought unlikely:
"With respect to the contentious issue of whether Neanderthals and
anatomically early modern humans exchanged genes, these new
results diminish, but do not rule out, that possibility. Clearly,
Neanderthal populations represented by the type specimen did not
contribute mtDNA to the modern human population. But, as the
authors are careful to point out, this does not exclude the possibility
of exchange of nuclear genes. In our view, whether we choose to
designate them as separate species or not,- half a million years of
independent evolution of two highly specialized forms of human, with
all the attendant behavioural implications, make such an exchange
unlikely. Unfortunately, given the extremely low probability of:
obtaining nuclear DNA from the Neanderthal specimen, this is a
hypothesis that may never be directly tested." (Ward R. & Stringer
S., "A molecular handle on the Neanderthals," Nature, Vol 388, 17
July 1997, p226)
"And of course, because mtDNA comes only from the mother, it's
possible that Neandertal fathers-but not mothers-contributed nuclear
genes to the modern gene pool. Most researchers think such a one-
sided genetic interchange is quite unlikely or "odd," as Ruvolo puts it.
But it's impossible to test directly, as the chances of recovering
nuclear DNA are basically nil, says Paabo..." (Kahn P. & Gibbons A.,
"DNA From an Extinct Human," Science, 277, 11 July 1997, pp177-
178)
>SJ>In fact, the average variation among modern humans is less than
>>*one-third* that of the average between Neandertal and modern humans:
GM>This is the point Stephen. Since there is only one example of a neanderthal
>mtDNA it is hardly a good comparison to compare it with the AVERAGE of
>thousands of measurements of modern humans, especially when some modern
>humans may have more mtDNA variation than Neanderthals.
It's not regarded as a very good point by most geneticists, according
to the SCIENCE article:
"That's why multiregional partisans say it's not possible to rule out
their theory with data on a single sequence from one individual. "This
is an extremely important piece of work. They're first. But we just
don't have the data to answer the question of whether it supports one
hypothesis or another," says paleoanthropologist Milford Wolpoff of
the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He argues that Neandertals
may have contributed to the modern gene pool, but their sequences
disappeared through random genetic loss, selection, or both. Or the
particular Neandertal sequence analyzed might be at one extreme of a
diverse spectrum in Neandertals that includes other, more modernlike
sequences. But most population geneticists consider these
possibilities remote, says anthropological geneticist John Relethford
at the State University of New York College at Oneonta." (Science, 11
July 1997, pp177-178)
>>GM>But the range of variation among modern humans is 1-24!
>SJ>The point is that there was almost no overlap: the most divergent
>>human pair of mtDNA strands differred in 24 nucleotides, but the
>>*least* divergent modern-Neandertal pair had 20 differences:
GM>The ONLY Neatherthal mtDNA had an experimental error of between 22 and 36
>nucleotide differences. This one is the most and the least divergent
>Neanderthal.
I asked you below how you know it was "an experimental error" and you
simply cite the article. How about a quote where it says its was "an
experimental error".
>SJ>"These data put the Neandertal sequence outside the statistical range
>>of modern human variation and, says Paabo, make it `highly unlikely
>>that Neandertals contributed to the human mtDNA pool.'" (Science,
>>11 July 1997, p177).
GM>While I would agree with this, I cannot agree that there is no evidence of
>genetic contributions of Neanderthals with modern people. The mandibular
>foramen in Neanderthals was a unique type that only developed in Europe
>during the years that Neanderthal lived. And that wierd shaped foramen
>occurs today ONLY among Europeans. I would say that some of us inherited
>this feature from Neanderthals.
If we share 98% of our genes with chimps who we supposedly diverged 5
mya, then I presume we would have shared 99% or more of our genes
with Homo neandertalensis who is within our genus. Therefore, I would
not have thought it unusual that similar features could arise under
similar environmental conditions. The mtDNA evidence indicated that
there was no close relationship between this neandertal and modern
Europeans:
"More extensive analyses confirmed that the Neanderthal sequence
consistently fell outside the mtDNA sequence variation observed in
modern humans. They also suggested that the closest contemporary
lineages to the Neanderthal sequence came from Africa. So the
genetic relationship between Neanderthals and modern Europeans
appears to be no closer than the average relationship between
Neanderthals and any modern human-running counter to the view that
Neanderthals were at least partly ancestral to modern Europeans."
(Nature, 17 July 1997, p226)
>>GM>The ONLY Neanderthal sampled differed by 27 from the putative
>>>standard sequence. Looked at in this way, it is not a huge difference
>>at all.
>SJ>It may not be "huge" but it is statistically significant. A random
>>sample of modern humans would have expected a maximum of only *8*
>>different base-pairs:
GM>No a random sample would be expected to have a maximum of 24 differences. 8
>is the average difference.
OK. I will rephrase it: from a random sample of modern humans we
would have expected an average difference of 5-8 base-pairs:
"This sequence exhibited 27 differences from the reference sequence,
compared to the 5-8 differences expected from a random sample of
modern humans." (Nature, Vol 388, 17 July 1997, p225)
[...]
>SJ>Where does it say that this was an "experimental error"?
GM>Krings, Matthias, et al, 1997. "Neandertal DNA
>Sequences and the Origin of Modern Humans," Cell, 90:19-30, p.
>24-25
See above. It would be appreciated if you would please supply a
quote from the Cell article that says that this was an "experimental
error". Thanks.
>SJ>If this is the case, and you claim that Neandertal and Homo sapiens
>>are equally human and spiritual, you would have to claim that either
>>humanity and spirituality stagnated for over half a million years, or it
>>developed separately in two entirely different lineages and then one
>>just died out. Which is it to be?
GM>I don't know where you get the idea that spirituality stagnated or even why
>that is important. Both lineages are human just like the european and
>chinese lineages are human but are indeed separate lineages.
I said EITHER "spirituality stagnated..." OR "it developed separately...and
then one died out". The "european and chinese lineages" are the one species
Homo sapiens and they have not died out. So my original question above
remains unanswered.
>GM>"But the new data suggest no mixing at all, at least in mitochondrial
>>genes. "Neandertals in Europe could not have contributed to the
>>modern mitochondrial genome," says Stanford University geneticist
>>Luca Cavalli- Sforza.
GM>As I have said, I don't have a problem with this but it does not rule out a
>nuclear contribution. The original authors state:
>
>"These results do not rule out the possibility that
>Neandertals contributed other genes to modern humans. However,
>the view that Neandertals would have contributed little or
>nothing to the modern human gene pool is gaining support from
>studies of molecular genetic variation at nuclear loci in
>humans."~Matthias Krings, et al., "Neandertal DNA Sequences and
>the Origin of Modern Humans," Cell, 90:19-30, p. 27
See previous. A nuclear DNA contribution without a mtDNA is regarded
as "unlikely" by NATURE and "quite unlikely or `odd'" by SCIENCE.
>SJ>Since your post to this message board was nearly 5 months ago, I
>>presume it has been evaluated and either accepted or rejected?
>>What was the result?
GM>It was accepted into the Anthropological E mail news. That is what I said.
I know what you "said". What I asked was "What was the *result*?"
Since its been "nearly 5 months", I would have thought that if your
point had any validity it would have been a hot topic and
would have largely invalidated the study. What happened?
Happy Christmas.
Steve
-------------------------------------------------------------------
| Stephen E (Steve) Jones ,--_|\ sejones@ibm.net |
| 3 Hawker Avenue / Oz \ Steve.Jones@health.wa.gov.au |
| Warwick 6024 ->*_,--\_/ Phone +61 8 9448 7439 (These are |
| Perth, West Australia v my opinions, not my employer's) |
-------------------------------------------------------------------