Thank you for the interesting informative presentation. Dr. Stringer stated that pandemics such as COVID19 could affect human evolution, but I think much less than other pandemics in history, such as the "Spanish Flu" pandemic in 1918 and the "Black Death" (plague) in the mid 14th century. This is because COVID 19 causes significantly more mortality in older age groups, when reproduction usually does not occur (60s-70s and older) whereas there was a high mortality rate in children and young adults during the Spanish Flu and Black Death pandemics.
Real life is much more interesting and surprising than anything fiction can come up with. Thanks for your upload. Love me some Chris Stringer. He's awesome.
I notice that in the background in Natural History Museum, London anthropologist and curator of paleoanthropology at the Natural History Museum, London Chris Stinger’s cam he has a bookshelf with several science reference books focusing on human evolution and human origins including Our Human Story which he wrote himself and had the Natural History Museum, London publish which I own at home, alongside Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved, although that book was written by paleontologist Paul Barret curator of Earth Sciences and dinosaur paleontology at the Natural History Museum, London and published by the Natural History Museum, London and is dinosaurs and pterosaurs and paleontology related not anthropology related. Correct?
Outstanding presentation, especially in terms of objectivity and willingness to consider alternative hypotheses. (Dinosaur paleontologists need to be tutored by Chris Stringer.)
Absolutely fantastic show. Thank you so much for sharing this. This is so fascinating. The quest for our origins is something that I am so interested to learn about.
Whomever is facilitating this video is a real asset. The sound and video stayed constant with no technical delay, they produced visual references when requested and seamlessly added them to the video, everything was on point. Keep a hold of them, they are more valuable than you might realize.
Likely Denisova since he said the one tooth they have seems to be large. He only shows one tooth from Denisova but a partial jaw was found in another location. I thought they compared the teeth from the Dennis cave with that jaw and size was right. Did they check to see if the tooth that skull had was comparable to ant attributed to the Denisova? I forget who, but a man in one of the fields dealing with upright walkers said that “family tree” is not the best way to describe things. Wisteria bush because of how it’s branches often grow into each other. Upright walkers been mating and making babies back and forth with each other upright walkers for a long time.
When they will extract DNA samples from the skull we will know but I imagine that you have to be pretty wary when dealing with a fossil which has been handled for almost a century without much care
As said in the presentation, they are not going to touch the tooth at the moment since it would be quite destructive. Maybe less destructive methodes will arise in the future. They do say it looks very similar and therefore a big chance of it being a Denisovian. I agree with the Wisteria comparison and even think many of the so-called species are not really different species, just simply mutations. I know there is much debate on this where some scientist stick to the abundance of species, where there's others that would group them more together and have less species. Only if we can find new ways of distraction DNA from the remnants we have, will this lead to a conclusive theory.
@@Leptospirosi It was almost immediatly buried down the shaft of a well and not touched for 80 years. So it was hardly handeld and was taken very good care of by doing that. It's the next best thing to leaving it in its place, but that was considering the circumstanses not an option. Also at the time of discovery there was no option of investigating the layer in which it was found since that science didn't exist at the time.
Any time that there is only a single skull, isn't it possible that it belongs to a known group but has a deformity, or even a recessive gene expressing a feature from a past ancestor?
If orangutans and gibbons share a common ancestor with us, gorillas and chimpanzees, then somehow they made it to eastern Asia after they split from our lineage. It doesn't seem farfetched to think that Australopithecus or some later relative made it that far, and left descendants in the form of Dragon Man (Denisovan), Homo Floresensis and Homo Luzonensis.
Question for Dr. Stringer: I follow your clear reasoning, but if these are members of the Denisovan "tree," closer to H.Sapiens than are the H. Neandertals, as your collaborative analysis suggests, they must be relatively recent Denisovans with some "derived" traits (parallel - late Neandertals with "derived" traits), no? I'm referring to the D. cave data suggesting that the D. & N. species emerged ~500-1000KYA (c. 750KYA).
No that is homo heidelbergensis that far back, the ancestors of Neanderthals, Denisovans AND humans. ~600 kya heidelbergensis split into two branches on one side the human lineage and on the other side the neanderthal/denisovan lineage. Only about 300 generations (probably less than 10,000) years after that initial split the neanderthal/denisovan branch split into seperate Neanderthal and Denisovan branches. That is a blink of an eye, evolutionarily speaking. Denisovans are more closely related to Neanderthals but just barely. So it is not surprising that they may have morphology and DNA similar to both sapiens and neanderthals. Speciation implies derived traits otherwise it would be an individual from its ancestral population i.e. heidelbergensis.
I read a article about the question are we still evolving? In it, a scientist did DNA comparisons with DNA from people of 10,000 or more years ago. He said if anything we are evolving faster. In that time, we have had a reduction in tooth size and number. Also, our brains have surprisingly decreased slightly in size. That doesn't mean we are less intelligent. We have had a reduction in overall muscle mass which may account for part of that. People over the thousands of years have developed writing, books and other means of storing data. We just don't have to memorize our whole data base anymore.
Also the brain could be more efficient. I saw research looking into the brains of birds, trying to see how they can be so smart with such tiny brains. I think they said they have 2x the neuron density compared to mammals. So perhaps what is going on is their brains are able to be hyper efficient and very compact. Of course birds can not really compare to more advanced mammal species such as monkeys, Apes and elephants or Cetaceans, but they can do a lot with what they got. I think that may be analogous with the cerebral cortex size shrinking ever so slightly over the past 10,000 years since we have advanced our knowledge 1000 fold especially in the past 300 or so years. So that is just my idea, but could be completely wrong. Dogs did also have their brains shrink compared to wolves so their brains evolved to be smaller. This was most likely an effect of domestication such as is also the case with floppy errs and curved tails. It is also an effect of neoteny which humans and domesticated dogs have as if you think about it, dogs are always very puppy like even well into age always playing and licking our chins which is a response to get the parents to regurgitate food. Something adult wolves really don't do to others when grown up.
IQ scores have been dropping across the board however. We are in a way becoming less intelligent because of all the comforts we have around us. We are moving away from critical thinking and problem solving.
@@barkasz6066 That's one that puzzles me. I have always loved solving problems. So many people are focused on comfort and fun like thinking is a disease. They seem to hate science and by extension don't understand it.
I noticed nobody talks about the huge eyes. in my experience with animals with huge eyes it an adaptation to darker climates. night time hunting and an extreme northern range. even though longy was found south of denisovan its entirely possible that its home range was completely north of where the dragon river indicates. since the northern most regions of asia are dark for 6 months of the year i would think this adaptation alone would make it more survivable in those regions that have long stretches of darkness.
Though few mention it, Neanderthal had massive eyeballs. They also are know to eat 99% meat, not surprising given their home. Rather than being depicted as hairy-Europeans, these guys were far more likely to have looked like spear wielding, fire using Gorillas.
Yes! Their Huge eyes must be an adaptation for a nocturnal or semi- nocturnal LifeStyle. Neanderthals hunted mostly at night many recent studies reveal.
Essentially, Denisovans and Neanderthals did not become extinct - they merged. ---------- I have seen another respected paleontologist who does think Dragon Man = Denisovan. ---------- Hudson River Valley of New York, USA.
"Dating using strontium isotopes found in sediment deposits in the nasal cavity came up with an age between 138,000 and 309,000 years. Radioactive uranium dating established a minimum age of 146,000 years."
Those dating methods begin with three huge assumptions. They have used them on lava flows that were known to be less than 50 years old and they gave ages of hundreds of thousands of years. The truth is there are no definitevely accurate dating methods in existence. Those that claim so are either thoroughly indoctrinated or outright liars.
@Dennis Feenstra he’s picking on something scientists know about and positing it as proof all age dating doesn’t work using a straw man argument. Almost all dating methods have a minimum and maximum age they can test for, he’s just purposely twisting that fact because he’s probably a religious nut that needs the earth to be 6k years old. These creationists are insidious with their twisting and cherry picking facts to try and disprove evolution.
Interesting when you talk about the neanderthal mother with the denisovan father. In Australia a lot of the Aboriginal women went and got white husband's because of the extreme violence from they're own . I'm wondering if the Neanderthals were more violent so the women started finding partners that weren't so aggressive creating the mixed blooded people?
I love this Nature Live Online! It gives great information on human evolution and origins, Homo Florensis, Cro-Magnons/Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans through paleontological and fossil evidence and anthropology.
Dragon Man sure seems logically to be Denisovan. We know they were there at that time, they were numerous (relatively speaking), and their genes are quite well represented in modern human populations. The near absense of Denisovan fossils can be explained by misidentifaction of fossils already discovered. That this skull is remarkably similar to Neanderthals and modern humans nearly equally is what you would expect from sister taxa.
If I may, why do you say fossil instead of skull? While certainly I'm not suggesting that an ancient skull is NOT a fossil, there are plenty of fossils which aren't actual bone. I just don't understand why when given the opportunity to speak with greater specificity you nonetheless opt for more generality. It's a human skull, yes?
Some of the features are characteristic of neither. None of our teeth are that large, for instance. While we only have multiple teeth of the lower jaw, the sockets are still there, so we can tell they're pretty big
Interesting video. You talked about getting DNA from fossils, but I don't see how any kind of a fossil could yield DNA! Of course, modern humans must have ancestors, but all the fossils that have been dug up might have had no descendants! Fossils can only provide clues, since we have no way to know they were are ancestors. The show ended with the interesting question as to where human evolution is going. According to dentistry, impacted wisdom teeth are becoming more common as food that requires less chewing is leading to evolution of humans with smaller jaws!
I know this is way off topic but at some point with genetic advancement and new DNA discoveries how long until we bring back ancient humans and what could that actually mean for us understand them!!!!!
i find it odd that many diff primates are around but only 1 human. how did all the lower ones survive if man was possibly eliminating any that were not himself? the subtle point is they are all still with us in our DNA from interbreeding. are they considering that possibility?
To find new human being, the type of food, circumference and ability must be also change too. For example, if there is human at present time eats soil in every day Life, he will be a new species.
It's interesting certainly, but a DNA analysis would be most revealing. I mean.... It's a bit difficult to be more related to modern humans than actually being a part of us , as Neanderthal and Denisovan are.
Exactly. Dennison are supposedly closer related to Neanderthals as per DNA analyasis, but also this Homo longi is supposedly closer related to us according to morphological evidence. Something is not adding up here. You can't have it both ways. Unless, and this is quite controversial, but what if it represents a hybridized individual? Maybe it could be made up of 2 closely related species. That lone tooth is begging to be tested for DNA, but as it is destructive and we only have 1 I do not want it to be destroyed.
Thank you for the well presented and enlightening video, and indeed for specifically addressing potential for Denisovans relevance. A further question: Red deer river people? I'm curious. PS: As a 50-something who has visited the tarnished wonder that is the Natural History Museum many times since I was a small child I'd like to know. Is the terrible destruction visited upon the museum's public exhibits ever going to be repaired or will the institution always be inhabited by barbarians?
I have a tentative question. I'm sure you're aware of "ring species". It sometimes happens in very small geographic ranges. So, why, when we consider the migration of the species we call homo sapiens being glocal, hasn't that happened to us? From a central global point of origin like the African continent, traveling west as far as the Americas, how have we remained a species that is capable of successfully producing viable young between us? I'm pretty sure an African or European can produce viable young with a native American (as an example) but the distance in time migration between Africa and the Americas is at least 20,000 ' 60,000 years. How are we (these two geographically separated hominins) still the same species and capable of interbreeding - when a finch from one side of a mountain can't interbreed with its relative from the other side of the mountain?
Probably not in my lifetime, and maybe not at all, but I think eventually we’re gonna learn most of these branches, including us, are sub-species of Home Erectus..
Ding. Maybe it's a bit like the development from wolves into the various modern canine breeds? Homo Erectus are the wolf. But not all of the dog breeds we see today necessarily came from a single species of wolf. Hybridization can occur any time two isolated groups come into contact within a certain genetic threshold. In the case of Homo Erectus, 1.5 million years (roughly 75,000 generations) of cyclical and rare but repeated introgression seems to have taken place between various hominin lineages ranging anywhere from South Africa to Spain to northern China. With every new glacial period (between 41-100 thousand years), you have populations being driven to and fro by sea level change, new herd migrations and entirely new landscapes opening up on the other side of that mountain range that just lost all its ice. Sometimes when you find new land, however, you would discover your ancient cousins have been trapped on the other side of that mountain range for the past 2,000 generations. You are definitely going to mate with them. I think that's basically what's been happening for the past 300,000 generations (6 million years) of our ancestral line. Sometimes, the isolated population wouldn't make it back in to the surviving gene pool but I think we would be shocked at how much introgression actually took place over such a wide geography and varied climactic influences. Sorry for the diatribe, it's just a very interesting topic for me. Here's a cool and recent lecture on these issues, by John Hawks. ruclips.net/video/fdMc4jDxXlA/видео.html
'Homo erectus' is generally already recognized to be a paraphyletic grade that is ancestral to modern humans, Neanderthals, etc. I doubt the specific names of these taxa will be changed as this anagenetic hypothesis is already accounted for in modern theory
@@JustAWalkingFish That’s true.. My point, and I know I wasn’t clear about this, is Erectus was the ancestor to the entire Homo family tree.. Post Erectus.. Denisovans, floriensis, Rudolphis, Heidelbergensis, antecessor.. Dragon Man.. All of them.. IMO..
Erectus is us, we are just a group that didnt die at Toba 75kyo like the rest of the humans. Imagine what it would be like when so much variety of brothers. Hopefully not like today...but maybe...who knows? But genuine variety among contemporary humans just Wow.
I mean that maybe scientist have confused very fragmentary denisovan remains with the remains of a population of Neanderthals that inhabited the oriental part of Eurasia. Such category is not exactly official but it is known that species are not static and that they have little variations as they migrate so it is perfectly plausible to consider that an oriental population of Neanderthals would display some differences with their western counterparts. Also it would be posible to locate a fossil within an incorrect category, it does happen a lot actually
I wonder if there are certain pathogens which could have wiped out entire human-related species and especially if climate or other circumstances such as diminished population size could have been operative. When the dinosaurs were wiped out could other catastrophes wiped out human populations other than humans.
There's a drought in China so severe that rivers are drying up. This would be a perfect time to revisit the Dragon River bridge area and do some test trenching, in search of more specimens!🤔
Chris suggested the flat face is not due to evolution, but from an ancestor. But there is evolutionary reason for a flat face. Modern humans migrated from Africa to Siberia at the beginning of the last ice age. They lived in Siberia throughout the ice age, only migrating south after the ice age ended. Current belief is warmer climate became wetter, causing plants to be replaced by woody plants. Animals like mammoth and woolly rhinoceros could not eat woody plants, so they diminished in number. So game humans hunted became scarce, forcing them to move south to find food. But this meant humans lived in Siberia during the ice age for roughly 75,000 years. It's cold in Siberia now; imagine what it was like during the ice age in winter. Humans developed a parka with hood made of reindeer fur, pants, boots, and mittens. Only their face was exposed. To prevent freezing the face of humans became much more flat: smaller/flatter nose, flat cheeks. And eye lids developed fat to insulate the eyes from cold. The nose of humans developed to ensure rain does not pour into the nasal cavity. Apes can simply turn their head down, but humans walk upright. So the nose directs rain to keep it out of the nasal cavity. In Siberia during the last ice age, humans evolved a smaller nose to prevent freezing. Anyone who has experienced winter temperature between -30°C and -40°C can appreciate that. If the hominin skull you are studying experienced cold climate, if that hominin developed warm clothing with a hood then their face would evolve flat for the same reason. Neanderthal skulls often have fractures to the face that have healed. The heavy brow ridge and low forehead evolved because they hunted large hoofed animals using stabbing spears. Neanderthals never developed projectile weapons. Neanderthal prey included aurochs, the wild animal that all cattle evolved from. Hunting a wild bull with a stabbing spear could result in the animal fighting back. A hoof to the forehead could cave in the skull. If the brain were exposed, the individual would die. Neanderthal brains were actually 25% larger volume than ours today. Their forehead was low, but the skull extended to the back. The heavy brow ridge and low forehead was protection from getting hoofed to the face. And fossil evidence showed over time this became more exaggerated. The hominin of your skull may have experienced something similar. Neanderthals were short and muscular. This is cold adaptation. Short and stocky decreases surface area, allowing retention of heat. Neanderthals were very muscular, causing them to produce more heat, and increasing strength for hunting. Higher metabolism will require more oxygen. Chris said both Neanderthals and this hominin had larger lung volume than we do today. That would require larger nostrils to inhale and exhale that much air. Again I'm citing results from analyzing Neanderthal skeletons; if your new hominin has similar features, it's reasonable to assume the same evolutionary causes.
@@woodspirit98 Mammoths ate grass. They could eat grass, sedge, flowers, wild carrots, etc. They could not eat birch or willow. Actic willow grows 6 to 8 inches tall, with branches that trail across the ground. Dwarf willow only grows 2 inches tall. Mastadons could eat trees but mammoths did not.
@@woodspirit98 Yea, so? Neanderthals used stone tipped spears, knives and hand axes. A blade made of flint is razor sharp when first made. Blades made by Neanderthals do not look the same as those made by humans, the blades were functional, not pretty. They were asymmetrical. They worked very well, but their asymmetry meant some humans thought they were primitive. However, one researcher taught himself to make blades the Neanderthal way. It's very difficult, takes a long time to learn. But once you know how, you can make blades more quickly, and make more blades from one piece of flint with less waste. So Neanderthal blades were actually more advanced. They developed a way to make pitch from birch bark. The bark must be baked in wood fire in an air-tight container to prevent them from burning. This can also be done with wood shavings, but that requires a knife to shave the wood, birch bark can be harvested with fingers. The researcher used two ostrich eggs, with a small hole in the end of one. He used wood shavings instead of birch bark. The shavings were placed in one egg, then the two eggs placed together hole-to-hole. Wet clay was placed around the place where the eggs met to create an air-tight seal. A wood camp fire was made, then wait until the fire became glowing red embers. Place the eggs with the empty egg on the bottom, the one full of shavings on top. Ensure the eggs won't fall over as the embers burn. Keep the embers burning for hours. When finished, the clay will have hardened. Break open the clay, the bottom ostrich egg will be filled with pitch. The pitch is soft when hot, but becomes hard when cool. Neanderthals used pitch from birch bark to glue their stone spear tops to the wooden shaft. Then fresh animal sinew was tied around the stone spear tip to tie it onto the shaft. The sinew was tied tight, but as the sinew dried, it shrank, forming an even tighter bond. And the sinew dried, becoming hard. This formed a very solid join of spear tip to shaft. Important when you try to take down a large animal. We don't know what Neanderthals used as the air-tight container. But ice age Europe did have 11-foot-tall super-ostrich, giant swan, Ibizan rail, and Cretan owl.
What I don't understand is how there are hybrid, or interbred individuals that were not only viable, but fertile as well. This speaks to different strains of the same species rather than a completely different species. Either that or perhaps we'll have to redefine the meaning of species, especially as it relates to radiant phylogeny over time. Seems like humans are more like different breeds of dogs as to their morphological differences as compared to our immediate ancestors. Time will, as always be the tell tale here in this phenomenological discovery.
There's no real hard and fast definition of species, there are always exceptions to the rule. My personal guess is that our ancestors ancestors have always thought their cousins were sexy, re-interbreeding over and over at different periods of time. There's even evidence which suggests that we may have even been interbreeding with Australopithecus.
That is the best concept I ever heard of. Comparing these different looking humans to dog breeds. May be in the end they will come to that conclusion. but right now I think there just are not enough skeleton remains to come to that conclusion. And as we get better at extracting DNA we may come to that conclusion through our DNA.
Well, we are different species and this is why most people don’t understand their blood types or know them and doctors won’t tell you. Explain why the negative blood yep mothers body murders the positive blood types without intervention
@@Tyndalic Do you really think most people don't know their blood type? I *have* to know mine, due to my ongoing chemotherapy. Rh negative mothers are only a problem when their fetus's are Rh positive. Happened to my Sister-In-Law, who had to go on immunosuppressive drugs on her first child. The second, was like her, and Rh negative, so there was no problem for her there. Cheers!
I would love to see a good analysis of the Talgai and Cossack skulls from Australia. Talgai in particular has a robust but modern H sapiens face with an elongated skull somewhat similar to neanderthal or erectus. Are they within the range of recent and modern Australians? Was Talgai deformed or poorly reconstructed? Is there evidence of skull binding or similar cultural practices that could have resulted in the low forehead, long skull shape? This is a very culturally sensitive area of study in Australia which could explain the lack of attention to these specimens.
Unfortunately, it seems that many of our ancestors or cousins met grisly deaths. Crushing the skull would've been the easiest way to kill them, thus, reducing any chance of us acquiring in-tact skulls. Still, it's amazing what we can find today.
Also: You have suggested (ruclips.net/video/igrL9FypiZc/видео.html) that H. Heidelbergensis (H.H.) may have been a common ancestor of H. Sapiens and Neandertals (H.N.), and that they may have continued to exist in Asia. Would you thus view. H.H. as the potential common ancestor of H.N. and H.Denisovans, - - or perhaps, as the "ghost ancestors" in the H.D. DNA?
It's probably both. If someone is a "lumper" then Homo erectus was the last common ancestor between Denisovans, Homo sapiens, and neanderthals. But, if they are a splitter then it is Homo heidelbergensis. So it is likely that heidelbergensis is both the LCA between all three and the source of the unexplained DNA. Although, it could be from Asian Homo erectus etc.
Their is no unambiguous definition of species that is universally existed. Usually biologists say something like similar but not identical groups of organisms that do not routinely interbreed. (If they cannot interbreed, they are automatically classified as separate species, but many creatures that are able to interbreed are nevertheless classified as separate species. It is a fuzzy distinction.)
Micheal, that picture is just an artist's idea of what a Neanderthal may have looked like. We really do not know what they looked like. But we can guess that they may have been muscler because they lived a very active life outside. They were not couch potatoes like we are now days. They did not have T.V. and they had to go out and hunt their food every few days, because they did not have grocery stores. Use some common sense.
Hi Monika, this page might help answer your question about how some people can reconstruct skulls and other parts of the body: www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/bringing-a-neanderthal-to-life-the-making-of-our-model.html 🦖
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Thank you for the interesting informative presentation. Dr. Stringer stated that pandemics such as COVID19 could affect human evolution, but I think much less than other pandemics in history, such as the "Spanish Flu" pandemic in 1918 and the "Black Death" (plague) in the mid 14th century. This is because COVID 19 causes significantly more mortality in older age groups, when reproduction usually does not occur (60s-70s and older) whereas there was a high mortality rate in children and young adults during the Spanish Flu and Black Death pandemics.
Real life is much more interesting and surprising than anything fiction can come up with.
Thanks for your upload. Love me some Chris Stringer. He's awesome.
I notice that in the background in Natural History Museum, London anthropologist and curator of paleoanthropology at the Natural History Museum, London Chris Stinger’s cam he has a bookshelf with several science reference books focusing on human evolution and human origins including Our Human Story which he wrote himself and had the Natural History Museum, London publish which I own at home, alongside Dinosaurs: How They Lived and Evolved, although that book was written by paleontologist Paul Barret curator of Earth Sciences and dinosaur paleontology at the Natural History Museum, London and published by the Natural History Museum, London and is dinosaurs and pterosaurs and paleontology related not anthropology related. Correct?
Thank you for sharing your knowledge.
They couldnt give it a better name than Dragonman?
From South Africa. Grew up in London, spending school hols in wonderful museums - free in those days.
👏👏👏
Outstanding presentation, especially in terms of objectivity and willingness to consider alternative hypotheses. (Dinosaur paleontologists need to be tutored by Chris Stringer.)
We need so much more field work in Asia. Such a vast continent and so little explored. Many more fossil discoveries to be made.
You can make the case for most places in Eurasia & Africa. Archaeology needs a lot more public investment across the board.
Excellent interview. And thanks for the good enough audio quality and for not ruining everything by playing music over it.
Other of Dragon Man’s teeth are liable to be still down that well where they fell out. It needs investigating...
In a riverbed....
Let's meet there & we'll investigate it wouldn't take b fun. 🌈💜🕊
that wasmt the original place it was found....it was just hidden thete by the man who originally found its family
and I bet nobody has been back down that well to see if any teeth fell out during the 70 years it was hidden there.
Has anyone revcovered dna?
Absolutely fantastic show. Thank you so much for sharing this. This is so fascinating. The quest for our origins is something that I am so interested to learn about.
Alison is a great host, pleasant and well informed.
Nice to have an enthusiastic presenter.
Whomever is facilitating this video is a real asset. The sound and video stayed constant with no technical delay, they produced visual references when requested and seamlessly added them to the video, everything was on point. Keep a hold of them, they are more valuable than you might realize.
"Whomever" isn't even a word. You lost me at that point.
@@hackpens2246 yes it is😂 only takes a quick google search to find that out
@@hackpens2246 so what
What is the cranial volume?
Wiki says 1420cc, within the range of modern humans and Neanderthals
@@JesseFleyva Thanks Jesse!
Watching from Alaska in the US. I have been to your museum, and it is great. I do so wish I have the chance to go again.
That really is a beautiful skull (never thought I'd think something like that).
Hello... I am watching from Brazil, thanks for the presentation
Likely Denisova since he said the one tooth they have seems to be large. He only shows one tooth from Denisova but a partial jaw was found in another location. I thought they compared the teeth from the Dennis cave with that jaw and size was right. Did they check to see if the tooth that skull had was comparable to ant attributed to the Denisova?
I forget who, but a man in one of the fields dealing with upright walkers said that “family tree” is not the best way to describe things. Wisteria bush because of how it’s branches often grow into each other. Upright walkers been mating and making babies back and forth with each other upright walkers for a long time.
When they will extract DNA samples from the skull we will know but I imagine that you have to be pretty wary when dealing with a fossil which has been handled for almost a century without much care
As said in the presentation, they are not going to touch the tooth at the moment since it would be quite destructive. Maybe less destructive methodes will arise in the future. They do say it looks very similar and therefore a big chance of it being a Denisovian.
I agree with the Wisteria comparison and even think many of the so-called species are not really different species, just simply mutations. I know there is much debate on this where some scientist stick to the abundance of species, where there's others that would group them more together and have less species. Only if we can find new ways of distraction DNA from the remnants we have, will this lead to a conclusive theory.
@@Leptospirosi It was almost immediatly buried down the shaft of a well and not touched for 80 years. So it was hardly handeld and was taken very good care of by doing that. It's the next best thing to leaving it in its place, but that was considering the circumstanses not an option. Also at the time of discovery there was no option of investigating the layer in which it was found since that science didn't exist at the time.
Do all these have 46 chromosomes ? with all these different fossils it would be interesting of some had 48.
Of course we’re still evolving! Evolution is a default condition of our planet, it can not not happen.
Thank you for this excellent presentation!
Any time that there is only a single skull, isn't it possible that it belongs to a known group but has a deformity, or even a recessive gene expressing a feature from a past ancestor?
Yes that is a possibility, but it is also possibly a new to science, species.
Sure, but 1) most individuals are close to the norm and 2) it was healthy enough to reach adulthood.
If orangutans and gibbons share a common ancestor with us, gorillas and chimpanzees, then somehow they made it to eastern Asia after they split from our lineage. It doesn't seem farfetched to think that Australopithecus or some later relative made it that far, and left descendants in the form of Dragon Man (Denisovan), Homo Floresensis and Homo Luzonensis.
That's exactly what happened. We're just the latest iteration of the cross country ape
Question for Dr. Stringer: I follow your clear reasoning, but if these are members of the Denisovan "tree," closer to H.Sapiens than are the H. Neandertals, as your collaborative analysis suggests, they must be relatively recent Denisovans with some "derived" traits (parallel - late Neandertals with "derived" traits), no? I'm referring to the D. cave data suggesting that the D. & N. species emerged ~500-1000KYA (c. 750KYA).
No that is homo heidelbergensis that far back, the ancestors of Neanderthals, Denisovans AND humans. ~600 kya heidelbergensis split into two branches on one side the human lineage and on the other side the neanderthal/denisovan lineage. Only about 300 generations (probably less than 10,000) years after that initial split the neanderthal/denisovan branch split into seperate Neanderthal and Denisovan branches. That is a blink of an eye, evolutionarily speaking. Denisovans are more closely related to Neanderthals but just barely. So it is not surprising that they may have morphology and DNA similar to both sapiens and neanderthals. Speciation implies derived traits otherwise it would be an individual from its ancestral population i.e. heidelbergensis.
I read a article about the question are we still evolving? In it, a scientist did DNA comparisons with DNA from people of 10,000 or more years ago. He said if anything we are evolving faster. In that time, we have had a reduction in tooth size and number. Also, our brains have surprisingly decreased slightly in size. That doesn't mean we are less intelligent. We have had a reduction in overall muscle mass which may account for part of that. People over the thousands of years have developed writing, books and other means of storing data. We just don't have to memorize our whole data base anymore.
Also the brain could be more efficient. I saw research looking into the brains of birds, trying to see how they can be so smart with such tiny brains. I think they said they have 2x the neuron density compared to mammals. So perhaps what is going on is their brains are able to be hyper efficient and very compact. Of course birds can not really compare to more advanced mammal species such as monkeys, Apes and elephants or Cetaceans, but they can do a lot with what they got. I think that may be analogous with the cerebral cortex size shrinking ever so slightly over the past 10,000 years since we have advanced our knowledge 1000 fold especially in the past 300 or so years. So that is just my idea, but could be completely wrong.
Dogs did also have their brains shrink compared to wolves so their brains evolved to be smaller. This was most likely an effect of domestication such as is also the case with floppy errs and curved tails. It is also an effect of neoteny which humans and domesticated dogs have as if you think about it, dogs are always very puppy like even well into age always playing and licking our chins which is a response to get the parents to regurgitate food. Something adult wolves really don't do to others when grown up.
IQ scores have been dropping across the board however. We are in a way becoming less intelligent because of all the comforts we have around us. We are moving away from critical thinking and problem solving.
@@barkasz6066 That's one that puzzles me. I have always loved solving problems. So many people are focused on comfort and fun like thinking is a disease. They seem to hate science and by extension don't understand it.
@@barkasz6066 probably due to the huge amounts of sugar , Corn starch and salts in supermarket bag, jar, box foods
Brain size isn’t a good metric for intellect. Brain structure appears to be more reliable but even that is (will be) over relied upon.
Loved Alison's enthusiasm for the subject. :)
Imagine the confusion had the original finder not devulged the location and it was found later in time....
And there was that possible earlier Lucy fossil, can someone report on that also please?
What a great presentation! Thank you Dr Chris Stringer!
In this context, man is a direct translation of the Chinese character ‘ren’, human beings, completely genderless.
Humanoid Dragon sounds better.
Wonder if neanderthals had anime eyes.
I noticed nobody talks about the huge eyes. in my experience with animals with huge eyes it an adaptation to darker climates. night time hunting and an extreme northern range. even though longy was found south of denisovan its entirely possible that its home range was completely north of where the dragon river indicates. since the northern most regions of asia are dark for 6 months of the year i would think this adaptation alone would make it more survivable in those regions that have long stretches of darkness.
Though few mention it, Neanderthal had massive eyeballs. They also are know to eat 99% meat, not surprising given their home. Rather than being depicted as hairy-Europeans, these guys were far more likely to have looked like spear wielding, fire using Gorillas.
@@sonpopco-op9682 Gorillas eat leaves.
Yes! Their Huge eyes must be an adaptation for a nocturnal or semi- nocturnal LifeStyle. Neanderthals hunted mostly at night many recent studies reveal.
Cats have small eyes
@@Tyndalic THEY ALSO HAVE SMALL HEADS & BODIES, AND TINY LITTLE BRAINS. YOUR POINT?
Essentially, Denisovans and Neanderthals did not become extinct - they merged.
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I have seen another respected paleontologist who does think Dragon Man = Denisovan.
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Hudson River Valley of New York, USA.
Could Homo Longi have evolved locally from Homo Erectus (Peking Man)?
No erectus is much more archaic in morphology as Chris points out in some ways Longi is even more human in the face than neanderthal.
"Dating using strontium isotopes found in sediment deposits in the nasal cavity came up with an age between 138,000 and 309,000 years. Radioactive uranium dating established a minimum age of 146,000 years."
Those dating methods begin with three huge assumptions. They have used them on lava flows that were known to be less than 50 years old and they gave ages of hundreds of thousands of years. The truth is there are no definitevely accurate dating methods in existence. Those that claim so are either thoroughly indoctrinated or outright liars.
Fairy tales
@Dennis Feenstra he’s picking on something scientists know about and positing it as proof all age dating doesn’t work using a straw man argument.
Almost all dating methods have a minimum and maximum age they can test for, he’s just purposely twisting that fact because he’s probably a religious nut that needs the earth to be 6k years old. These creationists are insidious with their twisting and cherry picking facts to try and disprove evolution.
Interesting when you talk about the neanderthal mother with the denisovan father. In Australia a lot of the Aboriginal women went and got white husband's because of the extreme violence from they're own . I'm wondering if the Neanderthals were more violent so the women started finding partners that weren't so aggressive creating the mixed blooded people?
I love this Nature Live Online! It gives great information on human evolution and origins, Homo Florensis, Cro-Magnons/Homo Sapiens, Neanderthals and Denisovans through paleontological and fossil evidence and anthropology.
Dragon Man sure seems logically to be Denisovan. We know they were there at that time, they were numerous (relatively speaking), and their genes are quite well represented in modern human populations. The near absense of Denisovan fossils can be explained by misidentifaction of fossils already discovered. That this skull is remarkably similar to Neanderthals and modern humans nearly equally is what you would expect from sister taxa.
Couldn't they have a least given him a good hair cut?
If I may, why do you say fossil instead of skull? While certainly I'm not suggesting that an ancient skull is NOT a fossil, there are plenty of fossils which aren't actual bone. I just don't understand why when given the opportunity to speak with greater specificity you nonetheless opt for more generality. It's a human skull, yes?
That looks like a 50:50 Neanderthal / Human Hybrid.
If not first generation perhaps 2nd?
Some of the features are characteristic of neither. None of our teeth are that large, for instance. While we only have multiple teeth of the lower jaw, the sockets are still there, so we can tell they're pretty big
Last I read... There is dispute/debate whether "Dragon" is another archaic species or a member of an already known species.
Interesting video. You talked about getting DNA from fossils, but I don't see how any kind of a fossil could yield DNA! Of course, modern humans must have ancestors, but all the fossils that have been dug up might have had no descendants! Fossils can only provide clues, since we have no way to know they were are ancestors. The show ended with the interesting question as to where human evolution is going. According to dentistry, impacted wisdom teeth are becoming more common as food that requires less chewing is leading to evolution of humans with smaller jaws!
I know this is way off topic but at some point with genetic advancement and new DNA discoveries how long until we bring back ancient humans and what could that actually mean for us understand them!!!!!
Looking at the rise of Trump I can't help but think we're devolving. 😂
i find it odd that many diff primates are around but only 1 human. how did all the lower ones survive if man was possibly eliminating any that were not himself? the subtle point is they are all still with us in our DNA from interbreeding. are they considering that possibility?
To find new human being, the type of food, circumference and ability must be also change too. For example, if there is human at present time eats soil in every day Life, he will be a new species.
First Denisovan skull?
It’s a denisovan, why all the mystery when this was already sorted out a year or so ago?
It's Denisovans. It's the eastern cousin of Neanderthals.
NO stone artifacts found with skull means they were not human
Thanks from Australia
It's interesting certainly, but a DNA analysis would be most revealing. I mean.... It's a bit difficult to be more related to modern humans than actually being a part of us , as Neanderthal and Denisovan are.
Exactly. Dennison are supposedly closer related to Neanderthals as per DNA analyasis, but also this Homo longi is supposedly closer related to us according to morphological evidence. Something is not adding up here. You can't have it both ways. Unless, and this is quite controversial, but what if it represents a hybridized individual? Maybe it could be made up of 2 closely related species.
That lone tooth is begging to be tested for DNA, but as it is destructive and we only have 1 I do not want it to be destroyed.
@@BFKAnthony817 phenotype and genotype are not linear. There is no contradiction between the different classifications between morphology and DNA.
Fascinating stuff.
Thank you for the well presented and enlightening video, and indeed for specifically addressing potential for Denisovans relevance.
A further question: Red deer river people? I'm curious.
PS: As a 50-something who has visited the tarnished wonder that is the Natural History Museum many times since I was a small child I'd like to know.
Is the terrible destruction visited upon the museum's public exhibits ever going to be repaired or will the institution always be inhabited by barbarians?
Lol thumbnail looks like a caveman flipping some one off ! Lol
Is it possible that the Neanderthal's died out because they were too spreadout?
i find the host cute. She reminds of Velma from Scooby Doo.
Thank you for an analysis on a fascinating topic!
Is there any chance of finding any more of the skeleton?
Brilliant
I have a tentative question. I'm sure you're aware of "ring species". It sometimes happens in very small geographic ranges. So, why, when we consider the migration of the species we call homo sapiens being glocal, hasn't that happened to us? From a central global point of origin like the African continent, traveling west as far as the Americas, how have we remained a species that is capable of successfully producing viable young between us? I'm pretty sure an African or European can produce viable young with a native American (as an example) but the distance in time migration between Africa and the Americas is at least 20,000 ' 60,000 years. How are we (these two geographically separated hominins) still the same species and capable of interbreeding - when a finch from one side of a mountain can't interbreed with its relative from the other side of the mountain?
Probably not in my lifetime, and maybe not at all, but I think eventually we’re gonna learn most of these branches, including us, are sub-species of Home Erectus..
Ding. Maybe it's a bit like the development from wolves into the various modern canine breeds? Homo Erectus are the wolf. But not all of the dog breeds we see today necessarily came from a single species of wolf. Hybridization can occur any time two isolated groups come into contact within a certain genetic threshold. In the case of Homo Erectus, 1.5 million years (roughly 75,000 generations) of cyclical and rare but repeated introgression seems to have taken place between various hominin lineages ranging anywhere from South Africa to Spain to northern China. With every new glacial period (between 41-100 thousand years), you have populations being driven to and fro by sea level change, new herd migrations and entirely new landscapes opening up on the other side of that mountain range that just lost all its ice. Sometimes when you find new land, however, you would discover your ancient cousins have been trapped on the other side of that mountain range for the past 2,000 generations. You are definitely going to mate with them. I think that's basically what's been happening for the past 300,000 generations (6 million years) of our ancestral line. Sometimes, the isolated population wouldn't make it back in to the surviving gene pool but I think we would be shocked at how much introgression actually took place over such a wide geography and varied climactic influences. Sorry for the diatribe, it's just a very interesting topic for me. Here's a cool and recent lecture on these issues, by John Hawks. ruclips.net/video/fdMc4jDxXlA/видео.html
I have enjoyed the simultaneous use of not at all and eventually. Thanks.
'Homo erectus' is generally already recognized to be a paraphyletic grade that is ancestral to modern humans, Neanderthals, etc. I doubt the specific names of these taxa will be changed as this anagenetic hypothesis is already accounted for in modern theory
@@JustAWalkingFish
That’s true.. My point, and I know I wasn’t clear about this, is Erectus was the ancestor to the entire Homo family tree.. Post Erectus.. Denisovans, floriensis, Rudolphis, Heidelbergensis, antecessor.. Dragon Man.. All of them..
IMO..
Erectus is us, we are just a group that didnt die at Toba 75kyo like the rest of the humans. Imagine what it would be like when so much variety of brothers. Hopefully not like today...but maybe...who knows? But genuine variety among contemporary humans just Wow.
I thought It was the Trumpmagnon!
Another hominid
Could you talk about the molar?
I wonder if is it possible that the lack of denisovan fossils may be due to the misinterpretation of them as oriental Neanderthals
What do you mean?
Does such a classification exist? I have never encountered it.
I mean that maybe scientist have confused very fragmentary denisovan remains with the remains of a population of Neanderthals that inhabited the oriental part of Eurasia.
Such category is not exactly official but it is known that species are not static and that they have little variations as they migrate so it is perfectly plausible to consider that an oriental population of Neanderthals would display some differences with their western counterparts.
Also it would be posible to locate a fossil within an incorrect category, it does happen a lot actually
*Asian
A real giants fossil
Our evolution is a puzzle whose pieces are being put together by people like Dr Christopher Stringer! Thank you Dr.
I've yet to find any speculations on the total height of Dragon man based on his skull size. Please help.
Apes have flat face. Cranial volume doesn't mean more intelligent. We know that but it's possible. The ridges matter.
I wonder if there are certain pathogens which could have wiped out entire human-related species and especially if climate or other circumstances such as diminished population size could have been operative. When the dinosaurs were wiped out could other catastrophes wiped out human populations other than humans.
There's a drought in China so severe that rivers are drying up. This would be a perfect time to revisit the Dragon River bridge area and do some test trenching, in search of more specimens!🤔
Has anyone tested the DNA of Dragon man to see if he is Denisovan or mostly Denisovan. And while they are at it test the Ainu for Denisovan genetics
It’s a denisovan
If you would rewatch this video, you will learn that at the time this video was made no DNA testing had been done and the reason why.
We are still working from a tiny database, with all the uncertainty that follows.
This is just human breed, just as a German Shepherd is a dog breed.
Chris suggested the flat face is not due to evolution, but from an ancestor. But there is evolutionary reason for a flat face. Modern humans migrated from Africa to Siberia at the beginning of the last ice age. They lived in Siberia throughout the ice age, only migrating south after the ice age ended. Current belief is warmer climate became wetter, causing plants to be replaced by woody plants. Animals like mammoth and woolly rhinoceros could not eat woody plants, so they diminished in number. So game humans hunted became scarce, forcing them to move south to find food. But this meant humans lived in Siberia during the ice age for roughly 75,000 years. It's cold in Siberia now; imagine what it was like during the ice age in winter. Humans developed a parka with hood made of reindeer fur, pants, boots, and mittens. Only their face was exposed. To prevent freezing the face of humans became much more flat: smaller/flatter nose, flat cheeks. And eye lids developed fat to insulate the eyes from cold. The nose of humans developed to ensure rain does not pour into the nasal cavity. Apes can simply turn their head down, but humans walk upright. So the nose directs rain to keep it out of the nasal cavity. In Siberia during the last ice age, humans evolved a smaller nose to prevent freezing. Anyone who has experienced winter temperature between -30°C and -40°C can appreciate that. If the hominin skull you are studying experienced cold climate, if that hominin developed warm clothing with a hood then their face would evolve flat for the same reason.
Neanderthal skulls often have fractures to the face that have healed. The heavy brow ridge and low forehead evolved because they hunted large hoofed animals using stabbing spears. Neanderthals never developed projectile weapons. Neanderthal prey included aurochs, the wild animal that all cattle evolved from. Hunting a wild bull with a stabbing spear could result in the animal fighting back. A hoof to the forehead could cave in the skull. If the brain were exposed, the individual would die. Neanderthal brains were actually 25% larger volume than ours today. Their forehead was low, but the skull extended to the back. The heavy brow ridge and low forehead was protection from getting hoofed to the face. And fossil evidence showed over time this became more exaggerated. The hominin of your skull may have experienced something similar.
Neanderthals were short and muscular. This is cold adaptation. Short and stocky decreases surface area, allowing retention of heat. Neanderthals were very muscular, causing them to produce more heat, and increasing strength for hunting. Higher metabolism will require more oxygen. Chris said both Neanderthals and this hominin had larger lung volume than we do today. That would require larger nostrils to inhale and exhale that much air. Again I'm citing results from analyzing Neanderthal skeletons; if your new hominin has similar features, it's reasonable to assume the same evolutionary causes.
Mammoths were primarily grazers. Mastadons were both grazers and browsers living mainly in forests.
Neanderthals used stone tipped spears and stone knives and axes.
@@woodspirit98 Mammoths ate grass. They could eat grass, sedge, flowers, wild carrots, etc. They could not eat birch or willow. Actic willow grows 6 to 8 inches tall, with branches that trail across the ground. Dwarf willow only grows 2 inches tall. Mastadons could eat trees but mammoths did not.
@@woodspirit98 Yea, so? Neanderthals used stone tipped spears, knives and hand axes. A blade made of flint is razor sharp when first made. Blades made by Neanderthals do not look the same as those made by humans, the blades were functional, not pretty. They were asymmetrical. They worked very well, but their asymmetry meant some humans thought they were primitive. However, one researcher taught himself to make blades the Neanderthal way. It's very difficult, takes a long time to learn. But once you know how, you can make blades more quickly, and make more blades from one piece of flint with less waste. So Neanderthal blades were actually more advanced. They developed a way to make pitch from birch bark. The bark must be baked in wood fire in an air-tight container to prevent them from burning. This can also be done with wood shavings, but that requires a knife to shave the wood, birch bark can be harvested with fingers. The researcher used two ostrich eggs, with a small hole in the end of one. He used wood shavings instead of birch bark. The shavings were placed in one egg, then the two eggs placed together hole-to-hole. Wet clay was placed around the place where the eggs met to create an air-tight seal. A wood camp fire was made, then wait until the fire became glowing red embers. Place the eggs with the empty egg on the bottom, the one full of shavings on top. Ensure the eggs won't fall over as the embers burn. Keep the embers burning for hours. When finished, the clay will have hardened. Break open the clay, the bottom ostrich egg will be filled with pitch. The pitch is soft when hot, but becomes hard when cool. Neanderthals used pitch from birch bark to glue their stone spear tops to the wooden shaft. Then fresh animal sinew was tied around the stone spear tip to tie it onto the shaft. The sinew was tied tight, but as the sinew dried, it shrank, forming an even tighter bond. And the sinew dried, becoming hard. This formed a very solid join of spear tip to shaft. Important when you try to take down a large animal.
We don't know what Neanderthals used as the air-tight container. But ice age Europe did have 11-foot-tall super-ostrich, giant swan, Ibizan rail, and Cretan owl.
@@robdyck1187 That was fascinating. Thanks for the story.
What I don't understand is how there are hybrid, or interbred individuals that were not only viable, but fertile as well. This speaks to different strains of the same species rather than a completely different species. Either that or perhaps we'll have to redefine the meaning of species, especially as it relates to radiant phylogeny over time. Seems like humans are more like different breeds of dogs as to their morphological differences as compared to our immediate ancestors. Time will, as always be the tell tale here in this phenomenological discovery.
There's no real hard and fast definition of species, there are always exceptions to the rule. My personal guess is that our ancestors ancestors have always thought their cousins were sexy, re-interbreeding over and over at different periods of time. There's even evidence which suggests that we may have even been interbreeding with Australopithecus.
That is the best concept I ever heard of. Comparing these different looking humans to dog breeds. May be in the end they will come to that conclusion. but right now I think there just are not enough skeleton remains to come to that conclusion. And as we get better at extracting DNA we may come to that conclusion through our DNA.
Nope. Sorry, they're still different species. We were on the edge of genetic compatibility. You need to do more reading on the subject.
Well, we are different species and this is why most people don’t understand their blood types or know them and doctors won’t tell you. Explain why the negative blood yep mothers body murders the positive blood types without intervention
@@Tyndalic Do you really think most people don't know their blood type? I *have* to know mine, due to my ongoing chemotherapy. Rh negative mothers are only a problem when their fetus's are Rh positive. Happened to my Sister-In-Law, who had to go on immunosuppressive drugs on her first child. The second, was like her, and Rh negative, so there was no problem for her there. Cheers!
I think the ladies camera needs upgrading
Fantastic
Amazing!!!!
Oh, so that's what a jotun looked like.
I would love to see a good analysis of the Talgai and Cossack skulls from Australia. Talgai in particular has a robust but modern H sapiens face with an elongated skull somewhat similar to neanderthal or erectus. Are they within the range of recent and modern Australians? Was Talgai deformed or poorly reconstructed? Is there evidence of skull binding or similar cultural practices that could have resulted in the low forehead, long skull shape? This is a very culturally sensitive area of study in Australia which could explain the lack of attention to these specimens.
The body shape of Aboriginals from Western and Central Australia seem to be different to Eastern Australia Families
Where does Homo ergaster come in?
homo ergaster was extinct million years before this fossil
are what time were we still on the trees?
2:35 pm
Unfortunately, it seems that many of our ancestors or cousins met grisly deaths. Crushing the skull would've been the easiest way to kill them, thus, reducing any chance of us acquiring in-tact skulls. Still, it's amazing what we can find today.
Fascinating, thank you
Glad you enjoyed it
Any aDNA ancient DNA study for the skull????? From its well preserved ear bone
The best bet would be the tooth But it would. B destrotyd
Also: You have suggested (ruclips.net/video/igrL9FypiZc/видео.html) that H. Heidelbergensis (H.H.) may have been a common ancestor of H. Sapiens and Neandertals (H.N.), and that they may have continued to exist in Asia. Would you thus view. H.H. as the potential common ancestor of H.N. and H.Denisovans, - - or perhaps, as the "ghost ancestors" in the H.D. DNA?
It's probably both. If someone is a "lumper" then Homo erectus was the last common ancestor between Denisovans, Homo sapiens, and neanderthals. But, if they are a splitter then it is Homo heidelbergensis. So it is likely that heidelbergensis is both the LCA between all three and the source of the unexplained DNA. Although, it could be from Asian Homo erectus etc.
looks like successful interbreeding of two or more primitive generations
Very well done. Thank you both.
How old are Dali and Jineshan?
Because of our genetic connection to other "species," and the completely viable results, what is the current definition of species?
Their is no unambiguous definition of species that is universally existed. Usually biologists say something like similar but not identical groups of organisms that do not routinely interbreed. (If they cannot interbreed, they are automatically classified as separate species, but many creatures that are able to interbreed are nevertheless classified as separate species. It is a fuzzy distinction.)
Great job! thanks.
Hello my name is Mary, I'm from Marietta, Ohio, how tall to you think he was?
Chris Stringer is about 180 cm, which is about 5ft 10 in Ohio-speak.
Awesome ! Thx.
Our pleasure!
dragon man has the dialed in six pack .do they believe he was low body fat for some reason?
Micheal, that picture is just an artist's idea of what a Neanderthal may have looked like. We really do not know what they looked like. But we can guess that they may have been muscler because they lived a very active life outside. They were not couch potatoes like we are now days. They did not have T.V. and they had to go out and hunt their food every few days, because they did not have grocery stores. Use some common sense.
Very Nicely Done!
Thank you very much!
WHAT ABOUT GANTS
What's a GANT?
How can one reconstruct the lower part of the face without fossils??
Hi Monika, this page might help answer your question about how some people can reconstruct skulls and other parts of the body: www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/bringing-a-neanderthal-to-life-the-making-of-our-model.html 🦖