From Newsgroup: sci.misc
JAB <
here@is.invalid> wrote:
Modern humans interbred with unknown "ghost ancestors"
New evidence suggests modern humans interbred with other ancient
hominins in addition to the now-extinct Neanderthals and Denisovans.
The study, published in the journal Science, identified regions of the
human genome inherited from 2 unknown, ancient hominin ancestors.
One of these "ghost ancestors" interbred with Homo sapiens in Africa
prior to 50,000 years ago, before the most recent migration out of the continent into Europe and Asia.
"We discovered that about 2% of the modern human genome is from
archaic hominins," says first author Yulin Zhang from the Center for Computational Biology at the University of California Berkeley, USA.
https://connectsci.au/news/news-parent/9850/Modern-humans-interbred-with-unknown-ghost?searchresult=1
I just read a related couple pages in a different source
rCLAmong the animals to move into grasslands in Africa were the great apes, including some of our ancestors. Compared with most large grazing mammals, these African apes were rare. TheyrCOd barely be worth mentioning if not for the later ascendancy of one of their number. Starting about five million
years ago, these creatures knuckled on all fours and, later, loped on two
legs, into the grassland. Just as there are many species of antelope and
other herbivores, so, too, with hominins, our ancestors and their extinct relatives. The hominin family tree back then was a bush, not a single line leading inexorably toward Homo sapiens. Multiple species coexisted, each an evolutionary experiment in how to turn a tree-swinging ape into a walking grassland humanoid.
As with large herbivores, the hominin ape species differed in their
embrace of C4 grasses. Ardipithecus ramidus, a species that lived 4.4
million years ago, had a C3-rich diet similar to that of chimpanzees. Paranthropus boisei, an especially stout-jawed species that lived from 2.5 million to 1.15 million years ago, fed almost exclusively on C4 vegetation
like grasses and sedges, or on the animals that fed on these grasses and therefore had C4-rich flesh. Others, like Australopithecus africanus
(3.3rCo2.1 million years ago) and Paranthropus robustus (2.3rCo0.9 million years ago) had mixed diets and, in africanus, a great deal of variability
among individuals. Although we cannot know for sure, this variability
suggests humanlike traits such as individual and cultural preferences for different foods. Did some parent Australopithecus africanus despair at
their kidsrCO refusal to bite grasshoppers or chew grass seed? Did they look with fascination and sometimes disgust at the weird food[rCa]rCY
Excerpt From
How Flowers Made Our World
David George Haskell
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