New Hominin Found

[Ursa major]

Scientists have identified a previously unknown type of ancient human through analysis of DNA from a finger bone unearthed in a Siberian cave.

The extinct "hominin" (human-like creature) lived in Central Asia between 48,000 and 30,000 years ago.

An international team has sequenced genetic material from the fossil showing that it is distinct from that of Neanderthals and modern humans.

Details of the find, dubbed "X-woman", have been published in Nature journal.

From BBC News - DNA identifies new ancient human dubbed 'X-woman'
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[skeptical]

This raises a question.
There have been a lot of human relatives according to the fossil record. The 'hobbits', neanderthals, and this new one in the last million years. Yet today, there is but one.

What did we do??

 

[Dave]

What did we do??

We are naturally more violent and made better weapons?

However, I expect that we were probably also more adaptable to different habitats, climates and food sources. We travelled further. We were more intelligent and better at using tools, and better at organising ourselves in groups through use of language.

So, my guess would be a combination of winning the competition for limited resources and genocide. Survival of the fittest.

 

[J-WO]

Exciting stuff. I really want to know more about these people. Dig, archaeologists, DIG!

 

[Karn Maeshalanadae]

Certainly exciting indeed. I personally don't usually go for what the past shows us, but anytime a truly new relative to the human species is found, that is a big deal. Eventually it may prove or disprove certain theories.....

 

[The Judge]

Very interesting. I'd like to know if they found any other bone fragments in the cave - the article is silent about that, so I assume not. But as to whether she was the owner/user of the pottery etc they found, she could just as easily have been someone else's meal!

 

[Parson]

Indeed there is a bit of skepticism out there about this is really a new hominid or not. With only finding a bit of a finger and the questions about DNA tainting all around it is a little soon to be adding a branch to the family tree.

To Skeptical: I think the better question is not "What did we do?" but rather "How did we survive?"

 

[skeptical]

The thing is, though, that the fossil record suggests many hominin species until recently. For example, Homo floresiensis appears to have survived until just a few thousand years ago. Compared to any time over the past couple million years, this is the first occasion when only one species exists.

Most people think it is due to Homo sapiens that the other species died out, and this makes logical sense. Was it due, as Dave says, because we are better with weapons, and killed off the opposition? Was it because we outcompeted the others? Did we outbreed them? Did we hybridise with them? I have seen no convincing evidence for any single explanation, so the question appears open.

 

[The Judge]

Perhaps there isn't a single explanation. With so many different conditions all over the world, it's surely wrong to expect the same thing to have happened in exactly the same way everywhere. The fact we seem to have had better adaptation and survival skills, and perhaps greater intelligence, would have counted for a great deal, but doubtless in some places the 'others' were hounded to extinction -- we have an aptitude for it.

 

[ktabic]

People like having a single cause for an event. And there normally isn't. Even when there is thought to be a single event, it normally isn't.

Take the dinosaurs as a nice big example of a single event destroying stuff. Everyone knows the dinosaurs died because of the impact. But the dinosaurs where already on their way out by then anyway. They where already dying out.

Same sort of thing probably applies with Neanderthals. Neanderthals came about before the start of the last ice age. Survived it pretty well, then died out before the glacial period ended.
Now the end of an ice age consists of a series of rapid* fluctuations in temperature. (The last fluctuation is known as the Younger Dryas. But there was a series of them according to the various courses and texts I have read.) This would put pressure on all animals, as they expand into a new area then either die out or retreat as the cold came back. And since Neanderthal was primarily carnivorous they would have to follow the animals. To go with the end of the that glacial, there where at least two new hominin species that had recently appeared on the scene, Cro-Magnon and this new one** all competing for the same resources. At least one of these (Cro-Magnon) was more flexible (omnivorous so less reliant on following animals). The competitors may have fought. That's three different causes there; inability to adapt to a changing environment, out-competed for resources by competitors and/or fighting with competitors. And probably no one of the reasons would have been enough to kill them off. But the three together, it becomes to much pressure for them to survive.

No single events. It's to absolutionist.

*the time scales we are talking about means 1000 years is rapid
**there is so little info about this species, I could only make a random guess of when they originated and when they died out

 

[Parson]

I agree with the above. I think Homo sapiens may have been a contributing cause to the demise of other hominds, but unlikely to have been the only, or in my opinion, the main cause of their extinction: too much territory, too many micro ecologies, too little cooperation between tribes of the sapiens.

 

[J-WO]

This raises a bit of an SF speculation question--if intelligent life exists on other worlds then, in how many examples do you have something like on earth, ie; several intelligent 'cousin species' co-existing? And is it always the case that one wipes the others out (or plays a role in that wiping out, at least)?

As far as the first question goes I'm tempted to say 'almost always'. It seems impossible to imagine a human-level intelligent species evolving in a linear manner, with no tributaries veering off. And look at Dolphins, arguably the nearest in intelligence to us--many branches in the family tree.

All idle speculation, of course. Sorry to derail the thread.