Humans
First Humans on the Continent
30/05/25 14:29 Filed in: History
"The very first humans emerged in Africa, and migrated from there to regions around the world. The exact date they first walked in the Americas is a long-standing open question, the answer to which continues to evolve as advances in archaeology and DNA analysis shed more light on the subject. During the second half of the 20th century, many archaeologists favored the “Clovis-first” theory, which argued that the prehistoric Clovis people were the first to reach the Americas, about 11,500 to 13,000 years ago. It was believed they crossed a land bridge — known as Beringia — linking Siberia to Alaska during the last ice age. This bridge then disappeared underwater as the ice melted, leaving the Clovis culture to roam North America — a land never before occupied by humankind.
More recent archaeological discoveries, however, have dramatically pushed back the timeline of human habitation on the continent. In 2021, archaeologists discovered human footprints in mud in what is now New Mexico, and dated the prints to between 21,000 and 23,000 years old. Research by an international team at the University of Oxford, meanwhile, suggests that the earliest humans arrived on the continent 30,000 years ago — and that rather than crossing a land bridge, they came by sea. The debate is ongoing, and tantalizing evidence of pre-Clovis cultures continues to be accumulated."
More recent archaeological discoveries, however, have dramatically pushed back the timeline of human habitation on the continent. In 2021, archaeologists discovered human footprints in mud in what is now New Mexico, and dated the prints to between 21,000 and 23,000 years old. Research by an international team at the University of Oxford, meanwhile, suggests that the earliest humans arrived on the continent 30,000 years ago — and that rather than crossing a land bridge, they came by sea. The debate is ongoing, and tantalizing evidence of pre-Clovis cultures continues to be accumulated."
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Human Species
01/06/24 13:56 Filed in: History | Animal Kingdom
Most of us do not realize that there have been around 21 human species that have lived on this planet Earth. I came across this article that gives an introduction to the past history of humans.
| "Each one of the billions of people living on Earth today belongs to the same species: |
| The first humans in the same genus as |
. Many of those species are in the genus No Tails For Us
07/03/24 11:38 Filed in: Animal Kingdom
It appears that scientists may have found a reason why humans and apes do not have tails yet monkeys do through evolutionary history. It is all in the DNA…
Here is the story:
<NYU Grossman School of Medicine suggests that a genetic change in our ancient ancestors could partially explain why humans don’t have tails, unlike monkeys.
Recently published in the journal Nature, the work compared the DNA of tail-less apes and humans to that of tailed monkeys and found an insertion of DNA shared by apes and humans, but missing in monkeys. When the research team engineered a series of mice to examine whether the insertion, in a gene called TBXT, affected their tails, they found a variety of tail effects, including some mice born without tails.>>
Here is the story:
<NYU Grossman School of Medicine suggests that a genetic change in our ancient ancestors could partially explain why humans don’t have tails, unlike monkeys.
Recently published in the journal Nature, the work compared the DNA of tail-less apes and humans to that of tailed monkeys and found an insertion of DNA shared by apes and humans, but missing in monkeys. When the research team engineered a series of mice to examine whether the insertion, in a gene called TBXT, affected their tails, they found a variety of tail effects, including some mice born without tails.>>
Our First Genome
11/10/15 11:05 Filed in: Interests
DNA has been found on the recovered remains of a 4500-year-old human skeleton in Ethiopia. This is the first time DNA has been able to be extracted. They wonder if they will be able to go back further at some time in even older humans, possibly a million years back in time. Read more here.
"A team of scientists reported on Thursday that it had recovered the genome from a 4,500-year-old human skeleton in Ethiopia — the first time a complete assemblage of DNA has been retrieved from an ancient human in Africa.
The DNA of the Ethiopian fossil is strikingly different from that of living Africans. Writing in the journal Science, the researchers conclude that people from the Near East spread into Africa 3,000 years ago. In later generations, their DNA ended up scattered across the continent."
"A team of scientists reported on Thursday that it had recovered the genome from a 4,500-year-old human skeleton in Ethiopia — the first time a complete assemblage of DNA has been retrieved from an ancient human in Africa.
The DNA of the Ethiopian fossil is strikingly different from that of living Africans. Writing in the journal Science, the researchers conclude that people from the Near East spread into Africa 3,000 years ago. In later generations, their DNA ended up scattered across the continent."
Early Human Footprints
13/02/14 12:49 Filed in: History
Scientists have found the earliest evidence of human footprints outside of Africa. The prints were found on the Norfolk Coast in the eastern part of England. The footprints are considered more than 800,000 years old and were found on the shores of Happisburgh. They believe that there may have been a land bridge in that area to the western shore of France.
A more detailed description can be found here.
A more detailed description can be found here.
Neanderthals and Humans
01/02/14 20:52 Filed in: Animal Kingdom
I read an interesting science article discussing where Neanderthals and Humans were close in sharing genetic material and more detail on where the divergence most likely happened. They believe that the level of shared genes is at about 2%, more found in non-African people and essentially very little relationship with African people to Neanderthals. Some of the alleles that control addiction to smoking, Type II Diabetes, and some other diseases appear to have some coverage between the groups. They believe any interbreeding between Humans and Neanderthals occurred near the end of our divergence. One can find more details in the article found here.
