[HN Gopher] High-altitude cave used by Tibetan Buddhists yields ...
___________________________________________________________________
High-altitude cave used by Tibetan Buddhists yields a Denisovan
fossil
Author : namanyayg
Score : 136 points
Date : 2024-07-04 12:08 UTC (3 days ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| lunaru wrote:
| Speciation of archaic humans is an attempt at applying discrete
| categorization to continuous phenomena. It's like looking at a
| rainbow and trying to figure out where red ends and orange
| begins. Also interesting is Homo Longi, which can be argued to be
| Denisovan, or maybe not, depending on where you want to draw the
| lines on the raindow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_longi
| colechristensen wrote:
| All speciation is this. It's muddy and not all that useful for
| the intermediate stages between one species and two.
| throwup238 wrote:
| I've gotten the impression from several practicing
| archaeologists that the biggest reason they haven't unified a
| bunch of the _Homo_ species is that no one can quite agree on
| how to do it and there's so much inertia in the field. Between
| ample evidence of interbreeding, the growing evidence that our
| genetic differences weren't that significant compared to modern
| variability in the human gene pool, and a reevaluation of
| morphological differences it's getting harder and harder to
| justify keeping them separate.
| Amezarak wrote:
| As a sibling comment mentions, this is true for pretty much
| all animals. It's a well-known, old problem. Darwin even
| mentions it in the _Origin of Species_ and says that
| "species" is really just a term of convenience applied
| somewhat arbitrarily according to the different tastes of
| different naturalists.
|
| Now we understand even better that, like GP said, there are
| no discrete groupings we can label as a species. It's a
| useful abstraction at a 5000ft level but it breaks down when
| you zoom in.
| nkrisc wrote:
| The lines are arbitrary, but it may still be useful to draw
| them for some applications.
|
| It's a rainbow all the way back to the first tetrapod (and
| beyond). But clearly we are not fish, so somewhere in that
| spectrum there is a useful distinction to be made, a line to be
| drawn. Of course, the closer you get to finding that line, the
| faster it vanishes. It's equally futile to say that we are
| indistinct from fish because there is no clear and decisive
| separator.
| lazide wrote:
| Yup, same with drawing lines on a rainbow.
|
| The concept (and definition) of red, orange, etc. is
| important and useful. A great many things would be impossible
| without it frankly.
| [https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spectroscopy]
|
| Applying it in real life in some situations sometimes has a
| fractal like quality. Like measuring a shoreline.
| anvil-on-my-toe wrote:
| That cave location looks like such a prime piece of real-estate
| for a Paleolithic hunter group.
| suzzer99 wrote:
| Imagine 3-5,000 generations of Denisovans using that cave. It
| boggles the mind.
| TheWoolRug wrote:
| Altitude= not connected to the ground.
|
| Elevation= connected to the ground.
| fooker wrote:
| High-altitude is a commonly used pair of words to refer to
| mountain locations.
| AlotOfReading wrote:
| I challenge you to find a dictionary that doesn't include
| "elevation above sea level" in one of the definitions for
| altitude.
| morbicer wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Altitude_sickness
| dboreham wrote:
| Cool, but not in the English I learned.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Technically, are humans that use the internet a different species
| than humans that don't, since they don't interbreed?
| polynomial wrote:
| Underrated comment.
| jdthedisciple wrote:
| The funny thing is Denisovans and Neanderthals actually
| interbred both amongst each other and with Homo Sapiens making
| them all the same species: Humans.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Are there still humans that don't use the internet?
| shagie wrote:
| Don't and can't are two different things.
|
| Furthermore, Great Danes and Chihuahuas are of the same
| species. And while there may be no direct genetic mixing
| between the two ends of that spectrum, you can have Chihuahua -
| Beagle - Labrador - Great Dane mixes (with the '-' being a mix)
| ... and they're all the same species.
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| This is really interesting for another reason (which is kind of
| buried at the end of this article).
|
| A variant of the gene EPAS1, which occurs at low frequencies in
| east asia, and relatively high frequencies on the Tibetan plateau
| seems to be identical to the variant found in Denisovans,
| implying that Homo Sapiens got it by interbreeding with
| Denisovans, and natural selection on the Tibetan Plateau
| maintained high frequencies of this gene in Tibetans specifically
| since it confers some resistance to high altitude hypoxia.
|
| This is a somewhat rare example of both gene introgression across
| species (or subspecies?) and positive natural selection, and on
| top of that its happening in humans!
| suzzer99 wrote:
| The article didn't mention Sherpas. But I assume they have the
| same gene?
| LarsDu88 wrote:
| I should note that its only something like 1/3rd of Tibetans
| who have this variant, and something like 1/200 Han Chinese,
| Vietnamese, Laotians, etc who have this variant (If you go
| back tens of thousands of years, basically everyone is
| related to everyone else, so the allele frequencies here are
| truly implied to be driven by natural selection rather than
| just simple descent). I vaguely recall that Nepalese have a
| fairly high frequency of these variant but I'm not sure how
| high. Would need to dig up the paper
| brabel wrote:
| If Denisovan people were present only 30,000 years ago in Asia,
| wouldn't at least some stories have survived, perhaps in the form
| of legends passed down the generations? Would be interesting to
| know if there's any candidates amongst the local population.
| louthy wrote:
| If there are then Crecganford [1] will have probably covered it
| and followed the evolution of the story across the world - a
| real treasure trove of a channel (I advise using closed-
| captions as he often hurries through words).
|
| [1] https://www.youtube.com/@Crecganford
| jccooper wrote:
| That's a very long time for anything to survive. Like, notably,
| their bones.
|
| But we do have evidence of some traditions from ~12kya, so it's
| possible some shadows of the idea are left. It can be thought
| that the folklore tradition of crypto-peoples (the elves,
| dwarves, green men, etc) may contain some echo of other
| hominids, though any specific connection or detail is unlikely.
| ffgjgf1 wrote:
| It's not necessarily obvious that "normal" humans would have
| recognized them as a different species. Might have just seen
| them as a different tribe/race with different facial/etc.
| features
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2024-07-07 23:02 UTC)