Scientists have unraveled snippets of the genetic code of an extinct bear species, proving a technique that could one day give a glimpse into the behavior of Neanderthals.

left: Skull from the extinct Pleistocene cave bear, Ursus spelaeus. Credit: Joint Genome Institute

Generally speaking, the fossil record is mostly bones and teeth. But bits of DNA - the blueprints of life - sometimes cling to these dry specimens. If the genetic material can be extracted, it can offer a wealth of information about a long-dead creature.

Scientists and science fiction writers have long dreamed of using ancient DNA to resurrect dinosaurs or woolly mammoths. The new study, proving the concept works, also shows it would be very difficult to employ on more ancient creatures.

Edward Rubin of the Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute and his colleagues were able to sequence, or decode, a small percentage of the genome from the Pleistocene cave bear, Ursus spelaeus.

"We could have gotten the whole bear genome - we had enough bear DNA," Rubin told LiveScience.

The cave bears (Ursus spelaeus), closely related to modern brown bears, disappeared more than 10,000 years ago. Cave-paintings and fossil evidence suggest that ancient humans had contact with these animals.

Rubin’s team analyzed 40,000-year-old cave bear bones and teeth, collected from two caves in Austria. The relatively cold, dry conditions were optimal for DNA survival.

The scientists identified about 27,000 base pairs in the bear’s DNA code - which, in its entirety, is somewhere around 3 billion base pairs long.

But sequencing the entire code would have been very time-consuming. The scientists consider this bear study merely a proof of principle, as they are more interested in exploring human ancestors.

"The next thing is Neanderthal," Rubin said.

This stocky hominid species is believed to have gone extinct around 29,000 years ago. Having a full or partial Neanderthal genome could tell us things that bones cannot - like what they ate, how their brain was built, or whether they spoke language, Rubin said.

The extraction technique might also be used on the 18,000-year-old remains of the recently discovered Flores Man, nicknamed "the hobbit." However, the diminutive skeletons were found in a tropical environment, which likely accelerated the DNA degradation process.

Besides the fact that DNA falls apart over time, gene sequencing from fossils is hard to do because the DNA that is found is mostly from corpse-eating organisms.

"When we die, we are a nutrient source for microbes and bugs," Rubin said.

To get around this contamination, past studies have focused on DNA from mitochondria. Mitochondria are the energy suppliers in cells, but they also carry their own separate DNA for reproduction. Because there are often thousands of mitochondria in a cell, researchers have had better luck isolating mitochondrial DNA from fossils.

By finding species with similar mitochondrial DNA, biologists have drawn evolutionary family trees. But to learn what an extinct animal looked like or how it behaved, one needs to sequence nuclear, or genomic, DNA, for which there are only two copies per cell.

To go after genomic data, Rubin’s team simply sequenced all the pieces of DNA in a sample - most of which ended up being from microbes - then separated out what DNA belonged to the bear by matching it to the known dog genome.

The full bear genome has not been sequenced, but bears and dogs have similar DNA - having diverged about 50 million years ago. Out of a few million base pairs, the scientists identified less than six percent that was from bear DNA. The results were reported in the June 2 online edition of the journal Science.

"It’s neat work," said Rick Myers from Stanford University, who was not involved in the research. "This is very promising for studying evolutionary relationships in animals that died out not too long ago."

Recently, a separate group of scientists announced an effort to bring back the woolly mammoth from frozen semen. Whether this is possible remains to be seen, since DNA only lasts so long. According to Rubin, 100,000 years is probably the limit.

This would dash any hope of regenerating dinosaurs - a la "Jurassic Park." Even if a small fragment of DNA were to be found in, say, a mosquito trapped in amber, it would be hard to prove that it was 100-million-year-old DNA.

"You always have to worry that it is from a lab worker," Rubin said.

That was one of the reasons the scientists chose to first test their technique with a species not closely related to humans.

"What we found is not from recent contamination, since we have a strict policy: no bears are allowed to work in our lab," Rubin joked.

source; LiveScience

Anthropologists have built a "Frankenstein" Neanderthal skeleton, the first and only full-body reconstruction of the species. The result, announced today, is a shape no one expected.

"It’s almost like making my own fossil discovery," said Gary Sawyer, one of the skeleton’s architects.

Sawyer, an anthropologist at the American Natural History Museum in New York, and his colleague Blaine Maley of Washington University, pieced together the skeleton using bones mostly from an individual known as La Ferrassie 1.

La Ferrassie 1 was missing its rib cage, pelvis, and a few other parts, so Sawyer and Maley had to scrounge around to find some parts.

"The missing parts had to come from another classic Neanderthal that was similar, if not identical, in size to the La Ferrassie man," Sawyer told LiveScience in a phone interview.

The spare parts came from Kebara 2, a 60,000-year-old skeleton discovered in Israel in 1983. Kebara 2 was previously known as the specimen with the best rib cage, pelvis, and vertebral preservation.

The La Ferrassie man was discovered in France in 1909 and is about 70,000 years old.

Sawyer said the replacement bones are remarkably similar in size to La Ferrassie man - most were off by only a few millimeters.

Still, as the scientists pieced together the bones, something didn’t look quite right. A rotund, bell-shaped torso, produced by a flared lower ribcage, and a pelvic region that looked slightly wide and feminine, began to form in front of their eyes.

"The biggest surprise by all means is that they have a rib cage radically different than a modern human’s rib cage," said Sawyer. "As we stood back, we noticed one interesting thing was that these are kind of a short, squat people. These guys had no waist at all - they were compact, dwarfy-like beings."

Other bits and replacement pieces, mostly the ends of bones, were collected from half a dozen other Neanderthals. The remaining gaps were filled in with reconstructed human bones.

How an average Neanderthal male (left) compare to a human male. Brain size is in cubic centimeters.

The Big Picture

The finished product is "like Frankenstein," Sawyer said.

Even though the reconstructed fossil is made up of both Neanderthal and human bones, Sawyer doesn’t believe that modern humans could have evolved from Neanderthals based on the pelvic and torso discrepancies between the two species.

Evolutionary side road

"There is no way that modern humans, I believe, could have evolved from a species like Neanderthal," Sawyer said. "They’re certainly a cousin - they’re human - but they’re one of those strange little offshoots."

The reconstructed Neanderthal skeleton is currently on display at the Dolan DNA Learning Center in Cold Spring Harbor, NY. It will eventually go on permanent display at the American Museum of Natural History.

This research will be published in the March 11 issue of the Anatomical Record Part B: The New Anatomist.

Neanderthals were a relative of homo sapiens that co-inhabited Europe and parts of western Asia with hum from about 120,000 to 29,000 years ago. They were well adapted to the cold and were very muscular — good traits for hunting large animals.

"They had very strong hands," Sawyer said. "If you shook hands with one, he would turn your hand to pulp."

source: LiveScience

Manfred Huchthausen is a 58-year-old teacher who has come to find out that 3,000 year-old relatives are buried in a Lichtenstein Cave is a short drive away from Manfred’s village, deep in the Harz mountains.

This is the spot where Manfred’s relatives, dating back 3,000 years, were buried. The cave remained hidden from view until 1980, and it was only later, in 1993, that archaeologists discovered 40 Bronze Age skeletons.

The 3,000-year-old skeletons were in such good condition that anthropologists at the University of Goettingen managed to extract a sample of DNA. That was then matched to two men living nearby: Uwe Lange, a surveyor, and Manfred Huchthausen, a teacher. The two men have now become local celebrities.

"It’s odd, standing here in the same area where my ancestors were buried. I felt really strange when I had the bones, the skull of my great-great-great grandfather dating back 120 generations, in my hands," said Manfred.

"I can’t describe it, the hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. It wasn’t exactly a nice feeling, but it was an incredible experience that I won’t ever forget. The 3,000-year-old bones are so far removed from our lives today, and these 120 generations, that’s so long ago," he said.

"We have no idea what happened during this time, we don’t know what happened to these people," he added.

Unique pattern

VIDEO LINK

At her lab at the University of Goettingen, Susanne Humm carefully removed the plastic wrapping, and explained the research project.

"It is a unique discovery. While we were examining the prehistoric bones of the male individuals, we found genetic patterns which are unique," Dr Hummel said.

"We wanted to find out whether these genetic patterns were still present in the living population of this area, so we put an advert in the local paper and we asked people to take part in our project - 270 people came forward. We were very surprised that so many wanted to help us.

"The local residents had to give a sample of saliva. We extracted DNA from the saliva and looked for the genetic patterns on the Y chromosome. In the end, we found two men who have a very similar genetic pattern to the prehistoric one, and that genetic pattern is unique," she added.

The analysis showed that most of the bones were from the same family.

"I saw the advert in the paper and I thought it was an interesting idea," said Manfred.

"They took a sample of saliva using cotton wool buds, they put it in a plastic tube and then sealed it. The scientists also had their mouths covered to prevent any mixing of the DNA samples," he said.

"I didn’t expect it at all, to end up being the direct descendant of the cavemen. It’s amazing, especially as on that particular day I had such a dry mouth, I thought the DNA sample wouldn’t work," he said.

Family tree

But do Uwe Lange and Manfred Huchthausen resemble one another?

"The two men don’t really look alike," Dr Hummel said.

"Your appearance is determined by both parents, by the mother and father. We were investigating the Y chromosome, from father to son, in our project. It’s a modern phenomenon that we move around… In the old days, people normally lived and stayed in the same place where they were born," she said.

And what about Manfred, does he think he looks like his Bronze Age ancestors?

"I definitely think the shape of the head is similar to the caveman, but after 3,000 years and 120 generations, I’m sure personalities have changed," Manfred said.

Manfred Huchthausen is planning to organize a Bronze Age feast and party in his village.

Claiming to have the longest proven family tree in the world, he says he is now determined to find out more about his ancestors.

related post: 3000 Year-Old Cavemen Relatives / source: BBC News

Neanderthals are often thought of as the stray branch in the human family tree, but research now suggests the modern human is likely the odd man out.

"What people tend to do is draw a line from our ancestors straight to ourselves, and any group that doesn’t seem to fit on that line is divergent, distinct, unusual, strange," researcher Erik Trinkaus, an anthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis, told LiveScience today. "But in terms of evolution of our family tree, the genus Homo, we’re the outliers and the Neanderthals are more toward the core."

Humans are not at the inevitable end of a sequence, Trinkaus said. "It just happens that we happen to be alive today and Neanderthals are not."

Trinkaus spent decades examining fossil skeletons and over time realized that maybe researchers looked at Neanderthals the wrong way. Over the last two years, he systematically combed through fossils, comparing Neanderthal and modern human skull, jaw, tooth, arm, leg traits with those of the earliest members of the genus Homo in terms of their shape.

"I wanted to see to what extent Neanderthals are derived, that is distinct, from the ancestral form. I also wanted to see the extent to which modern humans are derived relative to the ancestral form," Trinkaus said.

Trinkaus focused on skeletal features that seemed most strongly linked to genetics, as opposed to any traits that might get influenced by lifestyle, environment or wear and tear.

When compared with our common ancestors, Trinkaus discovered modern humans have roughly twice as many uniquely distinct traits as Neanderthals. In other words, Neanderthals are more like the other members of our family tree than modern humans are.

"In the broader sweep of human evolution, the more unusual group is not Neanderthals, whom we tend to look at as strange, weird and unusual, but it’s us, modern humans," Trinkaus said.

Modern humans, for example, are the only members of our family tree who lack brow ridges, Trinkaus said. "We are the only ones who have seriously shortened faces. We are the only ones with very reduced internal nasal cavities. We also have a number of detailed features of the limb skeleton that are unique."

Trinkaus published his findings in the August 2006 issue of the journal Current Anthropology.

source: LiveScience

Neanderthals might have held out in isolated refuges for thousands of years longer than previously thought, scientists reported today.

Their survival at what seems to have been their last refuge in Gibraltar for far longer after the arrival of modern humans than once believed suggests our ancestors may not have driven the Neanderthals to extinction. Instead, researchers speculate the Neanderthals fell victim to a cooling of the climate that deteriorated their environment too rapidly for them to adapt.

"While the rest of where they lived was getting colder, down here at the southernmost tip of Europe there were still little pockets of Mediterranean climate, so the world of the Neanderthals there didn’t change that much," researcher Clive Finlayson, an evolutionary biologist at the Gibraltar Museum, told LiveScience.

This now prolonged span of time in which modern humans and Neanderthals could have interacted reopens possibilities they might have interbred, experts added.

More like wrestlers

The researchers investigated Gorham’s Cave, where Neanderthal stone tools such as spear tips were found more than 50 years ago. Neanderthal tools differ from those of modern humans by the way the rock was chipped off and trimmed and by their very size and weight.

"Neanderthals were more like wrestlers, while modern people are in comparison more like long-distance runners," Finlayson explained. "Neanderthals made heavy spears for close quarter ambush hunting of large animals such as rhinos or elephants. Tools of modern people were lighter and perhaps more portable for people who were on the move."

By carbon-dating charcoal from hearths newly excavated at Gorham’s cave, the scientists found Neanderthals might have survived there until 28,000 years ago, and maybe as recently as 24,000 years ago.

While the rest of Europe was cooling, the area around Gibraltar back then "resembled a European Serengeti," Finlayson said. Leopards, hyenas, lynxes, wolves and bears lived amongst wild cattle, horses, deer, ibexes, oryxes and rhinos, all surrounded by olive trees and stone pines, with partridges and ducks overhead, tortoises in the underbrush and mussels, limpets and other shellfish in the waters.

This natural richness of wildlife and plants in the nearby sandy plains, woodlands, shrublands, wetlands, cliffs and coastline probably helped the Neanderthals to persist, he added. Indeed, evidence at the cave shows the Neanderthals likely used it as a shelter on and off "for 100,000 years," Finlayson said.

Changing climate

As the climate cooled, the forested and semi-forested areas Neanderthals were best adapted to were replaced in Europe by tundra from the north and steppe from the east. Modern humans, who were more mobile, might have been better suited for the open expanses of these terrains.

"The key was physique, which for Neanderthals did not change fast enough," Finlayson said.

Prior findings suggested the Neanderthals went extinct in Europe 35,000 years ago, while modern humans arrived in Western Europe some 32,000 years ago. The fact the span between the arrival of modern humans and the extinction of the Neanderthals looked so relatively brief hinted that Neanderthals got out-competed.

These new findings suggest Neanderthals survived after modern humans moved in, and as the environment changed due to climate shifts, Neanderthals faded away.

Interbreeding possible

If Neanderthals lasted longer than once thought, the question of whether Neanderthals and modern humans interbred is raised again, said paleoanthropologist Eric Delson at the American Museum of Natural History and at Lehman College in New York.

Past digs had uncovered what some researchers claimed was the skeleton of a hybrid child. "How could there be a hybrid, if the last Neanderthal died out thousands of years before this child was born? But if it can be shown that Neanderthals were still living near Gibraltar some 24,000 years ago, that part of the hesitancy disappears," Delson said. Still, he added, questions remain about whether the skeleton really does resemble a Neanderthal’s.

Future research can delve deeper into Gorham’s Cave or other nearby caves, Finlayson said. "They might be lucky enough to find some Neanderthal fossils, which would help document who made the artifacts," Delson said.

source: LiveScience

A reconstructed Neanderthal skeleton, right, and a modern human version of a skelaton, left, are on display at the Museum of Natural History Wednesday, Jan. 8, 2003 in New York. Credit: AP Photo

Humans and their close Neanderthal relatives began diverging from a common ancestor about 700,000 years ago, and the two groups split permanently some 300,000 years later, according to two of the most detailed analyses of Neanderthal DNA to date.

Using different techniques, two teams of scientists separately sequenced large chunks of DNA extracted from the femur of a 38,000-year-old Neanderthal specimen found in a cave 26 years ago in Croatia. One team sequenced more than one million base pairs and the other 65,000 pairs of the genome.

The achievements could help shed light on the evolution of our own species, and it paves the way for building a complete library of the Neanderthal genome, the scientists say.

No evidence of interbreeding

In popular imagination, Neanderthals are often portrayed as prehistoric brutes who became outsmarted by a more advanced species, humans, emerging from Africa. But excavations and anatomical studies have shown Neanderthals used tools, wore jewelery, buried their dead, cared for their sick, and possibly sang or even spoke in much the same way that we do. Even more humbling, perhaps, their brains were slightly larger than ours.

The results from the new studies confirm the Neanderthal’s humanity, and show that their genomes and ours are more than 99.5 percent identical, differing by only about 3 million bases.

"This is a drop in the bucket if you consider that the human genome is 3 billion bases," said Edward Rubin of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who led one of the research teams.

For comparison, the genomes of chimpanzees, our closest living relatives, differ from humans by about 30 million to 50 million base pairs.

The findings also appear to refute speculations by some scientists that Neanderthals and humans interbred in more recent times. "We see no evidence of mixing 30,000 to 40,000 years ago in Europe," Rubin said. "We don’t exclude it, but from the data that we have, we have no evidence that pages were ripped from one genome and put in the other."

Ruling out contamination

One of the biggest challenges in sequencing Neanderthal DNA is finding a bone sample that hasn’t been too contaminated by human handling. Fortunately, the femur fragment used in the studies was relatively small and uninteresting, causing it to be largely overlooked.

The femur "was thrown in a big box of uninformative bones and not handled very much," said Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany, leader of the other sequencing project. "Whereas more interesting bones—where you can study the muscle attachment and the morphology of Neanderthals—had been extensively cleaned and handled and thus tend to be much more contaminated."

The researchers also relied on other clues, such as chemical damage unique to ancient DNA, to help verify that the genetic material was indeed Neanderthal. "One of the crucial things is that we feel confident that the DNA we have, which we’re calling Neanderthal, is truly Neanderthal," Rubin said.

New advances

The success of the two team’s sequencing projects were made possible by recent advances in DNA sequencing technology, which now allow scientists to sequence DNA over 100 times faster than in the past.

Paabo’s team recovered more than a million Neanderthal base pairs using a new automated technique called "pyrosequencing." In this process, DNA fragments are attached to tiny artificial beads, sequenced, and then matched to similar sections on human chromosomes.

Rubin’s team employed "metagenomics," which involves integrating short fragments of extracted Neanderthal DNA into the genomes of bacteria. The Neanderthal DNA gets amplified as the bacteria divide, and then scientists pluck out human-matching bases using "probes" made with snippets of human DNA.

The researchers say their achievements mark the "dawn of Neanderthal genomics," and they estimate that further advances in DNA sequencing technology could allow the completion of a very rough draft of the entire Neanderthal genome within two years.

"There’s no question that we’re going to have a Neanderthal genome, and likely, we’re going to have several Neanderthal genomes," Rubin said. The team hopes to extract and sequence DNA from the bones of other individuals and to complete several drafts of the Neanderthal genome.

Clues to our past

A complete Neanderthal genome would help scientists identify the genetic changes in our own genome that set us apart from other hominids.

The comparison between recently sequenced chimpanzee genomes and ours is already shedding light on the evolutionary changes our ancestors went through to make them less ape-like. But because chimps and humans began diverging some 6.5 million years ago, examination of their genome cannot reveal what happened in the final stretches of our own evolution.

"Humans went through several stages of evolution in the last 400,000 years," said study co-author Jonathan Pritchard of the University of Chicago. "If we can compare humans’ and Neanderthals’ genomes, then we can possibly identify what the key genetic changes were during that final stage of human evolution."

A completed genome will also reveal new insights about Neanderthals, who disappeared mysteriously about 30,000 years ago.

"In having the Neanderthal genome sequence …we’re going to learn about the biology, learn about things that we could never learn from the bones and the artifacts that we have," Rubin said.

source: LiveScience

Results show modern humans, Neandertals diverged 660,000 years ago

Now there’s even more scientific proof that you are not a Neandertal, no matter what anyone says.

An international consortium of researchers reports in the Aug. 8 Cell that for the first time the complete sequence of mitochondrial DNA from a Neandertal has been deciphered. Comparison of the Neandertal sequence with mitochondrial sequences from modern humans confirms that the two groups belong to different branches of humankind’s family tree, diverging 660,000 years ago.

Read the rest of this entry »

DNA furnishes an ever clearer picture of the multimillennial trek from Africa all the way to the tip of South America.

A development company controlled by Osama bin Laden’s half brother revealed last year that it wants to build a bridge that will span the Bab el Mandeb, the outlet of the Red Sea to the Indian Ocean. If this ambitious project is ever realized, the throngs of African pilgrims who traverse one of the longest bridges in the world on a journey to Mecca would pass hundreds of feet above the probable route of the most memorable journey in human history.

Fifty or sixty thousand years ago a small band of Africans—a few hundred or even several thousand—crossed the strait in tiny boats, never to return. The reason they left their homeland in eastern Africa is not completely understood. Perhaps the climate changed, or once abundant shellfish stocks vanished. But some things are fairly certain. Those first trekkers out of Africa brought with them the physical and behavioral traits— the large brains and the capacity for language— that characterize fully modern humans. From their bivouac on the Asian continent in what is now Yemen, they set out on a decamillennial journey that spanned continents and land bridges and reached all the way to Tierra del Fuego, at the bottom of South America. Read the rest of this entry »

SOFIA, Bulgaria — Archaeologists have unearthed a 1,900-year-old well-preserved chariot at an ancient Thracian tomb in southeastern Bulgaria, the head of the excavation said Thursday.

Daniela Agre said her team found the four-wheel chariot during excavations near the village of Borisovo, around 180 miles east of the capital, Sofia. "This is the first time that we have found a completely preserved chariot in Bulgaria," said Agre, a senior archaeologist at the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Read the rest of this entry »

A 50,000-year record of mammals eaten by early humans in southwestern France shows that they basically hunted the same prey. The Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon competed for food.

The paper, published in the online Journal of Archaeological Science, counters the idea proposed by some scientists that Cro-Magnon, who were physically similar to modern man, supplanted Neanderthals because they were more skilled hunters as a result of some evolutionary physical or mental advantage.

"This study suggests Cro-Magnon were not superior in getting food from the landscape," said lead author Donald Grayson, a University of Washington professor of archaeology. "We could detect no difference in diet, the animals they were hunting and the way they were hunting across this period of time, aside from those caused by climate change.

"So the takeover by Cro-Magnon does not seem to be related to hunting capability. There is no significant difference in large mammal use from Neanderthals to Cro-Magnon in this part of the world. The idea that Neanderthals were big, dumb brutes is hard for some people to drop. Cro-Magnon created the first cave art, but late Neanderthals made body ornaments, so the depth of cognitive difference between the two just is not clear."

The study also resurrects a nearly 50-year-old theory first proposed by Finnish paleontologist Björn Kurtén that modern humans played a role in the extinction of giant cave bears in Europe. Cro-Magnon may have been the original "apartment hunters" and displaced the bears by competing with them for the same caves the animals used for winter den sites.

Grayson and his colleague, Francoise Delpech, a French paleontologist at the Institut de Prehistoire et de Geologie du Quanternaire at the University of Bordeaux, examined the fossil record left in Grotte XVI, a cave above the Ceou River, near its confluence with the Dordogne River. The cave has a rich, dated archaeological sequence that extends from about 65,000 to about 12,000 years ago, spanning the time when Neanderthals flourished and died off and when Cro-Magnon moved into the region. Neanderthals disappeared from southwestern France around 35,000 years ago, although they survived longer in southern Spain and central Europe.

The researchers were most interested in the transition from the Middle to Upper Paleolithic, or Middle to Late Stone Age.

Neanderthals occupied Grotte XVI as far back as 65,000 years ago, perhaps longer. Between 40,000 and 35,000 years ago, people began making stone tools in France, including at Grotte XVI, that were more like those later fashioned by Cro-Magnon. However, human remains found with these tools at several sites, were Neanderthal, not Cro-Magnon. Similar tools but no human remains from this time period were found in Grotte XVI and people assumed to be Cro-Magnon did not occupy the cave until about 30,000 years ago.

The researchers examined more than 7,200 bones and teeth from large hoofed mammals that had been recovered from the cave. The animals – ungulates such as reindeer, red deer, roe deer, horses and chamois were the most common prey – were the mainstay of humans in this part of the world, according to Grayson.

He and Delpech found a remarkable dietary similarity over time. Throughout the 50,000-year record, each bone and tooth assemblage, regardless of the time period or the size of the sample involved, contained eight or nine species of ungulates, indicating that Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon both hunted a wide variety of game.

The only difference the researchers found was in the relative abundance of species, particularly reindeer, uncovered at the various levels in Grotte XVI. At the oldest dated level in the cave, reindeer remains accounted for 26 percent of the total. Red deer were the most common prey at this time, accounting for nearly 34 percent of the bones and teeth. However, as summer temperatures began to drop in Southwestern France, the reindeer numbers increased and became the prey of choice. By around 30,000 years ago, when Cro-Magnon moved into the region, reindeer accounted for 52 percent of the bones and teeth. And by around 12,500 years ago, during the last ice age, reindeer remains accounted for 94 percent of bones and teeth found in Grotte XVI.

Grayson and Delpech also looked at the cut marks left on bones to analyze how humans were butchering their food. They found little difference except, surprisingly, at the uppermost level, which corresponds to the last ice age.

"It is possible that because it was so cold, people were hard up for food," Grayson said. "The bones were very heavily butchered, which might be a sign of food stress. However, if this had occurred earlier during Neanderthal times, people would have said this is a sure sign that Neanderthals did not have the fine hand-eye coordination to do fine butchering."

In examining the Grotte XVI record, the researchers also found a sharp drop in the number of cave bears from Neanderthal to Cro-Magnon times.

"Cave bears and humans may have been competing for the same living space and this may have led to their extinction," Grayson said. He added that it is not clear if the decline and eventual extinction of the bears was driven by an increase in the number of humans or increased human residence times in caves, or both.

"If we can understand the extinction of any animal from the past, such as the cave bear, it gives us a piece of evidence showing the importance of habitat to animals. The cave bear is one of the icons of the late Pleistocene Epoch, similar to the saber tooth cats and mammoths in North America. If further study supports Kurtén’s argument, we finally may be in a position to confirm a human role in the extinction of a large Pleistocene mammal on a Northern Hemisphere continent."

source: Science Daily

Europe’s Ancestors: Cro-Magnon 28,000 Years Old Had DNA Like Modern Humans

Some 40,000 years ago, Cro-Magnons — the first people who had a skeleton that looked anatomically modern — entered Europe, coming from Africa.

A group of geneticists, coordinated by Guido Barbujani and David Caramelli of the Universities of Ferrara and Florence, shows that a Cro-Magnoid individual who lived in Southern Italy 28,000 years ago was a modern European, genetically as well as anatomically.

The Cro-Magnoid people long coexisted in Europe with other humans, the Neandertals, whose anatomy and DNA were clearly different from ours. However, obtaining a reliable sequence of Cro-Magnoid DNA was technically challenging.

"The risk in the study of ancient individuals is to attribute to the fossil specimen the DNA left there by archaeologists or biologists who manipulated it," Barbujani says. "To avoid that, we followed all phases of the retrieval of the fossil bones and typed the DNA sequences of all people who had any contacts with them."

The researchers wrote in the newly published paper: "The Paglicci 23 individual carried a mtDNA sequence that is still common in Europe, and which radically differs from those of the almost contemporary Neandertals, demonstrating a genealogical continuity across 28,000 years, from Cro-Magnoid to modern Europeans." The results demonstrate for the first time that the anatomical differences between Neandertals and Cro-Magnoids were associated with clear genetic differences.

The Neandertal people, who lived in Europe for nearly 300,000 years, are not the ancestors of modern Europeans.

–Public Library of Science (2008, July 16). Europe’s Ancestors: Cro-Magnon 28,000 Years Old Had DNA Like Modern Humans. Science Daily

Every family has its skeletons in the cave, though, so Manfred Hucht-hausen, 58, a teacher, and 48-year-old surveyor Uwe Lange remained in celebratory mood.

Thanks to DNA testing of remarkably well-preserved Bronze Age bones, they can claim to have the longest proven family tree in the world. “I can trace my family back by name to 1550,” Mr Lange said. “Now I can go back 120 generations.”

The good news for two villagers in the Söse valley of Germany yesterday was that they have discovered their great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great grandparents — give or take a generation or two.

The bad news is that their long-lost ancestors may have grilled and eaten other members of their clan.

Every family has its skeletons in the cave, though, so Manfred Hucht-hausen, 58, a teacher, and 48-year-old surveyor Uwe Lange remained in celebratory mood. Thanks to DNA testing of remarkably well-preserved Bronze Age bones, they can claim to have the longest proven family tree in the world. “I can trace my family back by name to 1550,” Mr Lange said. “Now I can go back 120 generations.”

Mr Lange comes from the village of Nienstedt, in Lower Saxony, in the foothills of the Harz mountain range. “We used to play in these caves as kids. If I’d known that there were 3,000-year-old relatives buried there I wouldn’t have set foot in the place.”

The cave, the Lichtensteinhöhle, is made up of five interlocked natural chambers. It stayed hidden from view until 1980 and was not researched properly until 1993. The archaeologist Stefan Flindt found 40 skeletons along with what appeared to be cult objects. It was a mystery: Bronze Age man was usually buried in a field. Different theories were considered. Perhaps some of the bodies had been offered as human sacrifice, or one generation had been eaten by another.

Scientists at the University of Göttingen found that the bones had been protected by a thick layer of calcium: water dripping through the roof of the limestone cave had helped to create a sheath around the skeletons.

The analysis showed that all the bones were from the same family and the scientists speculated that it was a living area and a ceremonial burial place.

About 300 locals agreed to giving saliva swabs. Two of the cave family had a very rare genetic pattern – and a match was found.

The skulls have been reconstructed using three-dimensional computer techniques and placed in a museum. “It was really strange to look the man deep in the eyes,” Mr Lange said.

The bones of history

— The oldest human genetic material is thought to have been discovered at the Sterkfontein Caves near Johannesburg in 2001

— Fossilised faeces found in Oregon this year contained DNA dating back 14,000 years, placing people genetically similar to Native Americans in the area 1,000 years earlier than previously thought

— Australian scientists announced in 2001 that they had extracted DNA from the country’s oldest human skeleton, 60,000-year-old Mungo Man, who is distinct from the line that previously suggested all modern humans traced back to Africa

source: UK Times

At the end of the Pleistocene era, woolly mammoths roamed North America along with a cast of fantastic creatures – giant sloths, saber-toothed cats, camels, lions, tapirs and the incredible teratorn, a condor with a 16-foot wingspan.

About 12,900 years ago, these megafauna disappeared from the fossil record, as did evidence of human remains. The cause of the mass extinction and the human migration is a mystery. Now a team of scientists, including Brown University planetary geologist Peter Schultz, provides evidence that an asteroid impact likely caused the sudden climate changes that killed off the mammoths and other majestic beasts of prehistory.

In the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the international team lays out its theory that the mass extinctions in North America were caused by one or more extraterrestrial objects – comets or meteorites – that exploded over the Earth or slammed into it, triggering catastrophic climate change. The scientists believe that evidence for these extraterrestrial impacts is hidden in a dark layer of dirt sometimes called a black mat. Found in more than 50 sites around North America, this puzzling slice of geological history is a mere three centimeters deep and filled with carbon, which lends the layer its dark color.

This black mat has been found in archaeological digs in Canada and California, Arizona and South Carolina – even in a research site in Belgium. Read the rest of this entry »

Two University of Oregon researchers proposed a startling new theory: that an extraterrestrial impact, possibly a comet, set off a 1,000-year-long cold spell and wiped out or fragmented the prehistoric Clovis culture and a variety of animal genera across North America almost 13,000 years ago.

Driving the theory is a carbon-rich layer of soil that has been found, but not definitively explained, at some 50 Clovis-age sites in North America that date to the onset of a cooling period known as the Younger Dryas Event. The sites include several on the Channel Island off California where UO archaeologists Douglas J. Kennett and Jon M. Erlandson have conducted research.

The theory is being discussed publicly, for the first time, in a news conference at the 2007 Joint Assembly of the American Geophysical Union being held in Acapulco, Mexico. Kennett is among the attendees who will be available to discuss the theory with their peers. The British journal Nature addressed the theory in a news-section story in its May 18 issue. Read the rest of this entry »

Geological evidence found in Ohio and Indiana in recent weeks is strengthening the case to attribute what happened 12,900 years ago in North America — when the end of the last Ice Age unexpectedly turned into a phase of extinction for animals and humans – to a cataclysmic comet or asteroid explosion over top of Canada.

A comet/asteroid theory advanced by Arizona-based geophysicist Allen West in the past two years says that an object from space exploded just above the earth’s surface at that time over modern-day Canada, sparking a massive shock wave and heat-generating event that set large parts of the northern hemisphere ablaze, setting the stage for the extinctions.

Now University of Cincinnati Assistant Professor of Anthropology Ken Tankersley, working in conjunction with Allen West and Indiana Geological Society Research Scientist Nelson R. Schaffer, has verified evidence from sites in Ohio and Indiana – including, locally, Hamilton and Clermont counties in Ohio and Brown County in Indiana – that offers the strongest support yet for the exploding comet/asteroid theory.

Read the rest of this entry »

A complete mandible of Homo erectus was discovered at the Thomas I quarry in Casablanca by a French-Moroccan team co-led by Jean-Paul Raynal, CNRS senior researcher at the PACEA laboratory (CNRS/Université Bordeaux 1/ Ministry of Culture and Communication). This mandible is the oldest human fossil uncovered from scientific excavations in Morocco. The discovery will help better define northern Africa’s possible role in first populating southern Europe.

Left: Photograph of the fossil human mandible discovered May 15, 2008 at the Thomas I quarry site in Casablanca. (Credit: Copyright Jean-Paul Raynal)

A Homo erectus half-jaw had already been found at the Thomas I quarry in 1969, but it was a chance discovery and therefore with no archeological context. This is not the case for the fossil discovered May 15, 2008, whose characteristics are very similar to those of the half-jaw found in 1969.

The morphology of these remains is different from the three mandibles found at the Tighenif site in Algeria that were used, in 1963, to define the North African variety of Homo erectus, known as Homo mauritanicus, dated to 700,000 B.C.

The mandible from the Thomas I quarry was found in a layer below one where the team has previously found four human teeth (three premolars and one incisor) from Homo erectus, one of which was dated to 500,000 B.C. The human remains were grouped with carved stone tools characteristic of the Acheulian civilization and numerous animal remains (baboons, gazelles, equines, bears, rhinoceroses, and elephants), as well as large numbers of small mammals, which point to a slightly older time frame. Several dating methods are being used to refine the chronology.

The Thomas I quarry in Casablanca confirms its role as one of the most important prehistoric sites for understanding the early population of northwest Africa. The excavations that CNRS and the Institut National des Sciences de l’Archéologie et du Patrimoine du Maroc have led there since 1988 are part of a French-Moroccan collaboration. They have been jointly financed by the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Department of Human Evolution at the Max Plank Institute in Leipzig (Germany), INSAP (Morocco) and the Aquitaine region.

Science Daily

Strands of 1,000-year-old DNA from 10 Viking skeletons have been retrieved, a team of scientists claims.

Of particular interest to us, is this paragraph from the research article:

Among present day Scandinavians Hg I constitutes <2%, however, we have previously observed a markedly higher frequency (10–20%) of Hg I in Danish Iron Age and Viking Age population samples. With the observation of Hg I for subject G6 this trend is also seen for the Viking population sample from Galgedil. Interestingly, Hg I shows a low frequency (1 out of 114 subjects) among other ancient populations in Italy, Spain, Great Britain, and early central European farmers.

If true, the achievement would be notable, since many researchers say it is impossible to recover authentic DNA from ancient humans.

Jorgen Dissing of the University of Copenhagen and colleagues say they retrieved the genetic material from the freshly sampled teeth of skeletons dating back to around A.D. 1000 and found at a non-Christian burial site called Galgedil on the Danish island of Funen.

Wearing protective suits, the researchers removed the teeth from the jaw at the moment the skeletons were unearthed, where they had lain untouched for 1,000 years. Subsequent laboratory procedures were carefully controlled to avoid contamination with modern human DNA.

Read the rest of this entry »

The human race was divided into two separate groups within Africa for as much as half of its existence, says a Tel Aviv University mathematician. Climate change, reduction in populations and harsh conditions may have caused and maintained the separation.

Dr. Saharon Rosset, from the School of Mathematical Sciences at Tel Aviv University, worked with team leader Doron Behar from the Rambam Medical Center to analyze African DNA. Their goal was to study obscure population patterns from hundreds of thousands of years ago.

Rosset, who crunched numbers and did the essential statistical analysis for the National Geographic Society’s Genographic Project, said the team was trying to understand the timing and dynamics of the split into at least two separate groups.

“We wanted to look into the ancient history of our species. How did we live throughout most of our existence as a species? Did we live as one — or were we fractured into small groups? Until now, it wasn’t really clear,” says Rosset.

A Picture of the Ancient Past

Researchers believe that about 60,000 years ago, modern humans started their epic journeys to populate the world. This time period has been the primary focus of anthropological genetic research. However, relatively little is known about the demographic history of our species over the previous 140,000 years in Africa.

Read the rest of this entry »

Dorothy Rosenberg’s sister called her recently to give her some news about a long-lost relative - a really, really long-ago-lost relative.

Rosenberg, 80, who belongs to the Alaskan Tlingit tribe, learned through DNA testing that an iceman who died 200 to 300 years ago in the wilds of British Columbia is one of her ancestors.

The iceman could be a legendary Arctic trader celebrated in tribal lore. But even if he’s not, the twenty-something man - found draped in squirrel pelts and wearing a hat made of roots - is being welcomed as kin by his California cousins.

“We are also Jewish,” said Aaron Rosenberg, Dorothy Rosenberg’s youngest son who lives in Hollywood. “We are the best of both tribes.”

Three sheep hunters found the human remains in a melting glacier in 1999 on land in British Columbia, part of the traditional territory of the Champagne and Aishihik First Nations. The tribe named him Kw day D n Ts’inchi, meaning “Long Ago Person Found” in the Southern Tutchone language.

DNA testing recently traced the remains to 17 people in Alaska and Canada, including Dorothy Rosenberg’s sister, Harryet Rappier, who lives in Juneau, Alaska. She called recently to deliver the news.

Read the rest of this entry »

Ancient humans started down the path of evolving into two separate species before merging back into a single population, a genetic study suggests. The genetic split in Africa resulted in distinct populations that lived in isolation for as much as 100,000 years, the scientists say. This could have been caused by arid conditions driving a wedge between humans in eastern and southern Africa.

It would be the longest period for which modern human populations have been isolated from one another. But other scientists said it was still too early to reconstruct a meaningful picture of humankind’s early history in Africa. They argue that other scenarios could also account for the data.

At the time of the split - some 150,000 years ago - our species, Homo sapiens, was still confined to the African continent.

Read the rest of this entry »