A manatee rib-NOT-too much marrow

[helens]

Ahh... did better, here's the actual site the Creationists stole the photo from (then copyrighted someone else's photo!!!):

paleo.cc/paluxy/moab-man.htm

I was close... the remains appear to be malachite, not variscite, they are very modern (dated back AD 500ish), and aren't fully fossilized (but they are green anyway), and are thought to be Indians that got entombed in a 'mining environment'.

[helens]

Part of a Neanderthal skull floating in the sea (fossilized) - 2nd story in the blog:
paleonews.wordpress.com/category/s-sistematic-class/an-vertebrates/mammiferi-an-vertebrates-s-sistematic-class/

[helens]

Here's a blue crystallized limestone skull:
www.phschool.com/science/science_news/articles/chinese_roots.html



This one actually looks a lot like larimar.

[helens]

Try searching images for 'mineralized fossil homo sapien remains' or 'crystallized fossil homo sapien remains". I tried to post the most colorful ones, but there's plenty of dull looking human fossils.

Um... why did you think that human fossils didn't exist??

[jamesp]

Your link convinces me of primate fossils.Atleast 19 primates and one homo sapien(and a bit lame at that)
www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/specimen.html#archaics
Prominent Hominid Fossils

Sahelanthropus tchadensis
Ardipithecus ramidus
Australopithecus anamensis
Australopithecus afarensis
Kenyanthropus platyops
Australopithecus africanus
Australopithecus garhi
Australopithecus sediba
Australopithecus aethiopicus
Australopithecus robustus

Australopithecus boisei
Homo habilis
Homo georgicus
Homo erectus
Homo ergaster
Homo antecessor
Homo heidelbergensis
Homo neanderthalensis
Homo floresiensis
Homo sapiens

[jamesp]

This little bone is also lame
paleonews.wordpress.com/category/s-sistematic-class/an-vertebrates/mammiferi-an-vertebrates-s-sistematic-class/

[jamesp]

Little skull plates.Lamer than the one above
www.melkakunture.it/museum/tukul3-27.html

[jamesp]

I love your article.Indian folks mininig azurite probably to color their stuff and make beads/decorations/jewels.Same as my southern indians collecting hematite to make red ochre for stain/coloring etc.I find lots of hematite crystals in indain camps around here.No doubt collected.A sad story that it caved in on them.
paleo.cc/paluxy/moab-man.htm
I am frustrated by the fact that i get out done by indians.They collect coral,coastal plain cherts that surpass materials that i can find.I find it in their camps(where the plow unearthed their stuff).Good chance that great great great great great grandfather passed his best agate vein down the line.These folks probably lived in the same area for generations and had an extensive 'file' of high grade silica materials.These materials were their life line.Without flints,agates,silicified corals they had issues butchering,hunting etc.
These Savannah River agates were collected in an indian camp.I have been hunting this area for 30 years and can never out do my finds from chips left over in the 6-8 indian camps in the area that have been exposed by the plow.Must be great x6 grandaddy's favorite spot
www.flickr.com/photos/67205364@N06/sets/72157632182662877/

[jamesp]

So far i have seen links discussing human fossils from all over Africa,around China,Italy,Indonesia,Laos,Netherlands.
Let me say that our American colleges are very active in archeology.From one side of this country to the other colleges have been active in so many archeological digs.Well supervised by experienced archeologists using young strong smart archeology students.These people do not run around copying links off the internet like we do.They are involved in tangible digs.I trust their findings much more.And this country as a whole is concerned about what is told/taught to college archeologists.I have found great artifacts in and near their dig sites when i can get on one.So i have researched and used their articles/thesis' etc.The site area in Zephry Hills i sent you to was located in a college thesis-Eiland Road in the curve where it turns to the east,i filled a gallon bucket of fine heat treated coral chips.Again,prettier than any coral i ever collected from the creek bottom.Dang indians
Moving the discussion to America is limiting.It leaves out the rest of the world.That is not comprehensive.I am just not impressed with the findings of humans going older than the last ice age-8-14,000 years ago.After looking at what i called 'lame' i am more conviced that lame is a good description.If any one can find a 'not lame' or 'most believable link' it is HelenS.So far i am not impressed.James was looking for a 6'1" healthy male sapien or 5' 4" lady sapien skeleton.Like they made out of every other mammal of the ice age.
I hope that an obvious,decisive finding will come up.If i had not spent so much field time with the indians enviro i would never ever attempt this discussion.Hope my logic makes sense.
I feel like the 'Canon of Helen' is aimed at me.FIRE 1 FIRE 2 ....
bring it on woman!

[parfive]

news.discovery.com/animals/pets/prehistoric-dog-lovers-profiled-130521.htm

[jamesp]

Looks like the ancient folks had good sense parfive.If i was out in the wild all the time i would especially want a dog companion.I know that present day indians in Peru that still hunt and live off the land have great reverence for their ferel dogs.

[helens]

James, that's terrible... I'm not a fossil person, just did a quick google for you. You can do your own googling:). I don't care where they hide the bones, I really don't, and I suspect that you won't be happy with ANYTHING anyone shows you anyway.

[helens]

Ok, bit more time now... was a crazy day, so I was a bit short earlier. I know NOTHING about fossils, almost literally, because I forget what I read about it almost as soon as I read it...

How to find 6'1" human fossils from before 14,000 years ago? I'm sure you've been to Fort Matanza in St Augustine. They have bunks of the Spaniards who defended the Fort there... those guys were 5' tall on average, because those boxes they slept in had pretty good sized headboards and footboards, and I doubt many of them were hanging their heads or feet off a 1" board at the end of their bed. Not to mention that there is only roughly 5'5" headspace clearance for many of the walkways in the Fort. That's only visible evidence of human height from a few hundred years ago!

Where is anyone going to find a 6'1" fossilized human from? I can only find things that exist James!

That said, I'm still trying to understand where you are going with this. Are you a Creationist that believes that the earth was created 6000 years ago (ala Jerry Falwell)? You collect fossils much older than that.

14,000 years ago God made Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden?

Aliens dropped us off 14,000 years ago, and their craft was destroyed or salvaged so they wouldn't contaminate the monkey's on the planet?

If you let me know where you are going with it, it would be easier for me to figure out what to look for.

And I don't discount any of those theories btw. We are not 100% certain of anything in the present, how can we be 100% certain of the past?

I'm fascinated with Science because it never stops looking for QUESTIONS, as well as answers. It's broken out into rigorous processes, or as rigorous as man can devise, and tested over and over again throughout history. Any verifiable evidence to the contrary results in a complete rejection of the theory unless there's another potential explanation.

So Science doesn't actually explain very much, because of the methodical nature of the investigation. That lets us surmise, and dream, and hypothesize ourselves, because there are so many areas where there are no absolutely verified answers.

We don't get to formulate actual theories that way, but it's a lot of fun to do:).

So what is this theory you are trying to reaffirm about no 14,000 year old human fossils?

[jamesp]

Reaction understood.I would be a hard sell on that topic.Being a hobby archeologist i have tinkered in these articles and subjects for many years.Finding artifacts inspired me to look into the age of humans.Finding their burn pits,chip piles,camps,etc
More frustrated in my findings than you are dealing w/my closed brain.The subject has created alot of controversy.Anthropologists going that way,archeologists this way,creationist and evolutionist mixing it up.It has been a battle and i have seen all those groups go full circle w/change of technology and discoveries.Passing some stupid finds for their cause.
I find the majority are leaning to man 'arriving' on the scene much more recent.Which is the last thing i ever expected from those people.Like real recent.
You know how it is;you got to hold your ground and what you know,your experience,etc.
The thing that puzzles me is the confusion and lack of high quality evidence.No one is able to agree on a unified theory.So much more evidence is available on dinosaurs and mammals.Skeletons and what not.

[helens]

Well, I'm a bit of an odd person... because I really am completely flexible mentally. I have no problems changing my mind or rethinking my previous assumptions when someone can PROVE to me that I was wrong. Nor do I have a problem admitting I was wrong and thanking the person who rubbed it in my face, because I learned something.

It's one reason I like to argue... everyone tends to think just a bit harder and a bit better when riled up. And don't we all love reaffirming what we already know best? It's way easier to do that if you are forced to defend it. And sometimes, people even realize that they were wrong. Heck, I was Republican my whole life until Bush's 2nd term. But when the realization hits me, I move. I don't make the same mistake again when I know better.

I don't want to sell you or anyone else. My arguing is a mental exercise for myself. It's how I learn more completely. If others learn along the way, that's great. But it's not necessary.

If you seriously looked for an answer and you didn't find it, you keep looking, and go with what makes the most sense for you. I remember when they told us all to eat margarine, because butter clogged arteries, as do egg yolks. Well, I never stopped eating butter or egg yolks... and now, they have decided that margarine is more unhealthy than butter and egg yolks are good cholesterol. Um hmm. Science is way easier when you're dealing with simple objects like atoms and molecules. When you get into complexity, all bets are off, because you can't always determine WHICH was the cause, of many many many potential causes.

In THIS subject, I have NO ground to hold. I am a fossil idiot. I'm as interested in what you know as I can find elsewhere, because I know you hunt fossils where you can, so why wouldn't you know something about them?

[helens]

You know... I am starting to see what you mean. I did a broader search for fossils, and while there are human fossils, there really aren't very many of them. There SHOULD be more. Not laying around for laymen to find, but when human bones are discovered, authorities are always called, because no one knows how old they are. Then the scientists get involved.

There should be thousands of samples. There isn't. In burial areas, why are we limited to only some bone fragments, and very few whole skeletons as you mentioned? If the particular conditions preserved SOME parts, why not all parts of some individuals? Why would the conditions that mineralize not mineralize the entire structure, as we've seen with even huge creatures such as T-Rexes, which are far older? Very puzzling indeed.

So I dug around from other aspects. Modern science has far more capability than scientists did 100 years ago. From molecular biology, to gene sequencing, we can look at the same subject from studying multiple aspects, not simply bones.

I tried to find something that pulled much of it together, and this sort of does:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

The study of human evolution involves many scientific disciplines, including physical anthropology, primatology, archaeology, linguistics, evolutionary psychology, embryology and genetics.[1]

According to genetic studies, primates diverged from other mammals about 85 million years ago in the Late Cretaceous period, and the earliest fossils appear in the Paleocene, around 55 million years ago.[2] The family Hominidae diverged from the Hylobatidae (Gibbon) family 15-20 million years ago, and around 14 million years ago, the Ponginae (orangutans), diverged from the Hominidae family.[3] Bipedalism is the basic adaption of the Hominin line, and the earliest bipedal Hominin is considered to be either Sahelanthropus or Orrorin, with Ardipithecus, a full bipedal, coming somewhat later. The gorilla and chimpanzee diverged around the same time, about 4-6 million years ago, and either Sahelanthropus or Orrorin may be our last shared ancestor with them. The early bipedals eventually evolved into the australopithecines and later the genus Homo.

So I dug deeper into genetic studies of evolution, and came up with this recent article:
www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/02/130214133922.htm

"There is an archaeological record hidden in our DNA that can help point us to the traits that have been critical in human survival, such as resistance to infectious diseases and new abilities to respond to different environments," says senior study author Pardis Sabeti of Harvard University and the Broad Institute. "The two studies have uncovered two intriguing human adaptive traits and demonstrate the ability to go from an unbiased genome scan to a novel hypothesis of human evolution."

Ok... but HOW did they know those genes differentiated 30,000 years ago? Nothing in the article explains the time-line. So you see a gene in one person, and a slightly differentiated gene in another, and they come from different regions. So far so good. But how do you know WHEN that change occurred? You can't sample the DNA of someone from 30,000 years ago to say that's when it happened?

Here's an actual paper on evolution by applying molecular genetics:
www.nature.com/ng/journal/v33/n3s/full/ng1113.html

Reconstructing human evolution requires both historical and statistical research. Although conclusions are not experimentally verifiable because the process cannot be repeated, various disciplines such as physical and social anthropology, archaeology, demography and linguistics provide complementary approaches to researching questions of human evolution. The existence of molecular genetic variation among human populations was first demonstrated by Hirszfeld and Hirszfeld1 in a classic study published in 1919 of the first human gene to be described—ABO, which determines ABO blood groups. The subsequent identification of blood group protein markers, such as MNS and Rh expanded the repertoire of polymorphic markers that could be analyzed using antibodies. R.A. Fisher showed that evolution could be reconstructed by analyzing the multilocus genotypes on a chromosome observed in populations and their inheritance within families2. The term 'haplotype' for the multilocus combination of alleles on a chromosome was introduced by Ceppellini et al.3 during early research on the major histocompatibility complex. Immunological methods remained the only satisfactory technique for detecting genetic variation until Pauling et al.4 introduced electrophoresis to separate different mutants of hemoglobin, a technique that was rapidly adapted to analyze variation in other blood proteins.

It was soon obvious that genetic variation was not rare but, on the contrary, that almost every protein had genetic variants5, 6. These variants became useful markers for population studies. The first book of allele frequencies in populations, published in 1954, was limited almost completely to serological variation7, and books listing genetic variation increased rapidly in size and number8, 9, 10. In 1980, a method for studying variation in DNA11 identified mutants of restriction sites by using radioisotopes and generated several new markers. But it was only with the development of PCR in 1986 that the study of more general DNA variation became possible. The development of automated DNA sequencing in the early 1990s paved the way for the application of systematic study of genome variation to human evolutionary biology.

<>

Archeological evidence is generally considered to support the initial spread of humans within Africa from an East African origin during the first half of the last 100 kya and the spread from the same origin to all the world in the last 50−60 kya. Analyses of numerous classical markers under this assumption have estimated the dates of first occupation by anatomically modern humans of Asia, Europe and Oceania at 60−40 kya, in agreement with archeological and fossil data. Dates for the first occupation of America are estimated at 15−35 kya. Thus, genetically derived dates are consistent with evidence from physical anthropology, providing support for the use of population trees63. Below we discuss how recent analysis of DNA polymorphisms supports this timing of the earliest split between Africans and non-Africans.

Studies of variation in DNA became possible in the early 1980s (refs. 64, 65). Subsequent estimates for the emergence of modern humans from Africa using autosomal restriction fragment length polymorphisms were consistent with earlier estimates56, 66. From the analysis of several mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) polymorphisms, Cann et al.67 derived two important conclusions: the first major separation in the evolutionary tree of modern humans was between Africans and non-Africans; and the time back to the most recent common ancestor (TMRCA) of modern human mtDNA was 190,000 years (however, with a large error). After early doubts about the statistical validity of these interpretations of the data68, the order of magnitude was confirmed69, 70, 71. It is important to note that TMRCA is usually significantly earlier than the first archaeologically observable divergence among a set of populations72, 73. Also, TMRCA does not necessarily coincide with the onset of population expansion. The 'mismatch' method74 to analyze mtDNA, which analyzes the distribution of between sequence differences, gives estimates that are more compatible with the beginning of expansions inferred from archeology.

Because mitochondria are transmitted along only female lineages and mtDNA is genetically haploid, the effective size of a population of mtDNAs is a quarter of that of the corresponding autosomes. The mutation rate of the mitochondrial genome is about ten times higher than that of nuclear DNA75, which provides an abundance of polymorphic sites, but creates difficulties in reconstructing genealogies owing to repeated and reverse mutations. Like the non-recombining part of the Y chromosome (NRY), there is no evidence for recombination in mtDNA although low-frequency rearrangements of somatic mtDNA have been observed in heart muscle76.

While the entire paper is relevant... I broke out what I thought were the relevant sections.

What I wanted to know was... how did they determine the DATING? Ok, so they can differentiate the genes. So there are variations to the genes. These variations do X. Various populations have different amounts of these genes that correspond to their ability to do X. Makes sense.

But... Where's the timeline? How did they decide that the genes split or mutated at a certain range of dates?? The only explanation is the above bolded sentence that I could see:
"Archeological evidence is generally considered to support the initial spread of humans within Africa from an East African origin during the first half of the last 100 kya and the spread from the same origin to all the world in the last 50−60 kya."

So they arbitrarily used a date given by sparsely found archeological fossils to date the DNA variations, then used the DNA to support the fossil record?

Something is missing.

[helens]

Ok, another piece to that:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

The closest living relatives of humans are bonobos and chimpanzees (both genus Pan) and gorillas (genus Gorilla).[55] With the sequencing of both the human and chimpanzee genome, current estimates of the similarity between their DNA sequences range between 95% and 99%.[55][56][57]

By using the technique called the molecular clock which estimates the time required for the number of divergent mutations to accumulate between two lineages, the approximate date for the split between lineages can be calculated.

The gibbons (family Hylobatidae) and orangutans ( genus Pongo) were the first groups to split from the line leading to the humans, then gorillas followed by the chimpanzees and bonobos.

The splitting date between human and chimpanzee lineages is placed around 4-8 million years ago during the late Miocene epoch.[3][58][59]

Genetic evidence has also been employed to resolve the question of whether there was any gene flow between early modern humans and Neanderthals, and to enhance our understanding of the early human migration patterns and splitting dates. By comparing the parts of the genome that are not under natural selection and which therefore accumulate mutations at a fairly steady rate, it is possible to reconstruct a genetic tree incorporating the entire human species since the last shared ancestor.

Each time a certain mutation (Single nucleotide polymorphism) appears in an individual and is passed on to his or her descendants a haplogroup is formed including all of the descendants of the individual who will also carry that mutation. By comparing mitochondrial DNA which is inherited only from the mother, geneticists have concluded that the last female common ancestor whose genetic marker is found in all modern humans, the so-called mitochondrial Eve, must have lived around 200,000 years ago.

Ok then. Molecular clock is how they got the date.

So... what's a molecular clock?

The molecular clock (based on the molecular clock hypothesis (MCH)) is a technique in molecular evolution that uses fossil constraints and rates of molecular change to deduce the time in geologic history when two species or other taxa diverged. It is used to estimate the time of occurrence of events called speciation or radiation. The molecular data used for such calculations is usually nucleotide sequences for DNA or amino acid sequences for proteins. It is sometimes called a gene clock or evolutionary clock.

Ok, the below explains it... it's based on multiple species:

The genetic equidistance phenomenon was first noted in 1963 by E. Margoliash, who wrote: "It appears that the number of residue differences between cytochrome C of any two species is mostly conditioned by the time elapsed since the lines of evolution leading to these two species originally diverged. If this is correct, the cytochrome c of all mammals should be equally different from the cytochrome c of all birds. Since fish diverges from the main stem of vertebrate evolution earlier than either birds or mammals, the cytochrome c of both mammals and birds should be equally different from the cytochrome c of fish. Similarly, all vertebrate cytochrome c should be equally different from the yeast protein."[2] For example, the difference between the cytochrome C of a carp and a frog, turtle, chicken, rabbit, and horse is a very constant 13% to 14%. Similarly, the difference between the cytochrome C of a bacterium and yeast, wheat, moth, tuna, pigeon, and horse ranges from 64% to 69%. Together with the work of Emile Zuckerkandl and Linus Pauling, the genetic equidistance result directly led to the formal postulation of the molecular clock hypothesis in the early 1960s.[3] Genetic equidistance has often been used to infer equal time of separation of different sister species from an outgroup.[4][5]

BANG!!! The problem crops up AGAIN:

The molecular clock alone can only say that one time period is twice as long as another: it cannot assign concrete dates. To achieve this, the molecular clock must first be calibrated against independent evidence about dates, such as the fossil record.[7] Alternatively, for viral phylogenetics and ancient DNA studies, two areas of evolutionary biology where it is possible to sample sequences over an evolutionary timescale, the dates of the samples themselves can be used to calibrate the molecular clock.

But what if the fossil record, based on sparse evidence, isn't fully accurate?

Lets look at a different type, the molecular mitochondrial clock:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_mitochondrial_molecular_clock

Because chimps and humans share a matrilineal ancestor, establishing the geological age of that last ancestor allows the estimation of the mutation rate. The chimp-human last common ancestor (CHLCA) is frequently applied as an anchor for mt-TMRCA studies with ranges between 4 and 13 million years cited in the literature.[6] This is one source of variation in the time estimates. The other weakness is the non-clocklike accumulation of SNPs, would tend to make more recent branches look older than they actually are.[7]

Um... what? The last common ancestor... wasn't that determined via fossils? Because there was no actual ability to date the appearance of that trace in all of our mitochondrial DNA??

Ok, so just to make sure I was understanding this, I found a different source:
www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-molecular-clock-and-estimating-species-divergence-41971

When using either a strict- or relaxed-clock method of genetic analysis, the most important consideration is how to calibrate the molecular clock. Assume, for example, that researchers have two DNA sequences that have a content difference of 5%. From this information alone, it is not possible to tell whether these sequences have diverged from each other at a rate of 1% per 1 million years over a period of 5 million years, or whether they have diverged at a fivefold higher rate over a period of just 1 million years. Indeed, there is a countless range of possible combinations of rate and time, and with access to only percentage data, the researchers will not be able to determine which combination is correct. This is equivalent to trying to determine the average speed of a car merely by looking at its odometer. To deduce the average speed, one would also need to know the length of time for which the car has been travelling.



Thus, to calibrate the molecular clock, one must know the absolute age of some evolutionary divergence event, such as the split between mammals and birds. An estimate of the timing of this event can be gained by examining the fossil record, or by correlating this particular instance of evolutionary divergence with some geological event of known antiquity (such as the formation of a mountain range that split the geographic range of a species in two, thus initiating a process of speciation). Once the evolutionary rate is calculated using a calibration, this calibration can then be applied to other organisms to estimate the timing of evolutionary events.

Um no. I didn't read it wrong. They used the fossil record to calibrate the molecular clock...

Hrm. Anyone who understands this better want to clarify?

[helens]

Had another thought about dating... we know that carbon-14 dating is accurate, because it can be measured precisely. It goes back 60,000 years (well before your 14,000 year theory). So it's pretty safe to say that any skeleton up to 60,000 years should be datable via carbon-14, if it's not been fully mineralized and there's still bone fragment with carbon.

But... how did they arrive at the geological time-frame? So I looked that up:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geologic_time_scale

"Evidence from radiometric dating indicates that the Earth is about 4.54 billion years old"

So what's radiometric dating?
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiometric_dating

The use of radiometric dating was first published in 1907 by Bertram Boltwood[2] and is now the principal source of information about the absolute age of rocks and other geological features, including the age of the Earth itself, and can be used to date a wide range of natural and man-made materials. Together with stratigraphic principles, radiometric dating methods are used in geochronology to establish the geological time scale.[3] Among the best-known techniques are radiocarbon dating, potassium-argon dating and uranium-lead dating. By allowing the establishment of geological timescales, it provides a significant source of information about the ages of fossils and the deduced rates of evolutionary change. Radiometric dating is also used to date archaeological materials, including ancient artifacts.

Um... but without the presence of those particular elements... they can't date anything precisely. The earth shifts all the time, from plate movement to volcanic activity, to earthquakes, to continental drift. How could they precisely define the 'strata' to formulate the eras, when they can't precisely determine if that strata has changed over 4 billion years to guess the composition of a given strata? Or am I overthinking this?

Not done with this, just out of time. Interesting question:).

[parfive]

NARRATOR: PÄÄbo's work adds weight to the growing argument that Neanderthals and modern humans shared more abilities than previously thought. It begged a billion dollar question: did we have enough in common that we could have interbred?
If Neanderthals and modern humans had interbred successfully, traces of their D.N.A. would be found in ours. Most scientists, PÄÄbo included, thought this highly unlikely.
When different species mate, their offspring are usually infertile.

SVANTE PÄÄBO: I was biased against interbreeding. There is no evidence for it, so I don't think it really happened.

NARRATOR: But with the Neanderthal genome now sequenced, PÄÄbo and his team could examine this question. The first step was to map the individual genomes of five people from different ethnic groups. Then they compared this modern D.N.A. with the Neanderthals'.
They focused only on small specific regions, called variable areas, where the order of the D.N.A. letters often differs from one individual to the next. Here, if interbreeding had taken place, letter sequences typical of Neanderthal D.N.A. would show up in the human D.N.A. strand, but with no interbreeding, there would be no trace of Neanderthal D.N.A. in the variable areas.
PÄÄbo expected to see the same negative result in the genomes of all five modern humans, regardless of ethnic group.

ED GREEN: Well, if Neanderthals are equally distantly related to everybody, the Neanderthal should match the French guy and the West African guy equally often.

NARRATOR: But that is not what they found.

SVANTE PÄÄBO: When we compared one African to a European individual, the Neanderthal matched the European individual more often than the African.

NARRATOR: The result indicated that Neanderthals were genetically closer to Europeans and Asians than they were to Africans. It meant that somewhere along the line, European and Asian humans had picked up Neanderthal D.N.A.

SVANTE PÄÄBO: So, that was, sort of, quite shaking to me. I thought this must be a statistical fluke. It was not quite significant; this would surely go away when we have more data.

NARRATOR: So PÄÄbo told his team to do the work again and again and again.

SVANTE PÄÄBO: We really needed to make absolutely sure we were right.

ED GREEN: We started to look at the problem from different angles. Every time we would ask the question in a little bit different way and the answer would come back, "It's Neanderthal."
We were able to convince one another and, eventually, the world, we have a little bit of Neanderthal ancestry in modern human genomes.

NARRATOR: The amount of Neanderthal D.N.A. in these modern genomes is small, between just one and four percent, but the implications are staggering: after migrating out of Africa, early humans must have mated with Neanderthals and produced fertile offspring, who inherited segments of Neanderthal D.N.A.

SVANTE PÄÄBO: What we have shown, clearly, is that we could interbreed with them, we could have fertile children, and at least some of those children became incorporated in the human community and reproduced and contributed to present day humans.

NARRATOR: PÄÄbo's groundbreaking research forces a radical shift in perspective regarding Neanderthals. They were genetically close enough to have children with our species.

www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/decoding-neanderthals.html

Northern Spain, El Sidrón cave - 49,000 years ago
Gibralter - 28,000 years ago
www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/transcripts/caveman-cold-case-program-transcript/1019/

[parfive]

IOW, the _______ is living proof the ______ ______ the _______.