Young Homo naledi surprises 9 May 2017 - Wits University 250 000 year old species from Rising Star Cave raises more questions about our origins. The Rising Star Cave system in South Africa has revealed yet more important discoveries, only a year and a half after it was announced that the richest fossil hominin site in Africa had been discovered, and that it contained a new hominin species named Homo naledi by the scientists who described it. The age of the original Homo naledi remains from the Dinaledi Chamber has been revealed to be startlingly young in age. Homo naledi, which was first announced in September 2015, was alive sometime between 335 and 236 thousand years ago. This places this population of primitive small-brained hominins at a time and place that it is likely they lived alongside Homo sapiens. This is the first time that it has been demonstrated that another species of hominin survived alongside the first humans in Africa. Continues... ::Moderator Edit:: Link to the quoted article: https://www.wits.ac.za/homonaledi/whats-new/news/young-homo-naledi-surprises.html Please refer to Mod Note for further explanation.
My understanding is that homo sapiens arose about 200,000 years ago, somewhat later than the dates you discussed.
The closest date, 225,000 years, was the upper date for the bodies found in the Rising Star cave system for the specimens dated. That doesn't mean they only lived from 335 to 225 thousand years ago, just that the samples were in that range. Berger, et al., believe they could have easily lived into the age of "modern" humans.
I am sort curious : What was the Neanderthal man doing in France and Germany 400 000 years ago , Was Neand.... an animal ? he made tools, he used paint he had family, he mated with the modern homo sapien and passed its genes. How much modern do you want to be ?
The distinction between Neanderthals and us is rather like that between chimps and bonobos. Very closely related, but the scientists says they're distinct species. The "modern human" means the Homo sapiens sapiens line as opposed to Neanderthals, Denisovians, and (any others?). We're the line that survived to this day, but many of us carry Neanderthal along with us. Lee Berger is one of the people who describe the human lineage as a "braided stream", separating, sometimes widely, and then some of the streams converge for a while and after a bit the stream splits again. Over seven million years we've had plenty of chance to experiment.
The distinction was made on what bases ? Or was it because in the past we had less information, as I remember , the Neandertal was a brute animal , pretty sun we will dress him in a suit and tie .
Mod Note Gawdzilla Sama, welcome to sciforums. Please be advised that when you quote from articles or studies, you are required to cite your source and provide a link as a basic minimum. As you are new to the forum, you may not be aware of our site's rules. Here is a link to our site's rules: http://www.sciforums.com/threads/sciforums-site-rules.142880/ I have edited your opening post to insert the link to the article you quoted. Please be mindful that this is a one time only thing, because you are new to this site. In future, if quoting from another source, you will be required to cite your sources, otherwise it can be construed as plagiarism and a copyright infringement from the site you pulled the text from.
Sorry, my "continues..." is usually the text for the link. Must have got distracted somewhere. After 14 years at Purdue I do know the rules. Cheers.
Just saw this: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/09/170928142016.htm Modern humans emerged more than 300,000 years ago new study suggests Date: September 28, 2017 Source: Uppsala University Summary: A genomic analysis of ancient human remains from KwaZulu-Natal revealed that southern Africa has an important role to play in writing the history of humankind. Continues...
For those of you who missed the Nova "Dawn of Humanity" program on the discovery of Homo naledi: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/dawn-of-humanity.html Claustrophobes be advised. Lee Berger was recently stuck for an hour when he tried to get to the new cave site. This one's a wee bit smaller.
We've had other threads wherein I've posted that H. sapiens' origin might be 500+K years ago, in light of the ability to interbreed with H. sapiens neanderthalensis, which diverged some 500+K years ago from our other ancestors.
We might have been able to produce viable offspring with many ancient homo species (except chimps, gorillas, and orangutans). It would take rarely found DNA to determine exact lineage.
The closer to the branching the more likely such would be possible, true. But that's not my question.
The answer is without DNA, all we can say is that there was a common ancestor about that time. The branching could have happened any time.
It is believed that they are a variant of H. sapiens. H. sapiens continued to evolve into H.sapiens sapiens, and the H. Sapiens Neandethalensis that had branched off earlier continued to change/evolve to more recent neanderthals. Several hundred thousand years later, they began interbreeding again. I'm happy to say I have Neanderthal ancestors (as, apparently, do all people).
You're speaking of Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens neanderthalensis then. If H. sapiens split then those two would at least be the major branches insofar as I understand things.
