“Dragon Man” May Replace Neanderthal as Our Closest Relative (The Scientist).
The single cranium used to describe the species—the largest of any hominin and remarkably well-preserved for being at least 146,000 years old—has a murky history that some experts say limits what conclusions can be drawn about it, but it does add to anthropologists’ understanding of human evolution in Asia during the latter half of the middle Pleistocene, an important period in human expansion.
Scientists hail stunning ‘Dragon Man’ discovery (BBC News). Pallab Ghosh, the professional Darwin hype specialist at the BBC for all things concerning human evolution, gives the skull positive propaganda, as is his style.
Notes: The skull had a brain size “about the same as average” for modern people. Large brow ridges have advantages for protecting eyes and anchoring chewing muscles. Today’s humans may be deprived of those advantages because of accumulated mutations. But the scientists are not even sure about the provenance or date of the skull.
Homo longi: extinct human species that may replace Neanderthals as our closest relatives found in China (The Conversation). Anthony Sinclair from the University of Liverpool accepts the new species name uncritically. He pushes all the dates as facts, not only for this skull but for its ancestors and their ancestors, up to almost a million years back – all from one skull. Trust me, he says.
While the shape of the family tree presented here is likely to stand the test of time, it is still too early to accept these predicted divergence dates as definitive. That said, the research also sheds important light on how human species occurred and spread through the Middle Pleistocene – into all areas of our planet. Crucially, many of these species may have interbreed.
Mysterious skull fossils expand human family tree — but questions remain (Nature). Nicola Jones joins the parade but allows some room for doubt, saying that the Dragon Man skull has “sparked debate.” Note: only moyboys and evolutionists are allowed in the debate.
Newly identified ancestor of Neanderthals complicates the human story (New Scientist). Michael Marshall thinks Dragon Man is an ancestor of Neanderthals just because the discoverers say so. He admits, however, that the story is now more complicated. Why do they even call these hominins? They’re upright-walking, tool-making, intelligent humans, and now the dates are all scrambled up. Doesn’t Mike know that the species names are all obsolete racist labels for people?
The sediments in which the bones were found are between
140,000 and 120,000 years old. Our species had emerged in Africa by this time, and made some forays outside: Homo sapiens specimens from 210,000 years ago have been found in Greece, and a seemingly more sustained population existed in the Israel region from at least 177,000 years ago. But H. sapiens wasn’t the only hominin: Europe and western Asia were home to the Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis), while eastern Asia was home to a related group called the Denisovans.
As expected, all the media reporters who were “in” on the embargo had advance copies of the artwork so that they could appear as insiders with their D-Merit Badges when publishing their versions of the story. The drawings show a muscular male with full beard and long black hair, six-pack abs and big arm guns, holding a stone tool. At least he was probably not competing in women’s sports back in a time when biological sex meant something.
Divination with DNA
The announcement may have scooped a large team from Max Planck Institute that published in Nature an account of the DNA collections in Denisova Cave, Siberia. They think they can reconstruct 300,000 years of occupation of this cave. Do they really think that intelligent upright people who were skilled hunters had nothing else to do for that long? The regurgitators at Medical Xpress do.
When matching the DNA profiles with the ages of the layers, the researchers found that the earliest hominin DNA belonged to Denisovans, indicating that they produced the oldest stone tools at the site between 250,000 and 170,000 years ago. The first Neandertals arrived towards the end of this time period, after which both Denisovans and Neandertals frequented the site—except between 130,000 and 100,000 years ago, when no Denisovan DNA was detected in the sediments. The Denisovans who came back after this time carried a different mitochondrial DNA, suggesting that a different population arrived in the region.
The team had to assume evolution to date the DNA based on the Darwin narrative. The geochronologists collected samples from 700 sites in the cave, and then the evolutionists put them into the standard timeline. Divination experts could tell any story they desire from that kind of mishmash.
