Re: Could our big brains come from Neanderthals?

on 10 Nov 2006 15:14:20 -0800, Lee Olsen <paleocity@xxxxxxxxxxx> sez:

Jois wrote:
"Spanish Paranoia" <laparanoia@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message

[...]

Roger Bagula wrote:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061107/sc_nm/science_neanderthals_dc
Could our big brains come from Neanderthals?

Tue Nov 7, 6:07 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Neanderthals may have given the modern humans who
replaced them a priceless gift -- a gene that helped them develop
superior brains, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.

[...]

Doesn't this say that 30% of the human population has inferior
brains?

No, if I have Roth's explanation right (and I probably don't :-), and
what the article is actually saying,
"Lahn and his coauthors suggest that the haplogroup might have made
Homo sapiens better able to adapt to the Eurasian environments that
Neandertals had occupied long before modern newcomers arrived."

People were moving out of Africa before AMH came in contact with
Neanderthals - they don't have the D allele?

Right.

The conclusion here must be that despite the association with brain
development, variation in this gene (short of microcephalic pathology)
does not have a significant effect on overall intellectual function.

....But hey, remember the guy who used to post here who was convinced
that autism/Asperger's was due to a Hn gene? Within that idea is the
notion that genes from Hn might change behaviour, but not overall
intellectual ability. That's not out of the question, but it would
be difficult to tease out, I would guess.

What does this mean in terms of
race?

Nothing as far as Hss, it might have something to do with Neandertals
being the same species as us.

And would this give Klein's theory of the great leap that occurred in
the AMH a great leap forward?

No, I thought that at first also, but the advantage was only claimed
for "Eurasian environments." This makes sense because the 10% of
Europens that don't have the special D are not enviromentally
challenged, but probably came more recently from a warmer or an African
type environment. Roth said 100% D in Native Americans. This also is
OK, because their ancestors spent more time farther north (developing
shoveled incisors and such), weeding out the non-Ds, thus finally
ending up in the Americas at 100%.

I would guess if this haplogroup distribution is as they say, it
must be pretty much non-existent in Australian aborigines. I'm
not aware of any suggestion that the Aa's are particularly mentally
deficient. Australia continues to refute Klein's theory, and
he seems to have failed to address it at all, that I'm aware.
It would seem he must reject the accepted dates for Australian
occupation...


--
==========================================================================
vincent@triumf[munge].ca Pete Vincent
Disclaimer: all I know I learned from reading Usenet.
.

Relevant Pages

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