Why are we the only members of the homo genus?

[The Grand Nudger]

Yup. By any of my own personal standards of winning the breeding game, absolutely. Though there's alot to be said for hitching your wagon to a rising star, look how well dogs and cats have done..hehehe. Technically though, if we interbred and the result survives to this very day, they're not extinct (this would depend, btw, on who you asked and what their specialty was in the field).

[Adjusted Sanity]

I wonder what the world would be like if we had stayed separate somehow. Seems unlikely, but it's an interesting thought.

[Anomalocaris]

Yup. By any of my own personal standards of winning the breeding game, absolutely. Though there's alot to be said for hitching your wagon to a rising star, look how well dogs and cats have done..hehehe.

If you move to a country of Eskimos and marry a young Eskimo lass. The next generation of Eskimos in the country will look almost completely like Eskimos. Does that mean you just loss the grand game?

[Minimalist]

Where the fuck would we be without them?

Sitting in caves eating rocks.



There was a find not too long ago of Homo Heidelbergensis in Spain which now seems to be a hybrid of HNS and Heidelbergensis. The fact that they could interbreed and produce viable offspring suggests that they were not separate species and one is now getting perilously close to Homo Erectus which seems to be the grand-daddy of us all.

Even creationist lunatics, like it or not.

[The Grand Nudger]

Eskimos are HSS Chuck (so it's not entirely the same situation-unless HSS and HN are in fact the same species).....and yes, like I said, depending on who you ask.

Someone who specializes in population genetics for example would tell you that the HN is far less represented genetically than HSS. A person who specializes in the tools of the time would tell you that HSS tools triumphed completely over HN's. A cultural anthropologist might suggest that we know very little about HN culture as opposed to the massive amount of knowledge we have regarding HSS culture.

[Anomalocaris]

Someone who specializes in population genetics for example would tell you that the HN is far less represented genetically than HSS. A person who specializes in the tools of the time would tell you that HSS tools triumphed completely over HN's. A cultural anthropologist might suggest that we know very little about HN culture as opposed to the massive amount of knowledge we have regarding HSS culture.

Evolution is only concerned with survival of your genes. If your culture conqueors the world but you die without issue, you remain the grand loser.

If there were 1 Neaderthal and 1,000,000 HSS and they interbreed. If that neaderthal's genetic line survives to today, but lineage of half of the 1,000,000 HSS dies out, then the 1 Neaderthal is the winner, at least half of the HSS were losers, and that 1 Neaderthal is arguably fitter than the average of the 1,000,000 HSS, despite the fact that the total gene pool still has more HSS contribution than HN contributions.

Now you see the issue with "grand winner" from Darwinian point of view?

[Minimalist]

Again, recent finds indicate that HNS tools were not all that primitive.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/scien...ology.html

"The tools we've found at the site are technologically advanced and potentially older than tools in Britain belonging to our own species, Homo sapiens," says Dr Matthew Pope of Archaeology South East based at University College London.

[The Grand Nudger]

Absolutely Chuck, and that is what an evolutionary biologist will tell you if you ask them who the winners of any given competition were.
(ah speaking of, and ignoring that my grand winner bit was more a turn of phrase than a scientific assessment, have you considered that the mechanism by which the HN's genome surviving, if it were due to its being carried by some part of the HSS genome (or at least those half that carried it) would leave it as a piggybacking freeloader..speaking "darwinianly"..lol. HSS still wins, HN simply grifts from the winners table.)

A good link Min, lets not overlook an important line in that article

""Unlike earlier, more typical Neanderthal tools"

I'm not personally one of those folks that imagines neanderthals as mouth breathing idiots. Their points for example, probably worlds better than our own for hunting big game. We also, iirc, have reason to believe that their spears would have likely been much sturdier than our own. But we did end up with the better tools, and we are still here. Their technology vanishes, and (unless the interbreeding bit becomes rock solid) so did they. I'm trying to find you a link btw with regards to possible competition between our respective populations. I cant recall the name of the researcher but they provided a compelling case that we might have our dates mixed up a bit and that HN and HSS may not have coexisted for quite enough time for competitive pressure to have played a role at all. You know me though, I always parrot the convention (but I do usually give a nod to emerging data when I'm aware of it don't I?).

---

Oh, and speaking of the tools, since I rarely get the chance to have a discussion about this with anyone who I know is even remotely interested. I've been musing recently on the advantage the types of tools we were making as the mega-fauna disappears and how they would have conferred an advantage by default, through no conscious effort on our own parts. The hafted spears, smaller projectiles (the darts and increasingly complicated Atlatls). The definite trends towards smaller finer points may not have been any adaptation to available game, it could just as easily have been the toolmaker skimping, making the materials stretch a little farther. A sharp point is the business end, and the bulk of the tool behind it isn't strictly speaking required, nor is there any reason not to annihilate a rabbit with a massive point.

[Minimalist]

and we are still here.

And so are they. They are part of us. They are in our DNA.

Let's not forget that we have examples of what inbreeding in an isolated group can do to a population.


Inuit


Bushmen


Lapps


Stupid Rednecks

I wonder what percentage of their DNA is detectable in us?

[The Grand Nudger]

Yes, to the tune of 4% (was that the figure the study cited?). Best 96 out of 100? Don't get me wrong, I kind of like the HN (and I definitely like that 4%), Im not some rabid HN hater..I'm kind of partial to the rednecks as well, actually in fairness I like them just a little bit more (especially the one second to the left...how much for the female?). To me, the dissappearence of Habilis and Erectus are more mystifying.