other sources
Julian May also posited multi-species interactions giving rise to legends. Specifically, neanderthals as trolls and ogres, and australopithicus as gnomes/elves. The reference is small and quick at the end of the Pliocene Exile books.
She also proposed a time-travel-based jump-start for austrolopithicus... and another time-travel-based paradox-driven alien seed population of modern humans. But those're both longer stories, and any explanation would involve major spoilers.
I'm also a big fan of a large hairy hominid relation - yeti and sasquatch. Maybe a robustus descendant?
On current anthropological evidence for cross-breeding... I think folks earlier in the thread have it right - currently reported mtDNA evidence is pointing away from neanderthals interbreeding (at least productively) with homo saps. This is contradicted by some amount of fragmentary fossil evidence.
Personally, I think it's going to take a significant kuhn-ian paradigm-shift before anyone in the anthropological community will publish evidence demonstrating that modern populations have anything other than a monolithic derivation from a single specific early hominid population.
Can you imagine the reaction if an academic seriously put forward the idea that south africans and west africans were no more closely related to europeans than neanderthals or florensis?
I've been watching some of the genetic diversity studies with great interest. Turns out africa contains more genetic diversity among its peoples than the rest of the world combined. then europe. then south asia. then pacifica. then the americas. Current best information shows that the population of the americas from about 30k years ago (excluding visitors in the last 5k years, and a possible early influs ~40k yrs ago) may have been by as few as 2,000 folks, giving rise to all of the native american peoples. Not much diversity there... But it turns out the masai, the bantu, and the hottentots are no more closely related to each other than any of them are to the navajo, the inuit, or the british. but the navajo, the inuit, and the british are all more closely related to each other than to the masai, bantu, or hottentots (though I'd have to really go back and look up which african group is _most_ closely related to non-african modern humans).
Point being, if we demonstrate that the europeans are partly derived from neanderthals, we open the door to the idea that asian populations include _different_ non-human ancestors. And that africans my incorporate significantly diverse non-human ancestors. Then we watch the racists celebrate and start the great genetic lineage witch-hunts.
But maybe sometime in the next few decades we'll get past that place? hrrm... maybe not. maybe a few generations down the line? hope springs eternal.
Julian May also posited multi-species interactions giving rise to legends. Specifically, neanderthals as trolls and ogres, and australopithicus as gnomes/elves. The reference is small and quick at the end of the Pliocene Exile books.
She also proposed a time-travel-based jump-start for austrolopithicus... and another time-travel-based paradox-driven alien seed population of modern humans. But those're both longer stories, and any explanation would involve major spoilers.
I'm also a big fan of a large hairy hominid relation - yeti and sasquatch. Maybe a robustus descendant?
On current anthropological evidence for cross-breeding... I think folks earlier in the thread have it right - currently reported mtDNA evidence is pointing away from neanderthals interbreeding (at least productively) with homo saps. This is contradicted by some amount of fragmentary fossil evidence.
Personally, I think it's going to take a significant kuhn-ian paradigm-shift before anyone in the anthropological community will publish evidence demonstrating that modern populations have anything other than a monolithic derivation from a single specific early hominid population.
Can you imagine the reaction if an academic seriously put forward the idea that south africans and west africans were no more closely related to europeans than neanderthals or florensis?
I've been watching some of the genetic diversity studies with great interest. Turns out africa contains more genetic diversity among its peoples than the rest of the world combined. then europe. then south asia. then pacifica. then the americas. Current best information shows that the population of the americas from about 30k years ago (excluding visitors in the last 5k years, and a possible early influs ~40k yrs ago) may have been by as few as 2,000 folks, giving rise to all of the native american peoples. Not much diversity there... But it turns out the masai, the bantu, and the hottentots are no more closely related to each other than any of them are to the navajo, the inuit, or the british. but the navajo, the inuit, and the british are all more closely related to each other than to the masai, bantu, or hottentots (though I'd have to really go back and look up which african group is _most_ closely related to non-african modern humans).
Point being, if we demonstrate that the europeans are partly derived from neanderthals, we open the door to the idea that asian populations include _different_ non-human ancestors. And that africans my incorporate significantly diverse non-human ancestors. Then we watch the racists celebrate and start the great genetic lineage witch-hunts.
But maybe sometime in the next few decades we'll get past that place? hrrm... maybe not. maybe a few generations down the line? hope springs eternal.
