Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
Subjectivist wrote:http://youtu.be/FRmiIAbsJI8
Fascinating show about the breeding of Dogs from Wolves about 45,000 years ago beginning when Homo Sapiens arrived in the Middle East. The new dates for domestication push dog ancestry back to about the same time humans were meeting and marrying Neanderthals in the Middle East and Southern Europe. Russian attempts to domesticate Wolves and Foxes have proven that starting with as few as 50 breeding pairs and selecting for tameness can result in very dog like behavior in both species in as little as three generations.
DNA studies reveal that Pekingese dogs are among the closest, genetically, to wolves. Although they do not physically resemble wolves, due to intense artificial selection by generations of human keepers, Pekingese are among the least changed breeds of dogs at the level of their DNA.
+++sparky wrote:.
I would think human didn't domesticate wolves.......wolves domesticated themselves
packs of not so brave not so proud wolves , were attracted by the hunters refuse ,
either at the hunting site or in the midden were some stuff was cast off
some co-dependency , for the humans the presence of wolves wasn't much of a problem ,
they couldn't really get rid of them ,
the wolves would keep smaller predators off
and they provided an excellent early warning system
down the years , habits developed , kids and infantile would chase each others
the females and the mothers understood each other ,don't hurt the kids or there will be trouble
adults would follows the hunters to get to the kill site first and get the juicy offal
probably despairing at how dumb the human were ,
helping them to track game was pure self interest ,
those guys would waste so much time finding prey , it was better to show them where to go
The hunters got the message no doubt and trusted the look of disgust on the Wolves
telling them they'd better follows their signals if they wanted to bring anything back at all
I can imagine a veteran hunter grabbing his bow and spears to escape the wife nagging
while an old male pricked up his ears , pretty fed up with the puppies chewing his tail
both going to "hunt" together for a bit of quiet quality time
Neandertals and modern Europeans had something in common: They were fatheads of the same ilk. A new genetic analysis reveals that our brawny cousins had a number of distinct genes involved in the buildup of certain types of fat in their brains and other tissues—a trait shared by today’s Europeans, but not Asians. Because two-thirds of our brains are built of fatty acids, or lipids, the differences in fat composition between Europeans and Asians might have functional consequences, perhaps in helping them adapt to colder climates or causing metabolic diseases.
“This is the first time we have seen differences in lipid concentrations between populations,” says evolutionary biologist Philipp Khaitovich of the CAS-MPG Partner Institute for Computational Biology in Shanghai, China, and the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, lead author of the new study. “How our brains are built differently of lipids might be due to Neandertal DNA.”
Alfred Tennyson wrote:We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
sparky wrote:.
I've followed the human genome project with gret interest and hope
the diversity of human races is a source of joy and quite reassuring
maybe we are not the genocidial maniac an unity of genes ( and the archeological record ) would imply
there is always the hope that one day maybe we will find somewhere
a direct linear descendant of the Neanderthal alive , either a "y" or "x" doesn't matter
that would be the absolution of the sin of having whipped them out
... a zooarchaeologist from the University of Colorado Denver says he’s found evidence that European Neanderthals may have weathered periods of extreme cold brought about by climate change, based on signs of nutritional stress left behind in their remains. Jamie Hodgkins, CU Denver assistant professor of anthropology, analyzed the remains left behind by animals hunted by Neanderthals, discovering that our extinct relatives worked particularly hard to glean every bit of sustenance from the meat and bones when the weather turned colder.
Focusing on caves in southwestern France that are proven to have been inhabited by Neanderthals, Hodgkins took a hard look at the bones of prey animals that had been unearthed in these caves and examined the telltale signs left behind on these remains from the butchering process. She discovered that, during colder periods punctuated by increased glacial activity, these bones had been processed more heavily, including a larger number of percussion marks. This indicates a need to expose the marrow from within these bones, implying a reduction in the availability of food overall...
...Neanderthals suffered high levels of stress in cold and harsh environments. With the climate becoming colder and harsher, Neanderthals had to devote more time and energy into pulling every last calorie they could from bones, the researcher added, stating that the evidence of this need was even apparent in bones that yielded relatively little marrow. Remains such as the small bones of the prey animals’ feet bore the marks of perhaps desperately hungry Neanderthals, as much as larger bones with more easily accessible marrow.
The findings of Hodgins’ team lends further support to theories surrounding the extinction of the Neanderthals in regards to climate change being a factor.
Climate change had very real effects, according to the research findings, and Hodgkins says that the study of Neanderthal behavior presents opportunities to understand how rapidly deteriorating climatic conditions had such a serious and negative effect on our now-extinct close evolutionary cousins...
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