Father of All Men Lived 340,000 Years Ago

[stromboli]

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn2 ... s-old.html

Albert Perry carried a secret in his DNA: a Y chromosome so distinctive that it reveals new information about the origin of our species. It shows that the last common male ancestor of our species is over twice as old as we thought.

One possible explanation is that hundreds of thousands of years ago, modern and archaic humans in central Africa interbred, adding to known examples of interbreeding – with Neanderthals in the Middle East, and with the enigmatic Denisovans somewhere in southeast Asia.

Perry, recently deceased, was an African-American who lived in South Carolina. A few years ago, one of his female relatives submitted a sample of his DNA to a company called Family Tree DNA for genealogical analysis.

Geneticists can use such samples to work out how we are related to one another. Hundreds of thousands of people have now had their DNA tested. The data from these tests had shown that all men gained their Y chromosome from a common male ancestor. This genetic "Adam" lived between 60,000 and 140,000 years ago.

All men except Perry, that is. When Family Tree DNA's technicians tried to place Perry on the Y-chromosome family tree, they just couldn't. His Y chromosome was like no other so far analysed.

Deeper roots

Michael Hammer, a geneticist at the University of Arizona in Tucson, heard about Perry's unusual Y chromosome and did some further testing. His team's research revealed something extraordinary: Perry did not descend from the genetic Adam. In fact, his Y chromosome was so distinct that his male lineage probably separated from all others about 338,000 years ago.

"The Y-chromosome tree is much older than we thought," says Chris Tyler-Smith at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Hinxton, UK, who was not involved in the study. He says further work will be needed to confirm exactly how much older.

"It's a cool discovery," says Jon Wilkins of the Ronin Institute in Montclair, New Jersey. "We geneticists have been looking at Y chromosomes about as long as we've been looking at anything. Changing where the root of the Y-chromosome tree is at this point is extremely surprising."

Digging deeper, Hammer's team examined an African database of nearly 6000 Y chromosomes and found similarities between Perry's and those in samples taken from 11 men, all living in one village in Cameroon. This may indicate where in Africa Perry's ancestors hailed from.

Older than humanity

The first anatomically modern human fossils date back only 195,000 years, so Perry's Y chromosome lineage split from the rest of humanity long before our species appeared.

What are the implications? One possibility is that Perry's Y chromosome may have been inherited from an archaic human population that has since gone extinct. If that's the case, then some time within the last 195,000 years, anatomically modern humans interbred with an ancient African human.

There is some supporting evidence for this scenario. In 2011, researchers examined human fossils from a Nigerian site called Iwo Eleru. The fossils showed a strange mix of ancient and modern features, which also suggested interbreeding between modern and archaic humans. "The Cameroon village with an unusual genetic signature is right on the border with Nigeria, and Iwo Eleru is not too far away," says Hammer.

Chris Stringer at the Natural History Museum, London, was involved in the Iwo Eleru analysis, and says the new Y chromosome result highlights the need for more genetic data from modern-day sub-Saharan Africans. "The oldest known fossil humans in both West Africa at Iwo Eleru and Central Africa at Ishango [in Democratic Republic of the Congo] show unexpectedly archaic features, so it certainly looks like we have a more complex scenario for the evolution of modern humans in Africa."

[Valigarmander]

Wow, I had no idea Noah lived that long ago.

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Fascinating.  Really.  Every time we turn around nature surprises us.

Just as we try to understand and categorize everything, nature goes and creates more hemi-demi-semi-species.

[aitm]

don'td be silly bitchessss,, white men were the beginnings and de endeds.

[GurrenLagann]

Quite incredible, really. :) You know, I'd like to get my genome sequenced some day soon.

[stromboli]

Quite incredible, really. :) You know, I'd like to get my genome sequenced some day soon.

I already know a good bit of my ancestral history, thanks to Mormon genealogy. My last name is Young and I trace back on one side through Brigham Young and on the other directly from Sweden, so there are no surprises for me.

[stromboli]

Really would like to see a lot more research in the sub-Saharan cultures. Could lead to some very interesting discoveries.

[Davka]

Excellent find, stromboli!

[SGOS]

Amazing.  I always thought (for no particular reason, I suppose) that man must be older than that 100,000 year range.  That doesn't sound like enough time for modern man to evolve, but with the slow process of evolution being what it is, I think determining the exact point where man began, must be a dicey call.  It's not like once there were nothing but apes, and then one gave birth to an offspring that tipped the genetic line that all of a sudden crossed over to human.  At least I don't think so.  I also don't understand this new fangled DNA stuff very well, so I'll have to defer to smarter guys than me, and take them at their word.

[Colanth]

A primitive society that didn't feel the necessity to do that is so different and interesting. That looks very important to me, because they know that homo sapients had that habit and they also had better weapons and had more generalised nutrition habits. I wonder if these are connected. It 'feels' like there could be a connection, because weapon making and jewelry making are two kind of expertise that depends on high hand craft and intelligence. Of course I don't mean 'jewelery' in the sense we know.

I wonder if this possibly new species adorn themselves? Were they like us or Neanderthals?

Good questions - and why archaeology needs art historians, among other specialists, in addition to the normal cast of characters.

[GurrenLagann]

Well, this would seem to show that Dawkins and others were closer in saying they thought 250,000+ was a possible approximation.

[induz]

Hmm..  this raises some interesting questions.

Perhaps modern humans date back beyond 200,000 years?  But even then, how did we evolve?  and from whom?  or do some of our genes have legacies from archaic homo sapiens?

I think to suggest we hold a total knowledge of human evolution is bull.  Who is to say we won't find a homo heidelbergensis fossil in Antarctica?  that would really throw the cat amongst the pigeons. lol..

[missingnocchi]

My DNA wouldn't be that interesting. Thanks to meticulous bookkeeping on the part of my ancestors, I know that I am descended from Western Europeans dating all the way back to the Norman Invasion. Incidentally, my most recent notable ancestor was William the Conqueror's brother.

[induz]

So this means, there comes another root? A new species? Or whatever this species is if unrevealed and proven it must be older than Neanderthals, right? If I am not mistaken they date in 200.000 year range? I wonder how many sister species we actually had. Amazing. And did we contribute to their demise?

There was a documentary on Animal Planet counting many reasonable scenarios on why Neanderthals might have died out, but there wasn't an agreed on conclusion of course. There was really interesting differences pointed out between us and them though. Especially the bit that scientist believe Neanderthals weren't inclined to self adornment, jewelry, accessorising themselves. That's astonishing and baffling to me. If you think that's how 'art' started. (There is a vague symbolic concept of First Art in art history which is used by 'anthroplogically minded art historians' And in philosophical art theory, the clashes with some old points made and relied on in classical understanding of art history, which is already nonsense if you ask me. but it's a very important turn in how the fields in 'arts and humanities' work. In the future a good measure of 'correction' may be needed,lol. That makes me happy for some reason. )

A primitive society that didn't feel the necessity to do that is so different and interesting. That looks very important to me, because they know that homo sapients had that habit and they also had better weapons and had more generalised nutrition habits. I wonder if these are connected. It 'feels' like there could be a connection, because weapon making and jewelry making are two kind of expertise that depends on high hand craft and intelligence. Of course I don't mean 'jewelery' in the sense we know.

I wonder if this possibly new species adorn themselves? Were they like us or Neanderthals?

Thanks strom. :)

neanderthal intelligence is moot.  

For all we know, they had language capabilities equal with our own.  And neurologically there is no evidence they were inferior to us, since brains obviously cannot fossilise.  Even then, we only supposedly became behaviourally modern 50,000 years ago, so for about 150,000 years we may have used tools, hunted, gathered and travelled but had no art or culture as we know it today.

As for new species, most likely this man's way distant ancestor was a heidelbergensis/antecessor, or even a late homo erectus/ergaster.

[Shiranu]

And neurologically there is no evidence they were inferior to us, since brains obviously cannot fossilise.

No, but skulls can, and the proportion of the brain-to-body ratio is a pretty consistent means of figuring out a creatures intelligence. That's not to say they were unintelligent creatures... they were infact far more advanced than everything else. But they simply did not have the "computing power" if you will to compete with us.