Neanderthals And Mammoths Turned Out To Be Relatives Of - Alternative View

Neanderthals And Mammoths Turned Out To Be Relatives Of - Alternative View
Neanderthals And Mammoths Turned Out To Be Relatives Of - Alternative View

Video: Neanderthals And Mammoths Turned Out To Be Relatives Of - Alternative View

Video: Neanderthals And Mammoths Turned Out To Be Relatives Of - Alternative View
Video: What DNA Says About Our Human Family Episode II, Ancient Relatives: Neanderthals and Denisovans 2024, March
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Scientists have found a genetic similarity between creatures of two seemingly completely different species.

Similar genetic traits of Neanderthals and mammoths were discovered by Professor Ran Barkai and his colleague Meidad Kislev of Tel Aviv University, Department of Archeology and Ancient Near Eastern Cultures, according to the university's website.

Mammoths and Neanderthals are contemporaries. Some appeared in the northern regions of Eurasia and North America 600 thousand years ago, others a little later - about 400 thousand years ago. The mammoths were covered with long red hair and had a very thick layer of subcutaneous fat. What helped to endure frost.

And Neanderthals - also red and fat - were distinguished by frost resistance. Could it be because they were genetically and molecularly similar to their giant furry counterparts? The seemingly crazy assumption of scientists was confirmed. The similarity was found in several genes at once. Some were responsible for the color of the skin and hair, others for their density, and others for thermoregulation and fat accumulation.

Kislev and Barkai believe that mammoths and Neanderthals have become similar to each other due to the fact that they lived side by side. Demonstrated, in scientific terms, an example of convergent evolution - a process by which beings of different species can acquire similar features under the influence of the same environment.

It is possible that Neanderthals, like mammoths, were covered with long hair.

The main thing in acquiring similar genetic traits, according to scientists, which they outlined in the journal Human Biology, was that Neanderthals ate mammoths for tens of thousands of years. They became extinct at about the same time. Although, according to some reports, mammoths outlived their genetic relatives by at least 20 thousand years.

By the way, the hypothesis that the Neanderthals hunted and ate mammoths is very controversial. It was recently refuted by researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, a large group led by Klervia Jaouen. Anthropologists have conducted in-depth isotope analysis of the remains of our extinct brothers in mind and, in part, ancestors. And he showed: the "brothers" were predators - they ate mainly deer and horses. And for some reason they took care of mammoths, for the extermination of which the Neanderthals were accused even in school textbooks …

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The hypothesis that the Neanderthals hunted mammoths is now considered highly controversial
The hypothesis that the Neanderthals hunted mammoths is now considered highly controversial

The hypothesis that the Neanderthals hunted mammoths is now considered highly controversial.

VLADIMIR LAGOVSKY

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