A group of geneticists from the University of Pennsylvania (USA) claims: a hitherto unknown archaic species of Homo, the "cousin" of the Neanderthals, who lived in Africa 25 thousand years ago, coexisted with modern people and interbred with them periodically.
After decades of excavation, paleoanthropologists seem to have created a more or less complete picture of the origin of the human species: modern man appeared in Africa about 200 thousand years ago, and then all the ancient species of the genus Homo disappeared, surviving only in marginal areas such as the cold Europe (Neanderthals) and remote Asia (Denisovans, etc.). Although this does not remove the question of a possible crossing with these species on the periphery, in Asia and Europe, in Africa, it is believed, humans developed quite independently.
As is often the case in science, as soon as something is established for sure, individuals are immediately found who spoil everything. A group of geneticists led by Sarah A. Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania has just published a study in the journal Cell, which unequivocally states that a hitherto unknown archaic species of Homo, the "cousin" of the Neanderthals, "lingered" in Africa until only 25 thousand years, coexisting with modern people and periodically interbreeding with them.
The researchers base these bold claims on the results of their complete (including non-coding regions) analysis of the genome of three isolated groups of hunter-gatherers living in what is now Africa: the Hadza and Sandawa from Tanzania and the pygmy group from Cameroon. All three are considered relatively little modified by late influences: suffice it to say that the Hadza and Sandave languages have clicking consonants as full-fledged phonemes, which, besides them, is characteristic only of closely related Khoisan languages and the ritual language of Damina in Australia (in fact, extinct).
For each group, the genome of five men was analyzed. In the DNA of pygmies, Dr. Tishkoff and colleagues have discovered genes that control pituitary gland development that may be responsible for their small stature and early puberty: they seem to simply stunt growth and provoke early puberty.
All three groups showed in their genomes many short stretches with extremely interesting sequences. Scientists interpret these sequences, unusual for human DNA, as remnants of genes acquired by crossing with other, archaic species of Homo. It is very important: these crosses, according to geneticists, took place only 20–80 thousand years ago. According to the researchers, this unknown type of archaic man originated from a common ancestor with man and the Neanderthal about 1.2 million years ago (at about the same time the European Neanderthals had intercourse with the ancestors). But the DNA sequence of the conditional "species X", crossing with which is attributed to the three studied modern African groups, differs from the DNA of the Neanderthals: we are talking about two different descendants of the same species.
It is not true, you understand that the theses of geneticists were received by paleoanthropologists, to put it mildly, without enthusiasm. Human fossils in Africa over the past 200,000 years show a modern type of human - and no other related species. Neanderthals in Europe and Denisovans in Asia, according to other groups of geneticists, interbred with Europeans and Asians about 100 thousand years ago, but Africans seemed relatively clean from hybridization by representatives of Homo Sapiens. Even interbreeding with Neanderthals and Denisovans causes a serious distrust of archaeologists and paleoanthropologists: according to their data, man left Africa 55 thousand years ago, and if we accept the conclusions of geneticists, then either Neanderthals and others made "trips" to Africa, or Homo Sapiens another 100 thousand. years ago on a regular basis mastered intercontinental travel,and both there and back.
But paleoanthropologists literally cannot calmly talk about parallel human species in Africa. "This is another example of the tendency of geneticists to ignore fossil remains and archaeological evidence," says eminent paleoanthropologist Richard Klein of Stanford University (USA). "Perhaps because they believe that the latter can always be tailored retroactively to the needs of geneticists." In addition, another genetic work is now being prepared, which even attributes mixing with Neanderthals in the past to both Asians and East African humans. But, argue paleoanthropologists, Neanderthals were clearly adapted to the cold climate and lived in Europe!
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Dr. Klein goes further: he considers the interbreeding of archaic and modern human species to be a "methodological artifact" (!), A mistake hidden in the statistical calculations on which geneticists relied in their research. And this is stated about a science to which the respected paleoanthropologist has no direct relationship.
The fallacy of these calculations, in his opinion, will become apparent after the accumulation of a sufficient number of publications of geneticists that are unequivocally incompatible with the available archaeological data. "Until then, I think it is important to be skeptical about such claims [geneticists] when they so clearly contradict fossil finds and archaeological evidence," he says.
As you might guess, geneticists, led by Sarah Tishkoff, note that all existing errors can prevent the correct sequencing of the DNA of one person. But in 15 cases such a mistake is excluded: all the genomes of pygmies, sandave and hadza show the same thing.
As geneticists note, only 2.5% of the genes of the three groups of Africans considered belong to the archaic "species X", which means that traces of such weak hybridization simply cannot be identified in fossil remains, because the differences will be invisible, especially if we do not know what to look for differences. The same Hadza and Sandave, if anything, differ from the surrounding Africans, it is only slightly lighter skin, but the presence of unique genes unusual for Homo Sapiens, in general, does not negate this.
The skull from Ivo-Eleru (center) is long, with a sloping forehead, a powerful brow, high temporal lines and a prominent occiput. It looks more like a find from Tanzania (right) than a man (left).
Photo: BBC
In addition, genetics are protected, archaeologists only say that there are no inhuman remains, but finds like Ivo-Eleru in Nigeria have not gone anywhere from this. There, we recall, they found a skull of only 13,000 years ago with a number of archaic, primitive features. Even among anthropologists there are supporters of the idea that these are traces of crossing with archaic species. The same Chris Stringer from the London Museum of Natural History (Great Britain) notes that the features of such a skull are more similar not to human ones, but to one find from Tanzania, whose age is determined at 140 thousand years, and the species has not been established.
“In fact, for half of Africa, we do not have fossil remains to speak of, so I think that the survival of archaic forms in parallel with modern ones was quite possible,” the same specialist notes. It is simply very difficult for archaeologists to obtain information about this: in those areas of Africa that are not dry, the safety of human bones is extremely low.
This is not the only example where geneticist data is massively ignored by anthropologists. Suffice it to recall the R1 haplogroup among the Ojibwe, Seminole, Cherokee and others, and C3 among the Na-dené. And the point here is not only in the fundamental difference in approaches between the general humanitarian anthropology and genetics belonging to the natural sciences, but also in the fact that anthropologists and archaeologists are very conservative people: remember how just a hundred years ago they refused to consider folklore sources on the history of, for example, Mycenaean Greece, as noteworthy. By the way, also justifying this by the absence of relevant archaeological finds …