The Lost Hunter - My Journey Amongst the Khosian

Up to 94% of the DNA present worldwide can be found in the Khoisan people. Through the use of diffusion, we can trace our ancestry back to this small group, which gave rise to our population's genesis. The era of Sapiens begins with the Khosian. Somehow I found myself among them.

My visit was unintended; it took me more than twenty years to grasp how rare and unusual a chance decision to take the road less traveled would impact me and my understanding of how we are meant to interact with one another.

Back in 1985, my spring break vacation turned into an intriguing adventure across the South African desert. It may sound unbelievable, but I thought that meeting an indigenous tribe was a common experience that most people had already had by the time they turned 21. I felt like I was behind in having that experience. Little did I know that it would stand out as a significant point in my growth as a person while opening up an entirely new sense of awe and curiousity.. My love of anthropology was born during this trip, and decades later, I get to write about all the great things I learned about our genetic walk through time.

UPDATE: Since I published this work in 2020, three years of discoveries have almost completely revised the human story. Another branch of the human family tree adds an exciting new member of our genus. Around 146,000 years ago, a species of hominid thrived near the Dragon River on the northeast plain of China. Known as "The Dragon Man", this discovery was almost impossible to imagine. In fact, the skull was discovered well before World War II and was placed in a non-descript box for over eighty years before someone re-discovered the skull in the basement of a library.

Anthropologists were intrigued by rumors of its discovery in 1933 and had been searching for it. It was eventually found again in 2018. Upon examining the skull, a noticeable and significant distinction was immediately apparent. The skull measured 22 cm in length from front to back, nearly double the size of a Homo sapiens skull. Its brain volume exceeded 1400 cc, which is very similar to our own. Interestingly, the brain size of these individuals was larger than that of Neanderthals or Denisovans.

A full examination of these remains challenges scientists. Modern taxonomy fails to place it in a single place in time. It was officially named Homo-Longi by scientists and represents an unlocked mystery for us today. Is Homo-Longi just another Denosivan or Erectus? Are they a genetic and distinct species? These questions remain to be answered. Considering we know more about dinosaurs than we do our own species, the uphill climb to learn more about ourselves and the branches of humanity is steep.

In the middle Pleistocene era, Homo-Longi thrived despite the harsh and cold climate. Sparse forests and tundra-like plains dominated the landscape. The ecosystem primarily comprised tall grasses, ice-age mammoths, and bears. The native animals posed a danger to Homo-Longi and were likely both preyed upon and predators of them.

Robert Bluestein, 2023 ©

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UPDATE: Three years of discoveries since the publication of this work in 2020 have significantly altered the human narrative. A new member of our genus has been introduced through another branch of the human family tree. Approximately 146,000 years ago, a hominid species flourished near the Dragon River on the northeast plain of China. Referred to as "The Dragon Man," this finding was beyond belief. Surprisingly, the skull had been unearthed long before World War II and was stored in an unassuming box for over eight decades until it was rediscovered in the library's basement.

Discovery:

Delving into the depths of Bavaria's ancient past, scientists have unearthed a remarkable find - a new species of fossil ape that once roamed over 11 million years ago. This extraordinary creature boasted a unique blend of human-like legs and robust ape-like arms, a curious amalgamation of traits that set it apart from its contemporaries. It is believed that this agile ape navigated the dense foliage by skillfully traversing tree limbs, a graceful dance to evade the watchful eyes of feline predators lurking below.

The ape creature may have also used a form of strange locomotion never seen until now, shedding light on how the ancestors of humans may have evolved to walk on two legs. These findings may also yield insights into how the ancestors of modern great apes evolved to favor their arms for movement, the researchers added.

A key trait distinguishing humans from our closest living relatives — modern great apes, including chimpanzees, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans — is how we stand upright and walk on our feet. This bipedal posture ultimately helped free our hands for tool use, helping humanity spread across the planet.

In contrast, modern great apes possess elongated arms they use during movement. For example, chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas practice knuckle-walking, whereas orangutans walk using their fists on the ground, and all modern great apes have anatomical traits that let them swing from branch to branch using only their arms — a locomotion method called brachiation.

Much remains uncertain about the origin of locomotion in hominids — the group of species that includes humans and their relatives after their split from the chimpanzee lineage — because scientists have lacked the appropriate fossil evidence. Previous research has suggested that humans evolved from a four-legged animal that either placed the palms of their hands and soles of their feet on the ground as they walked, similar to living monkeys, or favored suspending their bodies from trees as they moved, similar to modern chimpanzees.

From the 1970s onwards, paleontologists have discovered numerous fossils of ape species in Europe and Africa dating back to the middle to late Miocene epoch, approximately 13 million to 5.3 million years ago. During this time, geneticists think that the ape and human lineages diverged. However, the lack of fully intact limb bones in these fossils has limited researchers' comprehension of the movement behaviors of these ancient species.

Scientists have unearthed a new fossil great-ape with complete limb bones that lived during the Miocene about 11.62 million years ago in what is now Bavaria in Germany. The researchers estimated Danuvius weighed between 37 and 68 lbs. (17 and 31 kilograms). The males would have been larger than the females, suggesting Danuvius favored polygyny, where males had multiple female mates, Böhme said.

When Danuvius lived in a hot, flat landscape with forests alongside meandering rivers not far from the edges of the Alps, Böhme said. Its teeth revealed that it belonged to a group of fossil ape species called dryopithecines that some previous research suggested might be the ancestors of modern African apes. The thick enamel on its teeth suggests that Danuvius ate hard items," she noted.

The slightly elongated arms of the four or more specimens of Danuvius that the scientists unearthed suggested that it could hang from trees just like modern great apes. Still, its finger bones were not as robust as one would expect of knuckle-walkers.

Neanderthals were completely different from Homo Sapiens and were most certainly replaced/inbred or otherwise eliminated by modern humans in the hunt for wild game and the use of modern tools. But that's only one theory. Something killed off the Neanderthals - we just aren't sure what that is yet.

EXPLAINING GENETIC DIVERSITY

In 2008, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology further conducted a study of people from around Europe to see how closely related we might be to our Neanderthal brethren. This was made possible by a new technology that enabled scientists to scrape a DNA Genome from the large toe bone of a Neanderthal. DNA is a molecule that has a unique genetic code for every living thing. There are four building blocks in DNA and they are as follows: Guanine, Adenine, Thymine, and Cytosine. Collectively, they are known by the letters of their names.

To understand how DNA works, imagine a spiral staircase from the earth to the moon with four different colored stairs. Each stair corresponds to each of the letters, G, A, T, and C, and examines their unique order. These traits are what separate us not only from one another but from other species. And the similarities between humans and your average everyday gardenslug tell us just how close all life is to one another.

Genes are the map of DNA. Each pair of genes correlates to a various part of the body. For instance, the genes that map directly to the eyes are the same in every living thing. To prove this point, a study at the Max Planck Institute took a fruit fly and for the first time saw and identified the band of gene that was responsible for eyesight. By interfering with the development of that particular gene, they were able to grow legs out of the eyes and multiple sets of wings.

At the same time, the scientists were looking for any type of fly that had a mutation. It would further prove their point. They soon discovered a single white-eyed male fly, which stood out from its normal, red-eyed peers.

A cross between the mutant male and a red-eyed female produced only red-eyed offspring. White-eyed mutants reappeared in the following generation — the classic pattern of a recessive trait. However, the white-eyed trait was seen exclusively in males of the second generation. They concluded that being white-eyed is a sex-linked recessive trait. Thus, the gene for eye color must be physically located on the X chromosome.

The results were highly unexpected and took scientists by surprise. While a Chimpanzee and a human share a 98.8% similarity, Neanderthals exhibit a 99.7% resemblance, suggesting a very close connection between us and Neanderthals.

The implications beyond the initial discovery were interesting. Humans had long been blamed for the demise of the Neanderthals. We weren’t bigger than they were. But aside from that one trait, we held all the cards over them. Humans were smarter and able to communicate better via language. Recently they found a jawbone of the Neanderthal that shows they were butchered – but we don’t know by who, and we don’t know why.

One benefit we may have possessed was our physical structure. Our bodies were uniquely designed for endurance, balance, and agility, unlike the Neanderthals who were more suited for short-distance, high-impact tasks. Humans were able to sustain the chase for prey over extended distances in comparison to the Neanderthals, who were top-heavy.

These physical disparities could have led to potential collaboration between the two species, capitalizing on their respective strengths. This suggests the possibility that rather than exterminating the Neanderthals, we might have engaged in interbreeding with them. It is reasonable to assume that there would be more genetic similarities over time, but this is all contingent on the passage of time.

Advancements in the study of DNA are improving each year, and it is also becoming less expensive to provide DNA research. A great opportunity is ahead of us, where we can not only look at our DNA's past but predict the DNA's future. It’s almost inconceivable to imagine, but by analyzing the amount of time and generations for adaptive traits to become a part of who we are, we can perhaps prevent diseases and treat and cure the ones in our DNA makeup throughout.

Almost every European alive today has around 3% Neanderthal DNA within. Although it is scant amount, the very presence of Neanderthal DNA in our makeup is quite impressive. Our ancestors were US. Now the challenge of our current time is to examine the DNA of perhaps our other ancestors in the ongoing chain of humanity.

The Neanderthals weren’t the only proto-man to walk on this planet. Donald Johanson, from the Institute of Human Origins, discovered a finding in the Afar region in Ethiopia. His partner was at it for eight long years, Zarai found an almost complete skeleton. Once they freed the skull from the limestone, there was almost a complete spine, shoulders, arms, and hands. Never before had a child skeleton so ancient and so well preserved.

The finding suggested that this skeleton was from a familiar ancestor of ours – Australopithecus Afarensis and it was 3-4 million years old. It was the first to walk on two legs. Removing the limestone and sandstone took nearly a decade. Although her bones could fit into a shoebox, they told us volumes about who we were. He wouldn’t win beauty pageants, but then again, what would he think of us??? They named her ‘’Salaam’’ which means ‘Peace.’’ By examining the teeth, we learned that Salaam was just three years old when she died. But her hip bones were indicative of a being that Within weeks, they had mapped out every gene and what they were responsible for. Next, the researchers took the genes for the eyes out of a field mouse and put them into a fruit fly. In a Nobel Award-winning experiment, Walter Gehring pulled it off and proved that the complexities of evolution aren't so complex at all. We ALL have the same ingredients but each is arranged slightly differently.

However, her shoulder blades were adapted for swinging and climbing. She was hairy and her fifth toe was elongated to help her maintain balance while walking. I interpret this as Salaam being similar to us from the waist down, but resembling an ape from the waist up. It signifies our belonging to two distinct worlds.

Australopithecus was the only human of its kind to be at home in two worlds. They lived in trees and they walked upright. How does climate change affect living organisms? The earth has gone through a series of climate change. Even in the last one hundred years, we have seen some parts of the earth warm and other parts become cooler. The Sahara Desert was once a thriving forest. Humans had to move with the animals, and the energy required to make these migrations work.

Monkeys would have had to expend a lot more energy than a Human. Even today, a chimpanzee cannot compete with a human in-terms-of energy conservation. Walking on all four limbs, a chimp will expend an enormously greater amount of energy. So although we are close to Chimpanzees, our DNA shows changes in the grand design. Genetics are opening doors we never thought possible, measuring time in genetic cycles.

The Molecular Clock allows us to compare DNA from a related species to see how long ago they split from one another. Consider the implications regarding DNA. It changes itself at a surprisingly predictable rate. And, because we know the rate at which change occurs, we can scale backward with the Molecular Clock.* The results were stunning. Humans diverged from the apes much earlier – 5-7 Million years earlier. So, that opened up another great question. Where did we derive from?

Approximately 50,000 years ago, a wandering and disoriented hunter stumbled upon an unexpected discovery. As he searched for his prey, he encountered another being, both of them taken aback by the encounter. One was lost and hunting, while the other was the unwitting prey. This narrative belongs to him, yet it resonates with all of us.

In just this past decade, the field of anthropology has grown with amazing discoveries. It would even seem as if no other area of study, whether in the sciences or in the arts has made the news as much as our natural curiosity about our own beginnings. Consider these breakthroughs: We have changed the earliest date for species homo from 3.8 million years to 6.2M years in 2015 to 8M years in 2021. Then, in 2017 several teeth which bore a striking resemblance to Homo Sapiens were confirmed. The stratigraphic date of 300,000 years was stunning.

Before this finding, the oldest Homo Sapiens fossils—found in Ethiopia—date to about 195,000 years ago. The jawbone supports the emerging picture that Homo Sapiens were widely present across the African continent 100,000 years before suspected, and with the discovery of the oldest primate skeleton in Germany in 2019, we can begin to see that any thought of a linear evolutionary path has gone out the window. It has to be hard for us to imagine that multiple species of people very much like us existed at the same time. Now we begin to wonder how they wouldn't have existed. This find was in Morocco, the other side of the continent.

Anthropologists have reached a consensus on a basic framework that serves as the foundation for the majority of textbooks. Given the numerous discoveries that constantly challenge our established beliefs, each new finding requires a reassessment of previous knowledge. Therefore, all that can be stated is that as of the present date, this is what we 'believe' to be true.

And, as in the study of history, anthropology is constantly changing the lens of how we view the world and our place in it.

Apes are highly social creatures that are nearly fully developed by the age of three. In contrast, humans require significantly more time to mature, yet our abilities appear to expand with each succeeding generation. With the addition of more members to a group, individuals may start to focus on specific tasks. Unlike men, women were not required to hunt and instead focused on gathering. Brunet suggested that these upright walkers, dating back six million years, were more prevalent than previously believed.

More Anthropological finds were occurring in the African Savannah. Excitement grew as ribs were found, leading to frenzied expectations. Johannsen then discovered a bent and compressed spine, indicating the individual had Scoliosis. Scientists knew that humans didn’t suffer from this affliction, but there was more. The bones were very large, and very strong. At 1.5 Million years, this was Homo-Erectus, and he spread out of Africa and migrated to Java, some 6,000 miles away. The ‘’Missing Link’’ seemed far more advanced and far more like us than ever imagined.

It appeared like the discovery of Homo-Erectus was the end of a mystery. But soon doubts began to arise. What about speech? How did Erectus sound? The vertebrae in the neck are critical to speech. The spinal cord needs space to include speech and breathing. It is our ability to breathe that allows us to communicate. Homo-Erectus was close, but not quite there yet.

The skeleton of the boy indicated that it could not speak. It was without the ability to communicate with one another. It would have looked like us from a distance, but it wasn’t us. The overall size was important too. Because relative to their size their brain were tiny. A chilling new picture was emerging ---- Homo-Erectus was the size of a large human with the brain of an infant.

When it comes to brain size, a five-year-old Neanderthal will have a brain the size of a modern adult human. A jumbo brain is a jumbo drain on the body. It's hard to fuel such a large brain. In Homo Sapiens the brain accounts for 2-3% of the human body weight, but it consumes as much as 30% of the body's energy when it is at rest. By comparison, the brains of the other great apes require only 8-10% of rest-time energy.

The larger brains were not efficient for Neanderthals. They had to constantly feed it and their muscles often atrophied, As we evolved, we traded muscles for brain neurons. For survival on the Savannah, a chimpanzee or even a gorilla can't out-think a human, but they can tear the limbs off of a human with relative ease.

The invention and use of fire helped brains in many ways too. A significant step on our way to the top was in how we used fire. Some humans may have had fire as far back as 800,000 years. With fire, humans now had a dependable source of light and warmth and also a means from protection against predatory animals. It's entirely possible that Neanderthals used fire deliberately, setting fire to huge swaths of terrain and harvesting the charcoal animals left behind.

However, the most beneficial application of fire was in the realm of cooking. Cooking enabled humans to consume foods like wheat, rice, and potatoes that would otherwise be indigestible in their natural state. The introduction of fire altered the composition of food, eliminating parasites and germs that posed a significant threat to human health. Moreover, it facilitated easier mastication, protein digestion, and food preservation, ultimately reducing the need for excessive caloric intake and extensive hunting efforts.

Think about a chimpanzee. It devotes about five hours daily to chewing leaves and various substances, while a human can manage with less than an hour of chewing in an 18-hour day. This is one of the reasons why Neanderthals began to fall behind Homo sapiens in the evolutionary process. Cooking led to easier digestion, which in turn required fewer intestines, the second highest energy-consuming organ.

Turkana Boy was also suffering from Sepsis. He had a terrible blood infection. Indications are that he had a kind of ‘’superbug’’ not seen any more today. This super-bug would be devastating for us, but surprisingly the immune systems of these people seemed to be able to handle most everything thrown its way. At some point, the boy just collapsed on the bank of the river. Was he afraid? Was he in insurmountable pain? Did he even know what was happening to him? We may never know. His body followed the current of the river. His teeth bore witness to the disease and he was in agony when he died.

Around 125,000 years ago, Homo Sapiens searched for a new world out of Africa. An Ice Age had enveloped the land. But nothing could prepare them for an astonishing discovery. They thought they were the only ones on the planet. But they were wrong. The Neanderthals were hauntingly different and yet fellow travelers on the journey out of Africa. What a moment that must have been.

Something significant occurred in the Middle East, where the first encounter between Homo-Sapiens and Neanderthals took place. Back in 1932, Dorothy Garrett unearthed an ancient burial ground in what is now Israel, known as Skoel, within caves. The artifacts and skeletons found were extremely ancient, dating back almost 100,000 years. The distinct features of the skulls indicated a slight divergence between the two species. However, a peculiar discovery followed shortly after the Skoel excavation. In close proximity, Tabun cave yielded remains from the same era, yet remarkably distinct in appearance.

Things are not always as they appear. The track vanished when these families became extinct around 90,000 years ago, leaving no trace for future generations once the ice age abruptly came to an end. This roadblock demonstrates the vulnerability of humanity and the potentially severe impact of climate change. The climate change that transformed the Sahara into a desert also lowered sea levels, providing the initial explorers an escape route through the Arabian peninsula.

Observing the Red Sea at the ‘’Gate of Grief’’ reveals one of the limited locations where only a handful of families could have crossed. Geneticists have identified that the number of individuals who migrated out of Africa was as low as a few hundred. This small group of people, to whom you owe your existence, played a crucial role in human survival. Recent genome studies have confirmed that every human can trace their ancestry back to these early families who ventured out of Africa.

Initially, it may seem that Homo Sapiens would be at a disadvantage when facing an opponent who was better suited to cold climates and significantly more muscular.

Tabun Woman

In the north of Spain, there was a period of 800,000 years of development. Teeth found there indicate they were meat eaters, descendants of Ergaster. These cave-dwelling people lived for close to half a million years and were called Homo-Heidelbergensis. Found in a deep shaft were 2500 skeletons in a small pit which has been excavated to this day only partially. We uncovered many causes of death among these people. Some of the people died of disease, others were murdered, and still more starved to death. They are the direct ancestors of the Neanderthals.

Living in a harsh ice age environment required understanding how to thrive in a frozen world. Neanderthals were not the dim-witted individuals we once believed them to be, but rather were considered unsuccessful in terms of evolution.

Standing side-by-side with a Neanderthal would be a daunting experience. Their skulls were nearly one-and-a-half times the size of our own. Their brows were strikingly different. They were developing sweat glands and showing great adaptability to changing environments, with their knees pointed slightly outward.

Their facial construction was adapted for the colder climate. The proportions of the middle part of the face are massive. There is no forehead to speak of and their powerful jaws and exceptionally large front teeth are used for shredding and tearing. The thickness of their bones tells us they were capable of lifting great weight, capable of tearing a Homo-Sapiens apart. Large noses and nasal cavities helped to warm air that was inherently freezing. They used stone tools, used fire, and gathered food. But they were not tall, conserving heat through their build. It is an adaptation that is key to survival, exactly as Darwin said it would be.

That First Meeting

Michael French Smith journeyed to Papua New Guinea in 1973 and found himself staring into the eyes of the Toulambi Tribesmen. They had never seen anyone from the modern world and their reaction was one of fear, wonder, and finally acceptance.

Initially, the tribe mistook him for a ghost and prepared their arrows, assuming they would pass through Smith effortlessly. However, he persisted in communicating with them, extending his hands and clearly demonstrating that he was indeed a living human being. Isolated from modern society, there are tribes unaware of the existence of the outside world beyond their territories.

One wonders – was this what the first meeting between modern humans and Neanderthals was like? Forensics of existing bones do not indicate that modern humans went on a murderous rampage as Raymond Dart had suggested in the early 1900s. Neanderthals lived alongside modern humans without apparent incident. Was it peaceful? Was the technology gap too great for Neanderthals to compete? We just do not know. But what a moment frozen in time that first contact must have been like. Modern human meets their own ancestor and doesn’t have a clue as to what to make of them.

So the question remains --- What did humans bring to the first meeting with Neanderthals?

The answer may be found in Kabara Cave on the Southern slopes of Mt. Carmel in Israel. This finding gave up an almost complete skeleton of a Neanderthal burial. And there is every indication that this was intentional. Carefully buried, this middle-aged man was laid with his hands folded upon his chest.

The burial shows that Neanderthals may have thought of the afterlife.

The skull is missing, indicating that it might have been used for a ceremonial purpose. The Neanderthals dug the hole, carefully laid the body, and extracted the skull – all by design.

In 1992, a Neanderthal child with clear designs of a burial by design. It was an exciting discovery. Once the mandible was exposed it was clear that no chin was in existence with the child. The bones were laid out with the bones by her side, and ostrich shells and other items were buried with her. Neanderthals and Humans lived side-by-side in the Middle East, parallel and similar – and yet they were not like us at all.

Humans and Neanderthals were as different for all of the things that made us seem alike. Verification of this fundamental difference comes from Germany. There are four times the genetic differences between humans and Neanderthals. A small sample of genetic material was taken from the bones of Neanderthals and they show something different entirely. It shows that Neanderthals evolved in Europe through Heidelbergensis, while early humans emerged from Africa through Homo-Sapiens a mere 130,000 years ago.

Some 40,000 years ago, modern humans made their way into Europe and this proved to be a disaster for Neanderthals. Within 15,000 years, the original inhabitants would be extinct. The caves provided shelter for both. But humans had to move with the animals and their shelter was temporary, wherever they went.

Surviving and staying close to passing food like salmon and reindeer allowed for a mobile existence of paramount importance. Providing a constant food supply enabled generations to expand, with grandparents caring for children as the population grew through migration and adaptation.

The early humans created new tools for the different animals they hunted. They mastered their tools with greater finesse and were made for changing conditions. Constant change encouraged innovation and flexibility. New and sophisticated hunting tools were being made so that humans could begin hunting from longer and longer distances. Using resin, sinew, and fiber, they added hunting points and maintained a constant food supply. Neanderthals simply had not figured any of this out.

Their numbers were growing steadily and nomadic life opened their view of the world. They learned about each new landscape and climate as they transversed the hills and valleys and mountains and plains. They adapted wherever they went. Evidence of their innovation are seen in caves further and further away from their native homeland in Africa. As they went further north, they adapted even more.

Their imagination brought forth a new and exciting technical mastery of the materials needed to improvise their hunting arsenals. In addition, modern humans traded with other migrating modern humans as well. They exchanged ideas and shared knowledge of areas that each had traveled. We humans organize our movements with strategy, cunning, and skill. Trading allowed us to form alliances and to grow peacefully while mixing the gene pools for greater strength.

In stark contrast, the Neanderthals were not nearly as adaptive. They preferred to stay in one place as they lost their critical edge. They were driven by routine and predictability with permanent landscapes their tools barely changed over 150,000 years and the raw materials they used were rarely garnered too far from their homes. Their diets strayed little.

Communication may have been difficult as the lower jaw and chin were not fully developed in Neanderthals. These are important muscles that allow for annunciation. A much greater portion of human communication is done through vocalizations. Humans have uniquely complex vocal cords, allowing us a great range of sounds, but preventing us from drinking and breathing simultaneously like chimpanzees can. Moreover, we have very muscular tongues and lips, allowing us accurate manipulations of our voices.

We find that early humans were fond of making art. They sculpted things from fertility symbols to children’s toys. They sculpted symbols that were found over a far and wide area of Europe. This reveals a network and commonality of purpose that Neanderthals simply never developed and never had. Common artwork indicates a common language as well. Whether it was the ‘click’ languages heard in ancient tribes of Africa today or something different altogether, there was clearly a commonality between cultures and tools.

For hundreds of thousands of years, Neanderthals stuck to the same hand tools without much variation. While their tools were effective for their tasks, they lacked versatility for adaptation. In contrast, humans incorporated fishing hooks and small barbs into their spear points, demonstrating a capacity for innovation. Despite the quality and sharpness of Neanderthal tools, they fell short in enabling adaptation to evolving conditions. The lack of innovation among Neanderthals remains a perplexing enigma throughout history.

One possible answer is that perhaps they did not HAVE to innovate. With short lifespans and almost everything decided by the external forces of the environment, innovation wasn't the first thing necessary for their survival. We see that early migratory humans in southeast Asia didn't even have much in the way of tools. They used the plentiful bamboo for just about everything they needed to survive. Again, the answers of supply are often found in the demand.

Neanderthals linked two worlds; their other world was also present in this one. They seldom varied from their experience. The problem in human history is that experience teaches fear of change. Experience kills the imagination. Experience tends to make humanity conservative. Where are we evolving to and how will it affect us. What we are facing in terms of our own survival requires us to truly learn from the hominoids before us. Larger brains can only assess what are capabilities are today; they tell us little about tomorrow, and tomorrow requires the force of imagination, not wisdom from yesterday.

They hunted a now-extinct version of huge wild cattle called an Aurochs that appeared to fight them back. Evidence of bone fractures are commonplace. Their foraging never strayed too far and as a result, their diet never varied beyond their local ground clutter and occasional nuts. They most certainly developed food allergies due to the lack of variety, causing mass and rapid death in the event of famine or drought. Socially, they never showed signs of a trading network or a steady increase in population.

And then it occurred. The wandering groups of Homo-Sapiens encountered Neanderthals for the first time. It is uncertain whether there was a violent territorial dispute. However, given the total population of Neanderthals in Europe was fewer than 15,000, this scenario appears highly unlikely. It is more probable that this initial encounter was peaceful. This is where we may have witnessed a sudden shift in Neanderthal weaponry, potentially as a result of a friendly exchange of knowledge. Side by side, inside a cave in the Middle East, Neanderthals and Humans likely shared their first meal together. The possibility of interbreeding was indeed present.

In Portugal, the careful burial of a four-year-old child shows a first-hand generational offspring with characteristics of both species. For a short while, Neanderthals suddenly flourished, indicating that the coexistence between the two species was peaceful and beneficial. But in order to really see if there was interbreeding, we would need to take a current sampling of a gene-pool and see if Neanderthal genes exist amongst our own.

The recent study examines a jawbone belonging to Oase 1, an early modern human discovered in Peștera cu Oase ("Cave with Bones") in southwestern Romania in 2002. The presence of anatomically modern humans in Europe dates back to 45,000 to 35,000 years ago. Oase 1 existed approximately between 42,000 and 37,000 years ago, positioning him as one of the earliest modern humans in Europe. Additionally, another jawbone uncovered in the same vicinity displays characteristics that are a mix of human and Neanderthal traits.

Studies have shown evidence of early hominids in Africa around 20 million years ago. Uganda Pithecus major is known to have lived around the site of a now-extinct volcano in Uganda's remote north-east Karamoja region. Scientists say preliminary analysis of a single specimen discovered there showed that the tree-climbing herbivore was roughly ten years old when it died. The skull was about the same size as that of a chimp, but its brain was smaller.

More than 11 million years ago, an oddball ape equipped with human-like legs and robust ape-like arms clambered across tree limbs, possibly escaping feline predators. That's the picture that scientists have gleaned about a new species of fossil ape discovered in Bavaria.

The ape creature may have also used a type of locomotion never seen until now, shedding light on how ancestors of humans may have evolved to walk on two legs, a new study finds.

These findings may also yield insights on how the ancestors of modern great apes evolved to favor their arms for movement. A key trait distinguishing humans from our closest living relatives — modern great apes, is how we stand upright and walk on our feet. This bipedal posture ultimately helped free our hands for tool use, helping humanity spread across the planet.

Much remains uncertain about the origin of locomotion in hominins — the group of species that includes humans and their relatives after their split from the chimpanzee lineage — because scientists have lacked the appropriate fossil evidence. Previous research has suggested that humans evolved from a four-legged animal that either placed the palms of their hands and soles of their feet on the ground as they walked, similar to living monkeys, or favored suspending their bodies from trees as they moved, similar to modern chimpanzees.

Since the 1970s, paleontologists have unearthed many fossils of ape species from Europe and Africa, from the middle to late Miocene epoch about 13 million to 5.3 million years ago, when they think the ape and human lineages diverged. However, none of these fossils preserved completely intact limb bones, limiting how much insight researchers could glean regarding how these ancient species moved.

A new fossil great ape with intact limb bones, dating back to around 11.62 million years ago in Bavaria, Germany during the Miocene era, has been unveiled by scientists. Danuvius was estimated to weigh between 37 and 68 lbs. (17 and 31 kilograms) by the researchers. The size difference between males and females indicates a preference for polygyny in Danuvius, with males having multiple female mates, according to Böhme.

When Danuvius was alive, the area where it was found was a hot, flat landscape with forests alongside meandering rivers not far from the edges of the Alps, Böhme said. Its teeth revealed that it belonged to a group of fossil ape species called dryopithecines that some previous research suggested might be the ancestors of modern African apes. The thick enamel on its teeth suggests that Danuvius ate hard items, she noted.

Footpaths to Morocco?

A remarkable discovery was made in an unexpected location. Dating back three hundred thousand years, a hundred thousand years older than any previous findings, it extended the history of Homo sapiens, our ancient ancestors, even further into the past. This discovery marked the beginning of a new chapter for humanity, a blank page waiting to be filled. What made it even more fascinating was the location where the fossils were unearthed. While Ethiopia was known for having the oldest Homo sapiens fossils and East Africa was traditionally considered the "cradle of life," these new fossils were actually found in Jebel Irhoud, Morocco.

A long-held anthropological narrative became more complex. What were these hominids doing on the other side of the continent? Had they evolved in isolation to sapiens in East Africa? What happened during these extra 100,000 years, and could we determine a new starting point for humanity?

Excavated from what was once a barite mine 250 miles from the capital Rabat, the fossils were sent for study to the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany. It was here in the thermoluminescence laboratory that advanced dating technology was used to determine the fossils' age.

Alongside sapiens remains at Jebel Irhoud, archaeologists found stone tools that had been burnt with fire. Using thermoluminescence detectors, scientists could establish when an artifact was heated.

"If you have a strong light emission, you have an old artifact. If you only have a very low light emission, you have a very young artifact," explains Tobias Lauer, a postdoctoral researcher at the institute. "Normally you have an error range of about 10%. Having an age of approximately 300,000 years, with a margin of error of plus or minus 30,000, is incredibly valuable to us.

CT scans were also used to create hundreds of two-dimensional X-rays of the fossils, compiled to create three-dimensional avatars (see below, courtesy MPI). These computer models are an invaluable way to rebuild fossils that may have broken or missing pieces.

With the pieces assembled as best they could be, a team has been charged with filling in the blanks on the life of these ancient sapiens. "It's like a puzzle," says Jean-Jacques Hublin, director of the department of human evolution. "We have to put together, to reconstruct, not just the anatomy of these humans but also their lifestyle, their activities.

"The face of these people is a face like my face; it's a face (like) somebody you could cross in the street today," he adds. But there are still significant differences.

"(Through) 300,000 years many things happen, and in particular their brain case and the brain inside is big, but is different in morphology to what we have today -- we suspect not just in morphology but also in the kind of wiring of the brain."

Recent discoveries in paleo-genetics and genetics show that in this period, there were a series of mutations affecting brain functioning, connectivity, and development that occurred within our lineage."

"It seems to be something specific to our species that we don't find in other groups of the same period, like Neanderthals or Denisovans or others." But while there's a strong record of the evolution of many other hominids, "the origin of our own species is much more mysterious," says Hublin.

Above: This is from my personal collection of ancient tools, some of which were made by Homo-Halibis and early Homo-Sapiens. Photography by Robert Bluestein, 2022 ©

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Recently, the emergence of Homo sapiens was seen as enigmatic, believed to have originated from a limited area in sub-Saharan Africa, probably East Africa, and happened rapidly. The discovery at Jebel Irhoud has led the study leader to completely reconsider this narrative. This doesn't mean Morocco is the new cradle of life; instead, our ancestors were much more dispersed, and much earlier than previously thought. (It's worth noting that at the time the Sahara was not a desert but in fact a lush green grassland, rich in flora and fauna.)

"The notion that somehow just a corner of Africa is involved in the origin of our species -- I think we can forget it," says Hublin. "If there is a Garden of Eden in Africa, this Garden of Eden is the size of the continent." as announced earlier this year, the institute, a pioneer in the field of fossil DNA extraction and genome mapping, was unable to recover DNA samples from the current Jebel Irhoud find. But this month archaeologists returned to the excavation site to source more artifacts for testing. They're working with a firmer platform and a greater understanding of our origins than before.

"Science is a sort of perpetual reworking of knowledge," muses the project leader. "The tree of hominids is a tree with a picture that is a bit fuzzy. Many parts are visible, and so what we're doing is we're completing this picture ... or having a picture that is more in focus."I think with Jebel Irhoud, we touched an essential branch of this tree. Because it's our branch.''

The Mystery of the Khosian

The Khosian Peoples, perhaps the purist Homo-Sapiens on the Planet

There are people in Southern Africa today that are tied to their original ancestors in their antiquity of human genes. This tribe is semi-nomadic and they are likely 50,000-75,000 years old. These are the Khoisan Peoples of South Africa and their story is hardly known to those outside the anthropological circles who study applied genetics. If it weren’t for modern science, it's doubtful we would know of them.

A research team led by Professor Stephan Christoph Schuster, a geneticist from Nanyang Technological University, sequenced the genome of five living people from a tribe in Southern Africa.

According to Science Daily, an advanced computer analysis was conducted on the Khoisan tribes-people, examining "420,000 genetic variants across 1,462 genomes from 48 ethnic groups." Surprisingly, within the Khoisan tribe, there exist individuals whose ancestors have not interbred with any other ethnic groups for the past 150 thousand years. The researchers suggest that up until approximately 20,000 years ago, this ancient lineage constituted the majority of the human population. It appears that all of present-day humanity originates from this particular tribe of individuals.

Due to their geographic location, these people are highly adept at surviving, with their genetic composition closely linked to an ancient gene pool. The desert plains of Botswana, Angola, and the horn of Africa pose no boundaries to them. They have been living here for at least 50,000 years. They follow the animals and live in subsistence existence. And they might just be among the purist human species alive today.

Our genes connect us together. Of all the people alive today, they have the most concentrated mix of ancient human genes in the world. This leads us to only one conclusion – we are all a member of one tribe. Of all the people alive today, the Khoisan have the most concentrated number of ancient human genes of any people that ever lived. This leads us to a startling conclusion. Our European Neanderthal make-up includes 3%. But amongst the Khosian there is no Neanderthal DNA. These people are as close to the originals as you can get. As for the mystery- we are much closer in relationship than we think.

There were two major migrations out of Africa. Two million years ago, Homo-Ergaster left Africa and migrated outward. Then an ice age hemmed humanity into a small geography. The cold winds of ice blew over the continent. 30,000 years ago, humans followed. Like Darwin predicted, living things will learn to adapt.

Returning to the concept of geographic speciation, the ongoing changes in global migration also impacted human mobility. With only about 30% of the Earth's land remaining, other species were vanishing at a rapid pace. The conditions of isolation also played to our advantage, allowing us to evolve and thrive as a distinct and dominant species.

The second wave of migratory peoples came much later, 120,000 years ago. And in the Rift Valley in southern Egypt, we see that there are skeletons in the caves. In fact, this is the proof we needed to prove this theory. When the second wave of people left Africa, they made their way into Southern Europe – where suddenly, they came face-to-face with their ancestors in what HAD to be one of the most shocking moments of human history – The Neanderthals.

A complete Neanderthal skeleton is yet to be discovered, although their remains have been unearthed extensively across Europe, particularly along the Spanish and French Riviera. The enigmatic disappearance of Neanderthals is as puzzling as the emergence of Homo Sapiens, leading some anthropologists to speculate that this correlation is not accidental. Homo Sapiens began to fan out all over the Middle East and soon displaced the Neanderthals. Still unanswered was the question regarding lineage. It was long thought that Neanderthals were simply an earlier line of Homo Sapiens on the family tree. But that all changed with a dramatic discovery in the year 2000.

New findings in forensic anthropology began to pervade the study of ancient humans. DNA samplings were thought to be impossible in bones that were so old and fossilized. But scientists Igor Ovchinnikov, Kisten Liden, and William Goodwin managed to retrieve DNA from a young female Neanderthal found in the Caucasus Mountains. The findings they uncovered would stun the world.

If Neanderthal came before Homo Sapiens, the DNA structure should look almost identical. Evolution is a complex and multi-faceted science. The reason is that evolution is built upon a previous state of existence. Yet an interesting problem appears - convergent evolution. In the linear evolution of Sapiens, the DNA of previous generations should be predictive and similar to ours today. There are sequences in which DNA is ordered, and the differences between one breed of dogs to another breed of dogs is almost non-existent. When the scientists mapped out the DNA of Homo Sapiens to Neanderthal was stark and surprising. The sequences were entirely different. The implications spawned the idea of convergent evolution - TWO or more species evolving at the same time.

A Piece of Time

The Molecular Clock and Estimating Species Divergence

Simon Ho, Ph.D. (Australia National University) 2008

Introduced in the 1960s, the molecular clock has become a crucial tool in various fields of evolutionary biology, such as systematics, molecular ecology, and conservation genetics. According to the molecular clock hypothesis, DNA and protein sequences evolve at a consistent rate across time and different organisms. This consistency implies that the genetic distinction between two species is directly proportional to the time elapsed since their last common ancestor. Therefore, if the molecular clock hypothesis is valid, it provides a highly valuable approach for estimating evolutionary timelines. This is especially beneficial for studying organisms like flatworms and viruses, which have left minimal evidence of their biological past in the fossil record.

Each year, fossil hunters combed through the Great Rift Valley in Ethiopia. It was now the time for someone to challenge the Western frontier of Africa. The barrier of the Sahara Desert stood in the way. Just 10,000 years ago, sudden natural changes in the earth turned a thriving ocean teaming with animals as diverse as Lobsters up to whales.

In 1997, a French Anthologist named Michele Brunet made an important discovery. He thought that perhaps the bones found in the Rift Valley were already from migrating hominoids. Despite being a fertile area, Brunet knew that mankind was on the move.

What he did not know is from where. Brunet insisted on scouring the desert sands and in 2003 – he hit pay-dirt.

Staring at him like he was a long-lost friend was a skull, belonging to Sahelanthropus Tchadensis. The skull he found was an astounding 6-7 MILLION years old – over 2 million years than Lucy and Salaam. Although the skull was deformed, Brunet could make a cast of it to determine whether it was an upright bipedal.

TRAVELING MAN

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Apes are highly social creatures that reach almost full development by the age of three. In contrast, humans require significantly more time due to their increasing size and cultural specialization. With women focusing on gathering rather than hunting, this shift in roles likely influenced our development. Brunet suggested that these upright walkers from six million years ago bore similarities to other identified species.

More Anthropological finds were occurring. In the African Savannah. when ribs were found, the excitement grew. ‘Maybe more bones would be found.’’ Thought Johannsen. Then he discovered the spine was bent and compressed. This individual showed he suffered from Scoliosis. Scientists knew that humans didn’t suffer from this affliction.

But there was more. The bones were very large, and very strong. At 1.5 Million years, this was homo-erectus, and he spread out of Africa, and migrated to Java, some 6,000 miles away. The ‘’Missing Link’’ seemed far more advanced and far more like us than ever imagined.

It appeared like the discovery of Homo-Erectus was the end of a mystery. But soon doubts began to arise. What about speech? How did the Erectus sound? The vertebrae in the neck is critical to speech. The spinal cord needs space to include speech and breathing. It is our ability to breathe that allows us to communicate. Homo-Erectus was close, but not quite there yet.

The skeleton of the boy indicated that it could not speak. It was without the ability to communicate with one another. It would have looked like us from a distance, but it wasn’t us. The overall size was important too. Because relative to their size their brain was tiny. A chilling new picture was emerging ---- Homo-Erectus was the size of a large human with the brain of an infant.

When it comes to brain size, a five-year-old Neanderthal will have a brain the size of a modern adult human. A jumbo brain is a jumbo drain on the body. It's hard to fuel such a large brain. In Homo-Sapiens the brain accounts for 2-3% of the human body weight, but it consumes as much as 30% of the body's energy when it is at rest. By comparison, the brains of the other great apes require only 8-10% of rest-time energy.

The larger brains were not efficient for Neanderthals. They had to constantly feed it and their muscles often atrophied, As we evolved, we traded muscles for brain neurons. For survival on the savannah a chimpanzee or even a gorilla can't out-think a human, but they can tear the limbs off of a human with relative ease.

The discovery and application of fire also had a positive impact on human intellect. Utilizing fire was a crucial advancement in our progression. It is believed that certain individuals may have had access to fire as early as 800,000 years ago. With fire, humans gained a reliable source of illumination and heat, as well as a method of defense against wild animals. There is a strong likelihood that Neanderthals intentionally used fire, igniting large areas of land and collecting the remains of charred animals.

But the best use of fire was for cooking. Foods that humans cannot digest in their natural forms- such as wheat rice and potatoes, became important parts of our diets thanks to cooking. Fire changed the chemistry of food and killed parasites and germs that were such a critical part of our mortality. It made for an easier time in chewing food, digesting proteins, and preserving food for longer periods, which requires fewer calories and less in the way of hunting.

Consider a chimpanzee. It will spend up to five houses a day chewing leaves and many other substances whereas a human can get away with less than an hour of total chewing for 18 hours a day. You can begin to see where Neanderthals started to lose out to Homo-Sapiens in the area of evolution. Cooking required less digestion; less digestion required less in the way of intestines, the second largest waste of energy.

Turkana Boy was also suffering from Sepsis. He had a terrible blood infection. Indications are that he had a kind of ‘’superbug’’ not seen anymore today. This super-bug would be devastating for us, but surprisingly the immune systems of these people seemed to be able to handle most everything thrown its way. At some point, the boy just collapsed at the bank of the river. Was he afraid? Was he in insurmountable pain? Did he even know what was happening to him? We may never know. His body followed the current of the river. His teeth bore witness to the disease and he was in agony when he died.

It seems to have happened in the Middle East. This was the site of the first contact between Homo-Sapiens and Neanderthals. In 1932, in the territory of what is now Israel, Dorothy Garrett discovered an ancient cemetery with the remains of ten skeletons. It was called Skoel and located in the caves. The tools and bones were very old, close to 100,000 years old. The raised brows reflected a slight difference between us. But then something bizarre happened. Not far from the findings of the Skoel people another cave happened to give up its dead. Tabun cave revealed quite a different look, dating to the same period. And these bones were shockingly different.

Things are not always as they appear. The lineage vanished after these families became extinct approximately 90,000 years ago, leaving no trace for future generations once the ice age abruptly came to an end. This genetic dead-end highlights the vulnerability of humanity and the potentially severe impact of climate change. The same climatic shifts that transformed the Sahara into a desert also lowered sea levels, providing the earliest settlers an escape route through the Arabian peninsula.

Looking at the Red Sea at the ‘’Gate of Grief’’ is one of the few places where even a few families could have made it through. Geneticists have been able to determine how many people made it out of Africa at just a few hundred people. It was an incredibly small sampling of a people whose appearance you owe your own survival to. Modern genome projects have determined that all humans can trace their lineage back to these small groups of wandering families out of Africa.

Did Sapiens and Neanderthals Exchange Knowledge?

One of the great mysteries of humanity is whether Neanderthals and Sapiens exchanged knowledge. The answer may be found in Kabara Cave on the Southern slopes of Mt. Carmel in Israel. This finding gave up an almost complete skeleton of a Neanderthal burial. And there is every indication that this was intentional. Carefully buried, this middle-aged man was laid with his hands folded upon his chest. The burial shows that Neanderthals thought of the afterlife.

The skull is missing, indicating that it might have been used for a ceremonial purpose. The Neanderthals dug the hole, carefully laid the body, and extracted the skull – all by design.

In 1992, a Neanderthal child with clear designs of burial by design. It was an exciting discovery. Once the mandible was exposed and it was clear that no chin was in existence with the child. The bones were laid out with the bones by her side, ostrich shells and other items were buried with her. Neanderthals and Humans lived side-by-side in the Middle East, parallel and similar – and yet they were not like us at all.

Humans and Neanderthals were vastly different for all of the things that made us seem alike. Verification of this fundamental difference comes from Germany. There are four times the genetic differences between humans and Neanderthals. A small sample of genetic material was taken from the bones of Neanderthals and they show something different entirely. It shows that Neanderthals evolved in Europe through Heidelbergensis, while early-humans emerged from Africa through Homo-Sapiens a mere 130,000 years ago.

They survived and stayed close to the passing food, such as salmon and reindeer. It was a mobile existence that had a paramount importance. They were able to provide a constant food supply and generations began to expand. Grandparents were now able to watch the children and the population began to grow, even as they constantly migrated and adapted.

Their numbers were growing steadily and nomadic life opened their view of the world. They learned about each new landscape and climates as they transversed the hills and valleys and mountains and plains. They adapted wherever they went. Evidence of their innovation are seen in caves further and further away from their native homeland in Africa. As they went further north, they adapted even more.

The Neanderthals weren’t the only proto-man to walk on this planet. Donald Johanson, from the Institute of Human Origins, discovered a finding in the Afar in Ethiopia. His partner was at it for eight long years, Zarai found an almost complete skeleton. Once they freed the skull from the limestone, there was almost a complete spine, shoulders, arms and hands. Never before had a child skeleton so ancient and so well preserved.ience News, The San Jose Mercury News and Mongabay, among other outlets.

What Do We Make Of the ‘’Hobbit’’ People?

The People That Time Forgot

National Geographic's Account of the Discovery of The Hobbit People

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/10/1027_041027_homo_floresiensis.html

The Strange Story of Homo- Floresiensis

In 2003, a chance discovery was made of nine partial skeletons of ancient man was made on the island of Flores in the South Pacific, near Indonesia. It was barely over three feet tall and research has not been completed yet to determine if they represent a separate line of humans. They were at least intelligent enough to collaborate in hunting efforts. They were alive until just 12,000 years ago, making them the longest-living non-human hominid.

Many species confined to small islands become smaller themselves. Lack of resources has created an inability for species to grow large, which is why we have pygmy elephants and pygmy rhinoceros throughout these islands. This is called ‘’Insular Dwarfism’’ and is responsible for the malnutrition that occurs in tropical rainforests.

We knew we had made a stunning discovery, but we didn't dare remove the bones for a closer look. The waterlogged skeleton was as fragile as wet blotting paper, so we left it in place for three days to dry, applied a hardener, then excavated the remains in whole blocks of deposit.

Cradled in our laps, the skeleton accompanied us on the flight back to Jakarta, Indonesia's capital. There Peter Brown, a paleoanthropologist from the University of New England in Australia, supervised cleaning, conservation, and analysis. The pelvic structure told him Hobbit was a female, and her tooth-wear confirmed that she was an adult. Her sloping forehead, arched brow ridges, and nutcracker jaw resembled those of Homo erectus, but her size was unique.

It wasn't just her small stature and estimated weight—about 55 pounds (25 kilograms)—but a startlingly small brain as well. Brown calculated its volume at less than a third of a modern human's. Hobbit had by far the smallest brain of any member of the genus Homo. It was small even for a chimpanzee.

Why were the Flores humans so small? Biogeographer Mark Lomolino, who studies the phenomenon called island dwarfism, says, "We know that when evolutionary pressures change, some species respond by shrinking." Stegodons—extinct elephant ancestors—were especially prone to dwarfing, because they often colonized islands. "Elephants are strong swimmers," he says. Once there, with limited food and fewer predators, they shrank. On Sicily, Crete, and Malta, scientists have unearthed bones from primitive elephants as little as a twentieth the size of mainland forms.

But other species, such as rats, tend to grow larger in a place without competitors. Flores yielded remains of giant rats and lizards, as well as cow-size dwarf stegodons and diminutive human bones (shown above with stone tools and stegodon teeth). Peter Brown says the tiny Homo floresiensis may have evolved from a population of Homo erectus that reached Flores some 800,000 years ago. "The problem is we haven't found Homo erectus bones," says Brown. "All we have is these small-bodied people."

The last Neanderthal bones we have found are so close to our own, just 27,000 years ago. They shared the world with us, but their time was at hand. The enduring mystery, however, is why.

In July of 2006, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany did a study with a large sampling of Europeans. The project took four years and detailed an initial draft of the Neanderthal genome based on the analysis of four billion base pairs of Neanderthal DNA. According to the findings, close to 99.7% of our genomes are identical. Humans and chimpanzees, thought to be close in such kinship, actually showed much less, at 93%.

The Genome Project offered tantalizing evidence of interbreeding. The landmark study answered the long-standing question of whether Homo sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis interbred before humanity's closest relatives went extinct about 35,000 years ago. It showed that interbreeding was possible, with Neanderthals contributing roughly 1 to 4 percent of the genomes of all humans living today outside of sub-Saharan Africa.

That said, the obviously different appearances would not have likely made early humans attractive to Neanderthals and certainly the reverse is true. It leaves open the possibility of Neanderthal rape of humans as being the only likely source of genetic mixing of the two peoples.

You might expect to see multiple branches of the family tree throughout the world. The genetic experiment did reveal a remarkable and stunning conclusion. The survivors on this planet today come from one distinct handful of people who adventured out of Africa. The genetics may be convincing but the geography is a huge problem. For these small groups, the deserts and water would have been possible but exceedingly difficult.

It could have been over the Straits of Gibraltar. It could have been a migration over the Red Sea and Golan heights. 125,000 years ago there was a change in the climate that made Africa much greener. The world’s most impassable desert suddenly blossomed for just a few thousand years. At least one band of pioneers made it through the Sahara and into the rest of the known world.

The Counter Argument- the Other Side of The Story:

We are a young species. Consider the fact that we are around 200,000 years old and some of the hominoids covered in this chapter are five million years old and perhaps even older.
Neanderthals and Humans are drastic in their differences. Without a doubt, it is easy to tell the two apart.
Modern humans have such a huge intellectual edge over Neanderthals that it hardly seems possible that the two could have even communicated let-alone mated. We quickly surpassed Neanderthals in sheer numbers, biodiversity, limb-morphology, and even an increased brain size.
Given our young age, there is an unfortunate limit to the genome sampling we can do with regards to Neanderthals as a single comparison. They have a 700,000 year age advantage on modern humans and thus our sampling is a mere fraction of theirs.

There are so many questions yet to be answered with regards to our own humanity. We also have to address where we might be evolving to as well. Both physically and culturally, we have to look harder at the things that have prevented us from overcoming our surroundings.

Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. For those who dismiss evolution in the sake of their spirituality and belief in God, I would submit that the two are mutually compatible. Science is not only compatible with our spirituality, but it is a profound source of our spirituality. It has been an epic adventure of discovery of how the first hominoids became us. Looking at the history of Mankind from a historical point of view, we are faced with more and more evidence that demands a verdict.

First to Flores

Special Update, April 22, 2017

By Alice Klein From New Scientist

The identity of the mysterious Homo Floresiensis, aka the hobbit, has once again been turned on its head. New research suggests the tiny hominid evolved from an unknown ancestor that was the first to ever venture out of Africa.

Remains of the extinct species were first discovered on the island of Flores in Indonesia just over a decade ago, but there is still fierce debate about where they came from.

The prevailing theory suggests that H. Florensiensis originated from Homo erectus, a larger extinct human species that inhabited Asia in the past. Supporters argue that the predecessors of H. erectus were the earliest humans to migrate out of Africa around 1.8 million years ago.

The theory is that after members of the big-bodied group reached Flores, they gradually shrunk to just three-four feet tall because of the scarce island resources.

Another possibility is that the hobbits were simply short members of our own species – Homo sapiens. A less probable theory is the miniature size of the one skull that has been uncovered shows signs of Downs syndrome.

Now, the most comprehensive analysis yet suggests the hobbits were, in fact, descended from a mystery ancestor that lived in Africa over 2 million years ago. Some members of this ancestral group remained in Africa and evolved into Homo habilis – the first makers of stone tools. The others moved out of Africa about 2 million years ago – before H. erectus did – and arrived in Flores at least 700,000 years ago.

“As this ancestor spread through south and south-east Asia and then finally onto Flores, it would have gradually changed, finally becoming H. FIorensiensis,” says Colin Groves at the Australian National University, who co-authored the study.

His team constructed the hobbit’s family tree by carefully comparing skull, jaw, teeth, arm, leg and shoulder fossils with other Homo species and more primitive ancestors. Previous research had only focused on skull and jaw characteristics.

They found that H. floresiensis was far more closely related to H. habilis than to H. erectus or H. sapiens, suggesting it came from an ancient lineage and shared a common ancestor with H. habilis. This is reinforced by its more primitive, diminutive body type.

The hobbit’s ancestors probably died out across Asia when bigger, more complex human species like H. erectus and H. sapiens later emerged from Africa, Groves says. H. floresiensis was probably only able to cling on in Flores for as long as it did because of its isolation, he says. There’s no fossil evidence to indicate that H. erectus ever it made it to the island.

So what happened to H. floresiensis in the end? The species appears to have died out soon after H. sapiens left Africa 60,000 years ago and pushed into Asia. It’s possible that a clash between the two species spelled the end of the mysterious Indonesian hobbits.

Epilogue

Many believe that delving into the mysteries of our existence may diminish our sense of wonder. However, our pursuit of answers is fueled by curiosity rather than a desire to strip the world of its enchantment and enigma. It is an innate drive to uncover our origins and understand the mechanics of the universe. Whether listening to tribal music in Africa, exploring Mayan pyramids in Central America, or wandering through the grand cathedrals of Medieval Europe, one cannot help but marvel at the incredible feats of humanity.

Throughout human history, there has been a gradual realization that we belong to a broader community sharing a single common origin. In so many ways we have evolved wonderfully, adapting to space and time with fantastic results. But now we are faced with having evolved to the point of our own mutual destruction. Have we evolved too far and past the point of no return? We can save many lives with the science and technology we have discovered, but we can also end many lives with the science and technology we have discovered.

Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of peoples conquered. The earth is the only place known to hold life. It is where we made our first stand and it is where we will likely make our last stand. This complex reality that binds us all together as one then leaves us with one daunting question.......What keeps humanity balanced on that fine line?

Only tomorrow knows. ***