"It was the genetic data, amongst others, that prompted us to define the new species," Radović said. Recent DNA studies have shown that several specimens in Europe that had previously been classified as Homo heidelbergensis were actually early Neanderthals. They were developing in pseudo isolation in Europe," Roksandic said. "Neanderthals are much more easily recognizable because they were the most diverged. "You see more of these ancestral traits in Asian and African specimens than in Neanderthals, so this is where a lot of the confusion around Middle Pleistocene hominids come from," Roksandic said. The confusion and miscommunication to which Roksandic and Radović speak is partly the result of evolutionary biology.ĭespite their evolutionary progress, humans and their closest relatives retained numerous primitive traits - morphological features that defined the different hominins that preceded them. sapiens-like, or derived, morphological traits," co-first author Predrag Radović, researcher at the University of Belgrade in Serbia, told UPI in an email. " Homo bodoensis is defined based on the specific combination of H. "But they had not yet differentiated into modern humans, Neanderthals, Denisovans and other related lineages." "There is a recognition that these hominins are not exactly Homo erectus, which preceded them," Roksandic said. "The legacy of colonial theft and extraction makes me pause," Hawks said.īut while the names Homo heidelbergensis or Homo rhodesiensis may be problematic or nonfunctional, their invention and sporadic use reflects the distinctiveness of these Middle Pleistocene hominins. " Homo rhodesiensis is a bad name," John Hawks, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Wisconsin who was not involved in the new study, told UPI in an email. Most of the hominins that would be reclassified have been previously assigned to either Homo heidelbergensis or Homo rhodesiensis, the latter of which alludes to Rhodesia and the bloody legacy of European colonialism in Africa. ![]() "This is just opening the door to communicate and encourage the conversation around the movements of late Pleistocene hominins," Roksandic said. If different scientists have different definitions for hominin species, it becomes difficult to parse shared data and incorporate the findings of others into ongoing investigations. ![]() "The point of the naming is that it allows us to build hypotheses that can be tested and that other scientists can understand," lead author Mirjana Roksandic, paleoanthropologist and professor at the University of Winnipeg, told UPI.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |