40,000 Year-old Remains Found To Be More Than 10 Percent Neanderthal

a reply to: Temudjin

care to source a citation for that claim?

a reply to: peter vlar

Well which of the thousands of papers do you want? You mean the skin color ?

a reply to: Temudjin

Show me any published paper linking Melanin production to the pineal gland. There is a very big difference between production of Melatonin(which the pineal gland does produce and is a natural regulator of sleep cycles) and Melanin which regulates skin tone.

a reply to: peter vlar

The Pineal gland secretes melatonin (through the conversion of serotonin) which activates the pituitary gland to release MSH (melanocyte stimulating hormone). It is in the melanocytes that melanin is produced.
The Pineal gland is the first gland developed in your body, and appears in homo-sapiens a mere 3 weeks after conception.

I need a Published paper, so lets theorize about it, if it were suddenly to arise a published paper what would change?

originally posted by: DazDaKing
a reply to: peter vlar

Thanks for the informative reply man!

I've realised I got the 7 foot tall association from the fact that Cro-Magnon men were said to have been able to reach ranges of 6 foot 5 to 7 foot tall. This wasn't the average height however.
My honest mistake. What was the average human height from 40,000-200,000 years ago? I've read figures from 4'10" to 5'2".

That particular time range makes it a pretty difficult question to answer with any degree of accuracy. When you say human, are you referring only to Homo Sapiens Sapiens? or are you including H. Neanderthalensis, H. Altaiensis, Floresiensis, H. Erectus( and Heidelbergensis) and the as yet unknown West African Hominid?

I don't understand your natural selection point. Read what I said again. The specimen's bloodline had been in Europe (and hence exposed to European UV levels) for approximately 35,000 years, and yet the skin pigment had still shown practically no sign of changing from brown.

The entire study is based solely on 1 individual specimen so it's hardly a conclusive determination. The limited study doesn't get very deep into the specifics of the genetics and doesn't account for the fact that a singular specimen found in Northern Spain doesn't reflect on the rest of Europe as there are well known crossings from the Moroccan side of Gibraltar into Spain so a more comprehensive study of many more individuals is necessary before proclaiming this to be the new paradigm shift.

The team itself has proposed an alternative theory to UV radiation, stating that it was in fact an agricultural revolution that led to the relatively quick and recent development of the light-skin gene.
It's strange actually because there's a clear correlation of UV radiation exposure and the skin pigment of the local populace - so we can deduce to an extent that UV radiation is definitely playing a part here.

The team itself should also look into a correlation between domestication of cattle for milk(increased vitamin D intake) and melanin production. Areas where grazing cattle is easier provides more VitD therefore the necessity for less Melanin in the skin is abated and darker skin colors can continue. Again, the climate of Spain is not exactly comparable to Sweden is it? Skin tones of many Spanish are considerably darker than Northern Europeans. It seems like there are a lot of variables being ignored to further a specific hypothesis.

But here's a question for you... how can skin pigment influence natural selection?

Easy, if a mate with lighter skin, lighter hair and lighter eyes is considered more attractive and more desirable then they will be producing more offspring. Those offspring will then continue to spread those genes through the local populace. It's not about anachronistic Darwinian survival of the fittest. It's about who has the most sex, produces the most viable offspring who survive to adulthood and then continue to spread those genes.

Natural selection works on the principle that a mutation provides a beneficial advantage to survival and thus over time it spreads through reproduction more so than the other variants - in its most simple form.
Skin pigment definitely doesn't provide a survival advantage in terms of gaining lighter skin. What it does provide is increased efficiency.

In 1859, sure. That's how Darwin postulated it. I think in the intervening 150+ years we've learned a few things that he didn't quite know yet though.

Vitamin D levels are not going to make the difference between the race surviving or not. I refuse to believe this. It was not like all the dark-skinned males started dying in the sudden drop of UV radiation/Vitamin D absorption, leaving the lucky few lighter skinned mutants to continue breeding - that is absurdity.

It's not absurdity. Its science and its survival. You can't survive long enough to pass your genes on if you die of skin cancer. And as I noted above, SELECTION is just that, mates selecting who they want to procreate with based on attraction and desirability. It doesn't need to be a beneficial trait in terms of long term population genetics. It just has to be a trait that wants others to have sex with you.

If UV radiation can't affect the survival rate of a dark-skinned man within his singular lifetime, it cannot be the driving force of a change over multiple generations due to decreased reproduction.

So developing skin cancer can't affect survival rates in a singular generation? Interesting... but again, as I've noted a couple of times, it doesn't need to be a trait that is beneficial to survival as much as it needs to be a trait that gets you laid.

The difference in Vitamin D could be argued to have affected the hunting capacity of different males for example, hence over many generations becoming the more prevalent gene. However, this is really stretching it.

I disagree. Underestimating the importance of proper nutrition for long term survival in a HG society is stretching it a bit more.

The only other way to explain it logically from a strictly classical Darwinistic approach is to assume that the lighter skin increased the sexual attractiveness to the opposite sex. That is a controversial statement in itself.

Why? because it's not politically correct to say that a darker skinned male was attracted to the light skinned blonde? Oh well...

Personally, I feel more like we are witnessing the product of epigenetics rather than classical natural selection. Science has come a LONG way since the days of Darwin.

And what is the basis of your epigenetic hypothesis?

In the first 4 or 5 years of a humans life, the DNA-Body complex is gathering all relevant environmental information. This data, including factors such as temperature/EM radiation, is not only used to make changes to the 'planned' body but it is also passed down generation to generation.

Citation?

Essentially, DNA comprises an open feedback loop system. This is actually startling knowledge but I believe it to be scientifically sound now.

I'm certainly open to whatever the evidence can demonstrate to be true. In this case, epigenetics isn't making it past the sniff test, cant be tested or independently replicated so until it can...

Perhaps skin pigment is ultimately a product of this? Either that or these scientists hit the nail on the head and that it was really diet that caused the change - or at least the jump from dark to light.

I don't think either of those options is the case. There is no evidence for an epigenetic change behind melanin production and the study was so limited that the results are questionable. You can't assert a new "fact" regarding population genetics based on a singular specimen. It's bad science no matter how interesting or promising the premise is.

Back on topic however - I find it absolutely fascinating that we are basically accepting that Neanderthals were boat sailors. This takes a tremendous amount of intelligence and awareness.

They made it to islands that were well beyond the horizon. The only way they could do so was by boat. This indicates an extraordinary amount of planning and forethought to accomplish

a reply to: Temudjin

do you have a citation or not?

a reply to: peter vlar

Oh wow, another one? Do you know the amount of money a published report cost? Can we just theorize over this, could the pineal gland be bigger and if you learnt how to use it as a sixth sense would it function?

a reply to: peter vlar

You already know he doesn't, and the notion is ridiculous.

a reply to: admirethedistance

shhhh!!! Im playing allmighty!

originally posted by: DazDaKing

Any humanoid that has the capacity to do this must also inherently have the capacity to achieve what we have achieved today. It means the fundamental basis is there.

And for the most part, all prior hominids have achieved what we have achieved. It's just a matter of scale and increasing sophistication. Tools can be traced back to before the Genus Homo to some Australopithecines. H. Erectus had built structures going back some 400 KA with evidence of communities of 40-50 people. Definitive evidence of Fishing in East Timor going back over 40KA, Neanderthal were using boats to get to islands in the Mediterranean like Malta and Crete as well as Islands off of the horn of Africa.Neanderthal had as much culture and civilization as "we" do. They had art, music, cared for the injured and elderly, had burial practices which appear to include some religious motif's and on and on.

It also makes me think back to the red haired visitors in America and even the early human obsession with a previous and different civilization.

Aside from some Norse on the East Coast around 1000 CE there isn't any actual evidence for 'red haired visitors'. There are myths sure, but there are many myths worldwide that are just that and nothing more. It gets even trickier when those who were telling the myths were doing so in trances under the influence of hallucinogenic substances.

It's crazy to think that there were 4 humanoids roaming the Earth at one time, all apparently equipped with at least the fundamental basis for learning and understanding.

I suppose that depends on the time period you're referencing. Up until definitely 70 KA and possibly as recently as 30-40 KA there were 6 contemporary hominids. Throughout history, there have been many overlapping species going back to the Australopithecines.

The more I think about it, the defining feature that resulted in us being here right now, with me using a device in my hand to relay a message to you god knows where, is the utilization of language.

Language has certainly been around far longer than recorded history and HSS, HN, very likely HA(Denisovan) and as both HSS and HN are descended from H. Heidelbergensis, likely they as well. HH is the most likely source for the FoxP2 gene as both HSS and HN possess it.

Only once a proper system of language is established can any other form of human progression occur, from the spiritual to the technological.

Considering its very arguable that HN had both spiritual and technological aspects of their cultures and societies and equally arguable that this can be applied to even earlier hominids, I suppose it depends on what exactly one wants to think of as language.

I believe it is our specific anatomy that allows us to express the full range of frequency that we do. A Neanderthal could not have produced the entire range that we can. Is our fluke simply down to this?

No, the HN could produce the entire vocal range and possibly had a higher range, than we do today.

Then again, as you said, modernly anatomical humans arose approx. 200,000 years ago. Why did it take us approx.195,000 of those years to actually start using a system of writing, which ultimately reflects the achievement of advanced language itself?

Who says it did? It took that long for people to begin baking a written script into clay tablets. That's not to say that earlier written languages did not exist. There is evidence for some older scripts and depending on how one wants to interpret things, it can be argued that earlier cave art was a type of written language. There are engravings carved into the pillars at Gobekli Tepe that could be representative of written language. The Shigur Idol found in a Siberian bog is the worlds oldest preserved wooden statue and has what could be a written script carved into it at nearly 10,000 years old.

Also, before I forget, what's your opinion on what drove humans to migrate all the way to the Nordic lands from Africa, ignoring all the potential areas to settle in between - which are also unarguably more hospitable for life?

Was this a by product of a tribe crossing a frozen portion of the sea and realising they could not afford to risk moving further, and being forced to settle in an otherwise unfavourable area? Any light would be welcome.

Some of them could very well have been refugees fleeing from Doggerland as it was inundated by water and swallowed by what is not the English Channel and the North Sea. There were already some people living at the edge of the ice at the ne do the LGM and archeological evidence shows that they pushed inland after the water receded and land became dry. Parts of Denmark, Southern Sweden(modern Skane county) and the coast of Norway were ice free by 13KA and the dearth of Pleistocene Fauna made for excellent hunting for and HG groups. If people wanted to live in more hospitable environments they would have just stayed in the Mediterranean Basin. Competition for resources, changing climates, favored food resources, abundance of tool making kit are among many factors that determine where people will settle. Initially many groups will follow herds as they migrate and eventually settle in an area that they favor. Perhaps the limited competition from other humans, vast resources, easy to make shelters and protection from predators was appealing? I can't really say with any degree of veracity what those people were thinking when they decided to set up shop towards the end of the LGM. There are far too many variables and it's not really my area so I simply don't have enough information to make a proper assessment.

By the way - I am aware that the Earth has gone through various environmental changes over the last 200,000 years, but the general rule of the equator will still hold due to the geometry of our solar system.

Living near the equator comes with its own set of obstacles and difficulties. Higher prevalence of diseases being a major factor. Tropcal diseases were a big enough factor in humanities past that the sickle cell variant evolved to protect humans in Malaria prone areas for example.

The closer we get to the poles, the colder and harder life becomes - 200,000 years ago or today.

There weren't many people near the poles 200KA and during periods where people moved farther north, the climate was a bit more friendly to them. It was human ingenuity that allowed them to stay when climates shifted back in most cases. Either way, not an environment I personally would want to set up shop for my family!

a reply to: admirethedistance

Oh I know nothing is forthcoming. I just tired of the habitual one line posts and was hoping for something substantive. I should have known better because its just a game apparently. Ah well...

a reply to: peter vlar

What you're saying in regards to skin cancer is completely backwards. Am I missing a facet of your point here?

So developing skin cancer can't affect survival rates in a singular generation? Interesting... but again, as I've noted a couple of times, it doesn't need to be a trait that is beneficial to survival as much as it needs to be a trait that gets you laid.

Lighter skin increases the chances of skin cancer. There's no way then that you can form a reasonable argument to state that it was skin cancer that drove the continuation of the lighter gene.

Like I've already said, and to which you've agreed, the only way to comfortably explain it from a Darwinistic approach is to state that it increased sexual attactiveness. I have no problem with its political incorrectness - however science as a field is now bound by fear of such statements.

It's not absurdity. Its science and its survival. You can't survive long enough to pass your genes on if you die of skin cancer.

I'm not stating evolution through survival is absurdity. I'm saying that to believe Vitamin D absorption affected survival rates significantly within one lifetime is absurd. I didn't say it was implausible over many - although it's effect is a bigger stretch to comprehend than the immediate and absolute effect that increased sexual attractiveness would have.

Your example of skin cancer would only be valid if lighter skin provided increased protection against the disease.

If we were discussing an Out of Europe theory, in which man started with lighter skin and evolved darker skin after settling in Africa, then your point here would be logical.

I agree with you that one specimen isn't enough to deduce conclusively - but the team seems to be suggesting that his DNA shows native European hunter-gatherer lineage.

There's also no counter evidence of light skin in Europe prior to 5,000 BC.

Here's another article linked to this:

www.bbc.co.uk...

The modern European gene pool was formed when three ancient populations mixed within the last 7,000 years, Nature journal reports.

Blue-eyed, swarthy hunters mingled with brown-eyed, pale skinned farmers as the latter swept into Europe from the Near East.

But another, mysterious population with Siberian affinities also contributed to the genetic landscape of the continent.

Here's a map provided by the Harvard team (note that I've only just stumbled across this):

ichef.bbci.co.uk...

When you put that map and timescale together with the previous study, there seems to be a clearer picture. The specimen found was of the European hunter-gatherer type, and his bloodline had immigrated into Europe approx. 45,000 years ago.

This is also roughly when we start to see the decline of the Neanderthal.

In this 45,000 year time span, the hunter-gatherer does not seem to have developed lighter skin, as shown by the specimen who shares traits with this ancient lineage yet is only 7000 years old.

The ancient North Eurasians, or the so-called "mystery race", only came into the mix 7000 years ago. This is the same time period in which we also see the Mesopotamians begin their movement north into Europe.

It seems like the lighter skin in Europe, based on these two studies, is actually the initial product of breeding with the ancient North Eurasians and Mesopotamians, rather than UV radiation or diet.

This study postulates that the Mesopotamians/Eurasians exhibited lighter skin and the hunter-gatherers did not due to the switch to farming - which meant less vitamin D in general. The hunter-gatherers didn't have a problem as the animals they hunted contained sufficient amounts.

"There's an evolutionary argument about this - that light skin in Europe is biologically advantageous for people who farm, because you need to make vitamin D," said David Reich.

"Hunters and gatherers get vitamin D through their food - because animals have a lot of it. But once you're farming, you don't get a lot of it, and once you switch to agriculture, there's strong natural selection to lighten your skin so that when it's hit by sunlight you can synthesise vitamin D."

I still think epigenetic mutation would be a more sensible explaination than natural selection - in this case. I'll get to that in my next reply mate.

It seems that Europe was one of the last places to be settled by the lighter skinned man, rather than the conventional idea that it developed chronological in a linear correlation with movement north.

As you've said, if we take the Out of Africa theory as our fundamental basis, this would mean that Europe was pretty much completely circumvented for many thousands of years by what we could consider the more 'advanced' man (farming capability).

Also, interestingly, the ancient North Eurasian 'mystery race' shows the most genetic resemblance to Native Americans.

Evidently, these dates also seem to line up with the arrival of domestication in Europe. I think I have an overall better understanding now. My next goal is to better understand the movements that led to the ancient North Eurasians.

a reply to: peter vlar

In regards to epigenetics - I would suggest to start here:

discovermagazine.com...

That article is almost a decade old now, but it is a solid introduction into the fundamental principles and supporting studies for the field of epigenetics. It has significantly progressed since. I cannot go and link every study for you, but key names are in that article and google is a powerful tool. I am using my mobile so please bear with me.

I also feel it's important to note that epigenetics and natural selection are not contradictory or opposing ideas. Epigenetics is not a threat to classical Darwinistic explainations. They are two sides of the same coin - two different mechanisms by which evolution occurs.

The key difference is that epigenetics is inherent to DNA, and hence a natural driving mechanism for evolution, where as 'natural selection' is a term for the process by which survival rates, over great time, determine the majority populace and hence genepool.

Here's some quotes for me to go off for now:

Remarkably, the researchers effected this transformation without altering a single letter of the mouse's DNA. Their approach instead was radically straightforward—they changed the moms' diet. Starting just before conception, Jirtle and Waterland fed a test group of mother mice a diet rich in methyl donors, small chemical clusters that can attach to a gene and turn it off. These molecules are common in the environment and are found in many foods, including onions, garlic, beets, and in the food supplements often given to pregnant women. After being consumed by the mothers, the methyl donors worked their way into the developing embryos' chromosomes and onto the critical agouti gene. The mothers passed along the agouti gene to their children intact, but thanks to their methyl-rich pregnancy diet, they had added to the gene a chemical switch that dimmed the gene's deleterious effects.

We've shown in mice that affecting a mother's pregnancy diet can cause the offspring to develop efficient mutations in relation to the diet within that same generation. This is an observed effect. It is not a stretch by any means of the imagination to then assume the same occurs for humans, considering that DNA is largely constant amongst life in it's fundamental basis.

Going back to vitamin D and skin pigment - is it not hard then to see how the significantly lowered vitamin D levels during the early pregnant farmer could have triggered the genetical change to lighter skin. That's just one mechanism by which epigenetics could've been the trigger and accelerator however.

The UV radiation effect is clearly also active on an epigenetical level. It can work in conjuction with natural selection too, in which case the effect is significantly sped up, but it will work on it's own accord over many generations.

From an epigenetical perspective - the balance of UV radiation/Vitamin D determines the preferred pigment - this is why the native European hunter-gathered remained brown-skinned (but still lighter than African natives) for 45,000 years.

Low vitamin D/medium UV radiation evidently triggers the genetic preference for significantly lighter skin, as evidenced by the Mesopotamians and more so by the ancient North Eurasians.

Sufficient vitamin D/extremely high UV radiation evidently triggers the genetic preference for the darkest skin. This is the only scenario where natural selection (as the sole trigger and accelerator) would provide as simple an answer as the epigenetical explanation.

The fact that skin pigment so strongly correlates with UV radiation across the globe, besides the pockets where farming developed, seems to back this 'bound-to-happen' epigenetical notion more than the idea that humans simueltaneously tended to find the initial lighter-skin bearer significantly more attractive each and every time - leading to an exponential increase of the gene through increased reproduction over 1,000 of years.

Logically, being the initial bearer of the lighter-skin gene would actually be negative from a sexual attractiveness perspective - if modern humans are anything to go on in regards to people born with significant differences.

It is not beyond science for genes to make these seemingly clever decisions.

And that's precisely why I think people are objective to epigenetics, despite there being solid scientifical evidence. It seems too 'intelligent' - it introduces a degree of complexity to DNA that pushes it over the 'acceptable' boundary for many people's comprehension of it.

It's like people have forgot that DNA is a 64-bit, DOUBLE-LAYERED (i.e quantum code) language that CREATES YOU - unarguably the most impressive by-product of the universe since it can comprehend the universe's rules itself. DNA is more advanced by it's inherent virtue than any single creation that conscious thought has been able to achieve.

The even greater surprise is the recent discovery that epigenetic signals from the environment can be passed on from one generation to the next, sometimes for several generations, without changing a single gene sequence. It's well established, of course, that environmental effects like radiation, which alter the genetic sequences in a sex cell's DNA, can leave a mark on subsequent generations. Likewise, it's known that the environment in a mother's womb can alter the development of a fetus. What's eye-opening is a growing body of evidence suggesting that the epigenetic changes wrought by one's diet, behavior, or surroundings can work their way into the germ line and echo far into the future.

Further support to what I was just stating.

This is an extremely exciting time for anyone with a scientific interest. We are only just truly begininning to unravel the wonders of the DNA and our history.

And, of course, it's thanks to Darwin's great mind that we are able to deduce these finer answers to the most important human questions.

a reply to: theantediluvian

interesting, EXCEPT that carbon dating is only accurate for a few thousand years.

“You read books and find statements that such and such a society or archeological site is (claimed to be) 20,000 years old. We learn rather abruptly that these numbers, these ancient ages, are not known (speculations and imaginative guesses); in fact, it is about the time of the First Dynasty in Egypt that the last (earliest) historical date of any any real certainty has been established.”
Willard Libby, Nobel Laureate for development of radiocarbon dating

a reply to: DazDaKing

seems like you are mis-stating "mutations" as being beneficial. NO such example exists.

what is true is that our Genome allows us incredible abilities to ADAPT by DIVERSIFYING. For the DNA to express differently based in environment and beliefs… WITHIN the LAWS encoded in the DNA...

“We adjust our genes to fit the environment that we think we live in...when necessary, perception rewrites genes...”
“our beliefs are altering our biology at every moment...”
Dr. Bruce Lipton

Biology of Belief - by Bruce Lipton
youtu.be...

Also important to consider: GENOMIC ENTROPY…

which also seems to preclude our current notions:

yt: Prof. John Sanford on Genomic Entropy
youtu.be...
Geneticists:
Dr. Crow: we are inferior to caveman.
Dr. Knodrashov: no human geneticist doubts man is degenerating.
Dr. Lynch Even assuming a lower mutation rate, we are degenerating at 1%-5% per generation.
Implies a young Creation and as with DNA complexity, theory of evolution is unlikely.

Average cell in 15 yr old - up to 6,000 mutations per cell. (all your cells are different)
Skin cell in 60 yr old - up to 40,000 mutations
Mutations primary cause of aging and death.
“...little potential for substantially increasing the upper limit of human life span.” (upper limit: 120 yrs)
--Michael Lynch (Population Geneticist)
50% reduction in sperm count in men.

Around 100 new mutations per generation.

Dr. Francis Collins, head of Human Genome Project, converted to Christ partly due to the data he found working in genetics.

a reply to: Verum1quaere

Oh look, you're just copying and pasting the same exact information you've posted in numerous other threads only to be addressed and debunked in those threads. You provide nothing of substance in your own words or thoughts. Just some simple out of context quote mining. What a surprise to see the same exact quotes appear in thread after thread yet
When they are appropriately dealt with, you ignore it or disappear only to pop back up on another thread and start over as if it's a brand new day and nobody has seen you pull the same decaying, dead rabbit out of your hat.

14c dating is good and accurate back to 60ka BP. Find a peer reviewed paper that says Otherwise and then you might have a conversation. Otherwise you're just pulling anachronistic and outdated quotes out to support a nonexistent point. When did Libby make this statement? What is the source of this statement? Can you provide a citation for it or are people just supposed to accept your word that a man who has been dead nearly 35 years said something completely contrary to what any modern geologist or anthropologist knows to be true? What is your personal experience with radio metric dating beyond quote mining Libby? What would Libby say today with 35 years of new data, evidence and methods of dating under our belts than when he died?

originally posted by: Verum1quaere
a reply to: theantediluvian

interesting, EXCEPT that carbon dating is only accurate for a few thousand years.

“You read books and find statements that such and such a society or archeological site is (claimed to be) 20,000 years old. We learn rather abruptly that these numbers, these ancient ages, are not known (speculations and imaginative guesses); in fact, it is about the time of the First Dynasty in Egypt that the last (earliest) historical date of any any real certainty has been established.”
Willard Libby, Nobel Laureate for development of radiocarbon dating

Let's try this since I've asked you previously to properly cite and give the original quote from Libby to give the proper context. Obviously the truth isn't your aim or else we would have see it by now. In all fairness, what you attributed to Libby was accurate with the exception of your personalized emphasis and false attribution of his actual meaning and intent. Let's look at what Libby ACTUALLY said-

"You read books and find statements that such and such a society or archaeological site is 20,000 years old. We learned rather abruptly that these numbers, these ancient ages are not known. Archaeologists have been making inferences from limited, indirect data. With radiocarbon, these numbers, these ancient ages, could be known, and with ever increasing accuracy."

With the appropriate quote and context, it doesn't quite say what you keep implying what Libby meant now does it?

I found this quote in a book titled '1491 New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus' by Charles C. Mann page 155, paragraph 4, sentence 3.

Proper context and the entire quote are very important.

I met a woman once who looked highly unusual, she had a bumper sticker that read "Neanderthals, they are among us still"
I think she was on to something. Her bone structure was big and her head was massive and round moon face unlike any morphology I had ever seen in a person before. Genetically recessive? the 10% DNA might have a mathematical probability of occasionally re-expressing itself in a complete genomic sequence recreating a recent ancestor.
a reply to: theantediluvian

a reply to: DazDaKing

You are wrong about how big Homo neanderthalensis were. They were short and stocky, their average height for man was 5'-5" and women were 5'-1". Their average weight was about 143 lbs. males and 119 lbs. females.

Here's my source
humanorigins.si.edu...