Mysterious 'ghost population' of ancient humans discovered

Mysterious "ghost population' of ancient humans discovered

(CNN)A mysterious population of ancient humans lived in West Africa about half a million years ago, and scientists believe their genes still live on in people today.

This "archaic ghost population" appears to have diverged from modern humans before Neanderthals split off from the family tree, according to the research published by the "Science Advances" journal.

The split appeared to have taken place between 360,000 and a million years ago, say the researchers from the University of California, Los Angeles. These ancient humans had babies with the ancestors of present-day Africans, much as Neanderthals reproduced with the ancestors of modern Europeans, wrote geneticists Arun Durvasula and Sriram Sankararaman.
DNA from this archaic population makes up between 2% and 19% of modern West Africans' genetic ancestry, they said.

Well-established research, the study says, has established the existence of Neanderthal DNA in modern European populations, and Denisovan DNA in Oceanic populations.
The UCLA researchers said that "while several studies have revealed contributions from deep lineages to the ancestry of present-day Africans, the nature of these contributions remains poorly understood." This is in part because of sparse fossil records in Africa and the difficulty of obtaining ancient DNA.
The scientists from UCLA overcame these challenges to find the "ghost" of the hominin tribe by using computer modeling techniques on modern DNA.
They built "genome-wide maps of archaic ancestry" across four West African ethnic populations living in three countries: Nigeria, Sierra Leone and the Gambia.... more at source

Looks like there is another undiscovered mystery species that homo sapiens bred with outside of Africa. I wonder what name they will end up choosing. Denisovans were a ghost species for a long time. Hopefully we learn more about this and eventually discover some fossils. Fascinating!

a reply to: Barcs

Thanks for the read! I've always supported multiple origin sites. IE.. Perhaps the coastal areas, now submerged for 10k years and/or different continents, or remnants of continents have a deeper story to unfurl.

I wonder if those newly discovered people had elongated skulls?

a reply to: Barcs

This "archaic ghost population" appears to have diverged from modern humans before Neanderthals split off from the family tree

We can now pinpoint in time when Dems and the Republicans first came to be.

All kidding aside - it's hard for me to take it seriously with those dates (I'm a 'young earther') - but it's cool none the less.

S&F

originally posted by: silo13
a reply to: Barcs

This "archaic ghost population" appears to have diverged from modern humans before Neanderthals split off from the family tree

We can now pinpoint in time when Dems and the Republicans first came to be.

All kidding aside - it's hard for me to take it seriously with those dates (I'm a 'young earther') - but it's cool none the less.

S&F

Out of curiosity, what leads you to beleive the "young earth" premise?

originally posted by: BlueJacket
a reply to: Barcs

Thanks for the read! I've always supported multiple origin sites. IE.. Perhaps the coastal areas, now submerged for 10k years and/or different continents, or remnants of continents have a deeper story to unfurl.

Yes, I've thought for a long time that rather than 1 or 2 big migrations out of Africa, it was more like a constant migration, with many many waves of hominids spreading out around the planet, adapting to the environment out there and then eventually meeting up with other hominids and breeding.

a reply to: rickymouse

[in-a-Butt-Head-voice] He said elongated.

a reply to: silo13

Is your being a "young earther" anything to do with the bible? I always wondered if earth might have been floating around the solorsystem before God made the waters recede. Maybe millions or billions of years. For an eternal being a billion years could seem like blink of an eye.

But then again carbon dating can be way off according to some scientists.

a reply to: silo13

originally posted by: Mach2

originally posted by: silo13

Out of curiosity, what leads you to beleive the "young earth" premise?

Yeah, I wanna hear an explanation for this too.

originally posted by: cognizant420
a reply to: silo13

Is your being a "young earther" anything to do with the bible? I always wondered if earth might have been floating around the solorsystem before God made the waters recede. Maybe millions or billions of years. For an eternal being a billion years could seem like blink of an eye.

But then again carbon dating can be way off according to some scientists.

While carbon dating can be way off in certain circumstances, such as the sample having been exposed to radiation from a nuclear explosion, I wouldn't say that it is overall inaccurate, when dating things less than 50kya.

There is surely a margin of error, but it isn't 10s of thousands of years.

In any case, as I understand it, what the OP is presenting wasn't "dated" at all. It is simply a computer simulation with no actual evidence.

For dates that far in the past, CD is not applicable anyway.

a reply to: Mach2

While carbon dating can be way off in certain circumstances, such as the sample having been exposed to radiation from a nuclear explosion, I wouldn't say that it is overall inaccurate, when dating things less than 50kya.

Carbon Dating has also been repeatedly tested with objects know the age of.

a reply to: dfnj2015

Yes!!!

Huhuhuhuhu Huhuhuhuhu Huhuhuhuhu.

originally posted by: Mach2
In any case, as I understand it, what the OP is presenting wasn't "dated" at all. It is simply a computer simulation with no actual evidence.

For dates that far in the past, CD is not applicable anyway.

Yes, the article is completely based on human DNA, not any form of carbon or radiometric dating. I wouldn't say no evidence, they can read the sequences and trace many of the lineages genetically. It is largely a mystery, though, where this DNA came from. Hopefully they learn more, it's very interesting to think about.

a reply to: Barcs

Forgive my ignorance but the article says "Neanderthals had babies with modern day Europeans" how is that possible if evolution says modern Europeans evolved from the neanderthals and then settled in Europe as well as other continents according the the "out of Africa" theory

originally posted by: Tartarianemperor
a reply to: Barcs

Forgive my ignorance but the article says "Neanderthals had babies with modern day Europeans" how is that possible if evolution says modern Europeans evolved from the neanderthals and then settled in Europe as well as other continents according the the "out of Africa" theory

Evolution doesn't say that we evolved from neanderthals. As far as I understand, the evolutionary tree has both homo sapiens (modern humans) and neanderthals evolving from homo heidelbergensis. Humans and neanderthals both existed together and interbred, but neanderthals went extinct while we survived.

a reply to: trollz

But that would mean the out of Africa theory isn't correct since Neanderthals are believed to have been from Eurasia.

originally posted by: Tartarianemperor
a reply to: trollz
But that would mean the out of Africa theory isn't correct since Neanderthals are believed to have been from Eurasia.

I believe the most popular theory is that neanderthals developed in Eurasia, but that the earlier ancestors to neanderthals/homo sapiens came from Africa.

a reply to: trollz

So that would mean there had to be the common ancestor in Europe already that evolved to the European climate and became what we know as Neanderthals and then modern day humans that evolved in Africa travelled to Europe and inhabited and interbreed with the neanderthals in Eurasia?

originally posted by: Tartarianemperor
a reply to: trollz

So that would mean there had to be the common ancestor in Europe already that evolved to the European climate and became what we know as Neanderthals and then modern day humans that evolved in Africa travelled to Europe and inhabited and interbreed with the neanderthals in Eurasia?

I'm really not sure, I never studied the subject, but that sounds right. Some evolutionary trees show that common ancestor as being heidelbergensis. I'm sure there are other members here who have more knowledge of it.

a reply to: Barcs

The best thing about this is that black supremacists and black racists love to tout that white people are part Neanderthal and that they're pure homosapien. It reminds me of Nazi racial superiority except reversed.

Lo and behold, human males in their ethnic groups did the same thing that they did in European ones; banged anything that resembled a woman and was easy.

Your tribe raided their dwelling and you killed their men but the women who dont want to fight and are cowering, scared, sometimes with babies? They played on your moral heart strings so you kept them captive. You know what happens next. She might pop out some badass fighters or sex slaves.

Rest assured, no Neanderthal or ghost (black ironically) Neanderthal men were knocking up human women. I'd like to think they were on the consistent losing end of the fight and never organized attacks.