The Blog

2021-

2021-08-04 d
TANGLED ROOTS III
Editor's Note:

(Selected Answers)

Neanderthals, Denisovans and bearers of the "ghost archaic" DNA became extinct, though some of their genes live on in the three lineages of humans. Their demise occurred because they were not "fit" in the Darwinian sense. Survival of the fittest applies even to hominids and the genus Homo. I have theorized that Australian Aboriginals and Sub-Saharan Africans survived into the historical period only because they were isolated by ocean or desert barriers from those with Neanderthal genetics.

The early Australians, like their progeny, would likely have been unable to build seaworthy vessels, maybe just log canoes. They also could have walked, waded or clung to trees dislodged by storms or tsunami from SE Asia across numerous islands to New Guinea and eventually to the Cape York Peninsula of northern Australia. This migration (or flight from attackers) could have taken hundreds of generations during the latest glacial period when sea level was about five hundred feet lower and latter they became landlocked as sea level rose.

The eventual Sub-Saharan Africans probably came south along the Atlantic coast during the Eemian Interglacial from the Iberian Peninsula (where much older stone tools have been found). The Eemian was warmer and more hospitable to early man than the Holocene, our current interglacial. With the coming of glaciation, aridity returned to block that route. I surmise they interbred with the existing African population that contributed the "ghost archaic" DNA. The much older "ghost archaic" DNA population diverged from our family tree before the separation of Homo sapiens sapiens from Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. I tentatively call them a form derived from Homo erectus.

The Neanderthal admixture produced humans with advantages, including larger brains and better immune systems. Unlike the Australians and Africans, they eventually became agriculturists and domesticated animals. They invented the wheel and could count beyond 3 or 5. They also invented writing.

The Neanderthal admixture humans would have out-competed the Australian Aboriginals as well as the Sub-Saharan Africans, just like they out-competed Neanderthals and Denisovans and Homo floresiensis from Indonesia (and the bearers of "ghost archaic" DNA if they had encountered them).

It bears repeating that no humans outside of Sub-Saharan Africa had "ghost archaic" DNA. Australian Aboriginals do not have any trace of that admixture. Also, no Sub-Saharan Africans had any Neanderthal genetics. The three human lineages have been distinct for a long time.

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