Bonobos documented for first time using ancient pre-agricultural tools, breaking bones, and using spears as attack weapons

For the first time, a scientific study has observed bonobos (an analogous race to chimpanzees) making sophisticated use of ancient pre-agricultural tools in a manner similar to that which has hitherto been considered the prerogative of archaic pre-human hominins and other members of the Homo genus. Among other findings, a bonobo was observed for the first time making and using spears in a social setting for the purpose of attack and defense.

Interestingly, the bonobos are considered less sophisticated than their chimpanzee siblings. Chimpanzees have been observed in nature using branches to dig for tubers in the ground and to break into termite nests and beehives. As part of their cultural diversity, they have also been documented breaking nuts with hammer and anvil, and even manipulating branches into spears for use in hunting small prosimians that hide in tree hollows. By contrast, bonobos were known as a social species that engages in extensive sexual behavior and have not been observed in nature using tools.

In the current study they have examined that bonobos, in a sanctuary and a zoo, were also capable of undertaking sophisticated sequential-actions in extractive foraging tasks. This study included a group of eight bonobos at Wuppertal zoo, Germany, who lived in conditions of full captivity, and a group of seven bonobos from the Bonobo Hope sanctuary in Iowa, USA who lived in culturally-rich conditions with forest access. Both groups were presented with similar natural challenges: they were required to reach food either buried deep in the ground (covered by a layer of stones of varying sizes), hidden inside large ungulate bones (filled with dried fruit to simulate bone marrow), or concealed inside small concrete capsules.

Within a few days, the bonobos at the sanctuary began to prepare and use task-appropriate tools in a deliberate and planned manner. They also used stones and antlers as hammers to break ungulate bones or concrete capsules. The zoo bonobos also managed to perform food extraction tasks, but it took them a month to reach this point.

To sum up, we believe that the current study will break down our cultural hang-up as humans concerning the inherent capabilities and potential of bonobos and chimpanzees.

Video of the study: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89rNGhGv3ys

Read more at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/11/151130084918.htm

A recent study describes the differences between Neanderthal facial skeletons with the ones of modern humans.

An international research team, has just published a study describing for the first time the developmental processes that differentiate Neanderthal facial skeletons from those of modern humans.

This study showed that the Neanderthals, who appeared about 200,000 years ago, are quite distinct from Homo sapiens (humans) in the manner in which their faces grow.

        Bone is formed through a process of bone deposition by osteoblasts (bone-forming cells) and resorption by osteoclast (bone-absorbing) cells, which break down bone. In humans, the outermost layer of bone in the face consists of large resorptive fields, but in Neanderthals, the opposite is true: In the outermost layer of bone, there is extensive bone deposition.
          Neanderthals were always considered to be a very different category of hominin, but i fact they share with older African hominins a similar facial growth pattersn. It is actually humans who are developmentally derived, meaning that humans deviated from the ancestral pattern. . In that sense, the face that is unique is the modern human face, and the next phase of research is to identify how and when modern humans acquired their facial-growth development plan.

        In our opinión, it is an amazing research because it provides important information about human evolution, because some think that Neanderthals and humans should not be considered from different branches of the family tree. But those discoveries provide enough evidence to affirm that those two groups are sufficiently different from one another.

Read more at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/12/151207131517.htm

The four main stages of human evolution

Research into 430,000-year-old fossils collected in northern Spain found that the evolution of the human body's size and shape has gone through four main stages, according to a paper published this week.

Dated to around 430,000 years ago, Sima de los Huesos in the Sierra de Atapuerca in northern Spain preserves the largest collection of human fossils found to date anywhere in the world. The researchers found that the Atapuerca individuals were relatively tall, with wide, muscular bodies and less brain mass relative to body mass compared to Neanderthals.

Comparison of the Atapuerca fossils with the rest of the human fossil record suggests that the evolution of the human body has gone through four main stages, depending on the degree of arboreality (living in the trees) and bipedalism (walking on two legs). The Atapuerca fossils represent the third stage, with tall, wide and robust bodies and an exclusively terrestrial bipedalism, with no evidence of arboreal behaviors. This same body form was likely shared with earlier members of our genus, such as Homo erectus, as well as some later members, including the Neanderthals. Thus, this body form seems to have been present in the genus Homo for over a million years.

This is really interesting since it suggests that the evolutionary process in our genus is largely characterized by stasis (little to no evolutionary change) in body form for most of our evolutionary history.

            Read more at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/08/150831163841.htm

Molecular biology concerns human evolution

To gain a clearer picture of health and disease, scientists have now provided an independent reference for all human variation by looking through the evolutionary lens of our nearest relatives.

            By observing evolution's "greatest hits" (and misses) and the history of the major themes and patterns of genome conservation (and divergence) across many species, scientists can predict probable mutations that will be found among people and the fate of human variation.

            The research team relied on an evolutionary tree that included 46 vertebrate species spanning over 500 million years of life on Earth to predict the evolutionary probability (EP) of each possibility at each position of our genome. They applied their new method on all protein-coding genes in the human genome (more than 10 million positions). Consistent with the knowledge that most mutations are harmful, they found very low EPs (lower than 0.05) for a vast majority of potential mutations (94.4 percent).

            Next, they produced a complete evolutionary catalog of all human protein variation, or evolutionary variome, that can be used to better understand human diseases and adaptations. And, it can be directly applied to the genomes of any other species.

            We think that the fascinating part of the story is that once we know what our ancient evolutionary history predicts, then we can compare this expectation to what we observe in human populations today.

Read more at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/10/151029124542.htm

DNA reveals mysterious human cousin with huge teeth

A new genetic analysis suggests that the recently discovered Denisovans lived in Eurasia for millennia.

            The analysis of a fossil tooth from Siberia reveals that a mysterious people known as Denisovans, discovered a mere five years ago, persisted for tens of thousands of years alongside modern humans and Neanderthals.

            The find underscores that our Homo sapiens ancestors shared the Eurasian continent with other human-like populations. So this new study marks an important step in scientists’ understanding of where Denisovans fit in the human family tree.

            In 2010, teams of geneticists and anthropologists announced strange DNA sequences recovered from a finger bone and molar found in the remote Denisova cave, in Siberia’s Altai Mountains.

            The DNA shows that Denisovans left their mark on modern humans, contributing about five percent of the genome of modern Melanesians, who live in Papua New Guinea and other parts of the Pacific.

                The teeth found in the cave were bigger and stronger than the ones known from Neanderthals and humans. Although it is difficult to say what large-toothed Denisovans would have looked like but it is almost clear that those large teeth with massive roots would probably require massive jaws.

                This is a very important research, because it reveals that human modern genome is composed (even if it is only a 5%) of Denisonvan DNA. Besides, it can change the way we think about the human family tree. 

Read more at: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/2015/11/151116-denisovan-human-anthropology-ancient-dna/

My Neanderthal sex secret: modern European's great-great grandparent link

The first modern humans to arrive in Europe did not wait long to have sex with Neanderthals, according to experts in ancient DNA.

Tests on the remains of a man who lived in Europe about 40,000 years ago found he had two to four times more Neanderthal DNA than any other modern human tested. He inherited the DNA when an ancestor had sex with a Neanderthal about 200 years earlier, or four to six generations back in his family tree.

Though present day humans have at most only a few percent Neanderthal DNA each, when added together, the global population carries about a fifth of the Neanderthal genome.

Genetic tests show that most Neanderthal DNA was rapidly lost from the modern human genome. One theory is that mixed children grew up to be less fertile, or were less likely to reach fertile age, meaning their DNA vanished quickly from the gene pool.

In the latest study, scientists used a dentist’s drill to remove a small amount of bone for genetic tests. The results, reported in Nature, are remarkable. The man had 6-9% Neanderthal DNA, far more than people alive today. But the amount was not the only surprise. The Neanderthal DNA was present in large chunks, meaning he had a Neanderthal ancestor in his recent past. Half of one entire chromosome was pure Neanderthal.

A great discovery that will help to understand better the human´s genome because it was unknown until today that our genome contains Neanderthal genes, even if it is that little.

Read more at: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2015/jun/22/my-neanderthal-sex-secret-modern-europeans-great-great-grandparent-link

Studies Suggest Homo naledi Walked Upright and Climbed Trees

Homo naledi – an extinct species of hominin whose fossil skeletons were discovered in a South African cave and introduced to the world last month – may have been uniquely adapted for both tree climbing and walking as dominant forms of movement, while also being capable of precise manual manipulation, according to two new studies published in the journal Nature Communications.

One of the studies, titled The foot of Homo naledi, suggests that although its feet were the most human-like part of its body, Homo naledi didn’t use them to walk in the same way we do. They show the Homo naledi foot shares many features with a modern human foot, indicating it is well-adapted for standing and walking on two feet.

The Homo naledi hand and foot were uniquely adapted for both tree climbing and walking upright. The hand of Homo naledi reveals a unique combination of anatomy that has not been found in any other fossil human before. The wrist bones and thumb show anatomical features that are shared with Neanderthals and humans and suggest powerful grasping and the ability to use stone tools.

This mix of human-like features in combination with more primitive features demonstrates that the Homo naledi hand was both specialized for complex tool-use activities, but still used for climbing locomotion.

From our point of view, it is an amazing discovery in terms of anthropology because it totally changes the perception of human evolution and Homo naledi's bipedalism and capability to climb trees. This information did not fit in human evolution steps until today.

Regardless of age, this species is going to cause a paradigm shift in the way we think about human evolution, not only in the behavioral implications, but in morphological and anatomical terms

Read more at: http://www.sci-news.com/othersciences/anthropology/science-homo-naledi-foot-hand-03313.html

Teeth from China Reveal an Early Human Trek out of Africa

       "Stunning" find shows that Homo sapiens reached Asia around 100,000 years ago.

Teeth from a cave in south China show that Homo sapiens reached China around 100,000 years ago—a time at which most researchers had assumed that our species had not trekked far beyond Africa.

Recent excavations of a cave system there extending over 3 square kilometres discovered 47 human teeth, as well as dozens of other animal species. The researchers found no stone tools; it is likely that humans never lived in the cave and their remains were instead hauled in by predators.

The teeth are unquestionably those of H. sapiens. The team report their results in Nature today. Determining the age of the teeth proved tricky. They contained no radioactive carbon (which has almost vanished after 50,000 years). So the team dated various calcite deposits in the cave and used the assortment of animal remains to deduce that the human teeth were probably between 80,000 and 120,000 years old.

Early trekkers

Those ages buck the conventional wisdom that H. sapiens from Africa began colonizing the world only around 50,000–60,000 years ago. But many researchers had argued that those remains were only evidence of unsuccessful efforts at wider migration.

Without DNA from the teeth, it is impossible to determine the relationship between the Daoxian people and other humans, including present-day Asians.

Other genetic evidence sugests that present-day East Asians descend from humans who interbred with Neanderthals in western Asia some 55,000–60,000 years ago. It is also not clear why modern humans would have reached East Asia so long before they reached Europe, where the earliest remains are about 45,000 years old. The frigid climate of Ice Age Europe may have erected another barrier to people adapted to Africa.

Although there´s a lot more work that needs to be done, this great discovery will surely change the common idea of the incapability of the early humans to adapt to new environments.

Read more at:  http://www.nature.com/news/teeth-from-china-reveal-early-human-trek-out-of-africa-1.18566

2-million-year-old fossils reveal hearing abilities of early humans

Research into human fossils dating back to approximately two million years ago reveals that the hearing pattern resembles chimpanzees, but with some slight differences in the direction of humans.

The study relied on the use of CT scans and virtual computer reconstructions to study the internal anatomy of the ear. The results suggest that the early hominin species Australopithecus africanus and Paranthropus robustus, both of which lived around 2 million years ago, had hearing abilities similar to a chimpanzee, but with some slight differences in the direction of humans. 

Humans are distinct from most other primates, including chimpanzees, in having better hearing across a wider range of frequencies. Within this same frequency range, which encompasses many of the sounds emitted during spoken language, chimpanzees and most other primates lose sensitivity compared to humans.

In the South African fossils, the region of maximum hearing sensitivity was shifted towards slightly higher frequencies compared with chimpanzees, and the early hominins showed better hearing than either chimpanzees or humans. It turns out that this auditory pattern may have been particularly favorable for living on the savanna. In more open environments, sound waves don't travel as far as in the rainforest canopy, so short range communication is favored on the savanna.

The emergence of language is one of the most hotly debated questions in paleoanthropology. There is a general consensus among anthropologists that the small brain size and ape-like cranial anatomy and vocal tract in these early hominins indicates they likely did not have the capacity for language.

How do these results compare with the discovery of a new hominin species, Homo naledi, announced just two weeks ago from a different site in South Africa?

It is obvious that this research is going to be a big step in anthropology and also in other sciences as medicine, because it may help in understanding the different patterns of audition and how and why have they evolved in this direction and not in another one.

Read more at: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/09/150925142702.htm