Tales of Human History Told by Neandertal and Denisovan DNA That Persist in Modern Humans

Where did we humans come from? When did we become the dominant species on the planet?

00:00 - Start
01:38 - Main Presentation

Experts take you on an exploration of the last half-decade of new evidence from ancient DNA, fossils, archaeology and population studies that has updated our knowledge about The Origins of Today's Humans. Recorded on 02/21/2020. [4/2020] [Show ID: 35716]

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[druwk]

Crazy that there were other species of “humans” that were genetically close enough to mate with, and that could produce viable offspring. Like certain wild species of cats, and common house cats. Certainly paints a picture of a different world in our not so distance past.

[sofynosoucy]

Great presentation!
Thank you for making it accessible to non-specialists! 😁

[leohorishny]

One thing I find frustrating when discussing prehistory, people, or animals is, usually the contemporary geography is left out. Even just 6000 years ago, the coastlines and land forms were notably different! Talking about hominins, or even dinosaurs or Ice Age wildlife, it seems there's a huge missing piece of their world at that time. We usually hear about, or get a description of THAT object and THEIR local habitat. It would help appreciate and understand all the changes, if larger surrounding regions were also included.

[edwardlee]

This investigative on human genetics and migration always fascinated me. Thanks and keep up with the good work. From HK

[BigfootAnthropologist]

Fascinating presentation by Joshua Akey on Neandertal and Denisovan DNA that have been identified in Modern Humans. It was interesting to find out that the ancient DNA is not the same in those who have it. That there may be some overlap, but there are outliers that like dendrochronology have floating chronologies that with more sample size can be tied into the mix. My only complaint is the use of the National Geographic image of a Neandertal. Why is it that Science and Hollywood has to show ancient peoples as unkempt and dirty faced? Any anthropologist studying primitive cultures can attest that people from young to old and from male to female in so-called Primitive societies take great pride in their appearance. All animals literally like to "put on a good face" in public by grooming themselves or others of their species.

[johnmurkwater]

Very interesting, thank you.
It's cool to hear about the travels of early humans and how the population mixed with each other.
Seems like it's been a thing with humans for ever and a day.
I could have listened to this for hours, that 18 minutes just flew by...

[forestdwellerresearch]

What strikes me is how they found 400, 000 year old DNA in Sima de los Huesos, Spain which is a hell of a long way from Siberia or Melanesia.

[patmoran]

Very good presentation. Scientific research such as this are key to our future.

[survisingh]

Excellent Presentation!!! Thanks for making this more fun and understandable than my college professors

[RalphDratman]

What a great talk! So clear and straightforward.

[robertschlesinger]

Very interesting and informative video presented by a highly knowledgeable expert.

[dominiquebalabat]

When he discussed Chromosome 7 depleted on neanderthals and denisovans, it was like a eureka moment. It just fits into place.

[kuvashanmandrie]

Couldn't you have just tested all those other participants that's were tested for Neanderthal DNA for denisovan DNA too? Great talk! Really enjoyed it👍🏾👌🏾

[michaelwoodhams]

So what can we find out if we take Neandertal sequences at the same locus from many people and do phylogeny on them? We should be able to estimate how recent the introgression was, and whether all the sequences came from a single introgression event, or multiple. If a recent single source introgression nevertheless has high frequency in the population, this is evidence that it has been under positive selection. We could also look at nearby sequences for evidence of a selective sweep.

[AdamosDad]

They are us! They were fully human in the modern sense.

[leohorishny]

If we only discovered Denisovan DNA and evidence recently, what's to say there aren't other DNA sequences we could identify and source?

[bernadettebecher]

Thank you for this information- so interesting.

[manlypedro]

Not a single Alien lecturer... disappointed.

[ToddMatthewsFitness]

Brilliant new research! Fascinating stuff. 💪🙂

[gordoncavanaugh]

I've always wondered why there wasn't back migration. What geographical impediments made it difficult for ancient hominoids and humans to travel back and forth from sub Saharan Africa? If we assume that ancient hunters followed the migration of animals then why isn't there significantly more back and forth migration evidence in DNA? Was there a significant change in the environment that precluded a return to sub Saharan Africa? Could the geographical changes in the African environment be superimposed on the DNA evidence to give a clearer interpretation of when these migrations may have occurred?