[asa] Neanderthals Not a Subspecies of Homo Sapiens

On Tue, May 6, 2008 at 2:15 PM, Dick Fischer <dickfischer@verizon.net>
wrote:

> And that jibes with some authors who count the Neandertals as a
> subspecies only.
>
That just took a major hit. This time from the paleontological side.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature06891.html

*Cladistic analysis of continuous modularized traits provides phylogenetic
signals in Homo evolution*

Moreover, the internal relationships of the *Homo* specimens show a
> remarkable agreement with previews phylogenetic hypotheses20<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature06891.html#B20>.
> Maximum parsimony and maximum likelihood analyses only differ in the
> relative position of *H. sapiens* in relation to the complex *H. erectus*,
> *H. ergaster*, *H. rhodesiensis.* Whereas the maximum parsimony cladogram
> places *H. sapiens* as a sister of a clade formed by specimens assigned to
> *H. erectus*, *H. ergaster* and *H. rhodesiensis*, maximum likelihood
> accommodates *H. sapiens* in a derived position relative to it. What is
> coincident in both analyses is the association of two controversial
> specimens (D2700 and Broken Hill) to a clade also formed by *H. erectus*and
> *H.ergaster*, as previously suggested21,
> <http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature06891.html#B21>22,
>
> <http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature06891.html#B22>
> 23<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature06891.html#B23>.
> Thus, our results are in agreement with previous assertions23,
> <http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature06891.html#B23>
> 24<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature06891.html#B24>recognizing
> *H. heidelbergenis* and *H. neanderthalensis* as chronological variants
> inside a single biological lineage. *The fact that H. neanderthalensis
> sensu stricto does not form a monophyletic clade with H. sapiensreinforces the idea that they are separate species.
> * Conceptually, this is a key support for the method presented here,
> because this observation is also defended by studies based in evidence other
> than skull shape, such as analyses of ancient DNA25<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature06891.html#B25>and growth patterns
> 26<http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature06891.html#B26>.
> [emphasis mine]

  Anthropology.net anlyzed the results like this:

The results aren't very surprising. *H. habilis* is the 'founder' of the *
> Homo* clade. The press went wild over the conclusion Neandertals are
> distinct lineage from the *H. erectus*-*sapiens* lineage, which is
> misleading — we already have a lot of evidence supporting that. Something
> that's worth pointing out is that *H. heidelbergenis *is more related to
> Neandertals than the *H. erectus*-*sapiens* group, which kinda makes
> sense, no *H. erectus *specimens have been found east of Turkey, to my
> knowledge, *indicating that a group of Homo were unique to Europe, prior
> to the influx of H. sapiens* — which could have been *H. heidelbergenis*.

OOA looks stronger everyday.

One more thing. David C. let me know I messed up the nomenclature in my
commentary on the Platypus paper but he hit his 4 post limit. I'll copy it
here so there is a correction for the record.

> To add a little more detail here (and this is from the paper and not the
> review articles which is kinda strange): Synapsids (mammal-like dinosaurs)
> and Sauropsids (bird-like dinosaurs) split 315 Mya, Protherian and
Therian

Dinosaur here is a typo for reptile. Would need to double check the
current cladistic terminology on sauropsids; guessing that it includes
diapsids plus those anapsids (probaly most of them) that are closer to
diapsids than to synapsids. Diapsids include birds, all modern
reptiles, and just about all Mesozoic ones (one lineage of anapsids
made it into the Triassic). Archosaurs includes birds, crocodiles,
dinosaurs, turtles, possibly pterosaurs, and lots of things that were
running around in the Triassic such as rauiscuchians, aetosaurs,
phytosaurs, etc.

> Archosaurs (birds) and Lepidosaurs (reptiles) split from Sauropsids (no
date
> given in the paper).

Roughly mid-Permian-both existed in the late Permian; generic early
diapsids are first known from upper Carboniferous (but lower
Carboniferous record of terrestrial vertebrates is quite poor).

Rich Blinne
Member ASA

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Received on Thu May 8 21:56:50 2008