Culture Shock May Explain Similarity Between Humans

News Type: Event — Seeded on Fri Jan 9, 2009 4:35 PM EST

Article Source: Science: Current Issue

Ever since researchers discovered in the 1970s that humans lacked the genetic variation expected of our population size, they have proposed that our ancestors went through a big squeeze: Volcanic eruptions, disease, or climate change created a population "bottleneck" that reduced the number of breeding adults to about 10,000 sometime in the past 100,000 years. But new genetic studies of ancient DNA from Neandertals have found that they and the last ancestor they shared with humans, about 600,000 years ago, also lacked much genetic variation, which would require at least three dramatic bottlenecks--an improbable scenario.

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{"commentId":4739224,"authorDomain":"jcatom"}

JCAtom

...other studies have found that language differences restricted gene flow in recent times in Europe, suggesting that cultural barriers might have limited genetic diversity more consistently than occasional local bottlenecks.
...Genetic variability plunged when individuals required mates with the highest degree of cultural similarity, the team reports this week in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Conversely, genetic diversity increased when individuals were less selective about their mates--as is the case in chimpanzees or gorillas, which mate whenever possible with individuals from other groups.
...if human ancestors selected mates from similar backgrounds, there would have been a lot of inbreeding within different populations, restricting the flow of new mutations to other groups. "If these guys on the other side of the river spoke a different language and had different weapons, you would not try to mate with them or they might kill you," says Hublin. Over time, most populations went extinct, allowing the genes of only a few groups to proliferate, further erasing genetic diversity.

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5 votes

#1 - Fri Jan 9, 2009 4:40 PM EST

{"commentId":4739640,"authorDomain":"doublespambox"}

XNihil0Zer0

I would say, at this point, human evolution is influenced more by memes than the natural environment.

{"commentId":4739640,"threadId":"465837","contentId":"2293765","authorDomain":"doublespambox"}

4 votes

#1.1 - Fri Jan 9, 2009 5:00 PM EST

{"commentId":4739528,"authorDomain":"ilkbahar-carl"}

RoxyFL

"Beauty is in the eye of of the beholder' is good way to describe the diversity mentioned in the seed..

From a different article

the study has revealed that while one in 17 people across the Mediterranean carry the Phoenician gene, in Lebanon almost a third of the population have Phoenician roots.

http://ilkbahar-carl.newsvine.com/_news/2008/12/20/2233918-divided-lebanons-common-genes-

{"commentId":4739528,"threadId":"465837","contentId":"2293765","authorDomain":"ilkbahar-carl"}

3 votes

#2 - Fri Jan 9, 2009 4:54 PM EST

{"commentId":4744968,"authorDomain":"markesanchez-marke"}

goldminor

The bottlenecks make more sense, and going back hundreds of thousands of years, there weren't very many individuals in a tribe. To me, it would seem that several small tribes coming in contact with one another, might tend to share ideas and some level of kinship. Probably for the purpose of gaining knowledge to aid in their survival.

{"commentId":4744968,"threadId":"465837","contentId":"2293765","authorDomain":"markesanchez-marke"}

2 votes

#3 - Sat Jan 10, 2009 12:06 AM EST

{"commentId":4746208,"authorDomain":"txtj1"}

txtj1

atom i too have found that connection ,.people being displace by world contastrophies,.i also think the mayans aztecs n incas came from asia ,.n when the white man called the native americans its cause they reminded them of the india people,.i love a gene study of the two continets

{"commentId":4746208,"threadId":"465837","contentId":"2293765","authorDomain":"txtj1"}

2 votes

#4 - Sat Jan 10, 2009 3:33 AM EST

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JCATOM

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Culture Shock May Explain Similarity Between Humans

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