[Taxacom] What is Homo sapiens

Wed May 30 11:53:41 CDT 2018

Why should ancestral retention have to be in all individuals of a species?

John Grehan

On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 12:49 PM, Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com> wrote:

> John,
>
>      In the case of Homo sapiens neandthalensis, it cannot be ancestral
> retention.  Because if it was ancestral retention, you would not see the
> virtual absence of such genes in African populations.
>
>      One can argue whether neandthalensis should be a subspecies of
> sapiens, or a distinct species, but placing it in a separate genus would be
> compltely unacceptable to most mammalogists.  Even many anthropologists
> would not accept such oversplitting.  That would be so far away from Mayr's
> recommended criterion that it would destabilize hominid classifications
> even more than they already are.
>
>                       -------------Ken
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>
> *Sent:* Wednesday, May 30, 2018 9:40 AM
> *To:* Socorro Gonzalez
> *Cc:* Kenneth Kinman; taxacom
> *Subject:* Re: [Taxacom] What is Homo sapiens
>
> This relates to a broader question that I presume someone on this list can
> answer as a molecular geneticist - when 'genes' are shared between species,
> how does one know whether they are ancestral retention vs later
> 'hybridization'?
>
> On the interbreeding criterion some would posit neanderthals as H. sapiens.
>
> John Grehan
>
> On Wed, May 30, 2018 at 10:28 AM, Socorro Gonzalez <
> herbario_ciidir at yahoo.com.mx> wrote:
>
> I agree Kenneth.
>
> Considering that several of us have neanderthal genes (I, as many other
> people, have more than 3%). So, I wouldn't be happy that part of my
> ancestry is in another genus :)
>
> Socorro
> _________________________________
>
> M. Socorro Gonzalez Elizondo
> Herbario CIIDIR
> Instituto Politecnico Nacional
> Sigma 119 Fracc. 20 de Noviembre II
> Durango, Dgo., 34220 MEXICO
> Tels. (618) 814 4540, (618) 814 6802; (55) 5 729 6000 ext. 82609
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *De:* Kenneth Kinman <kinman at hotmail.com>
> *Para:* John Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>; taxacom <
> taxacom at mailman.nhm.ku.edu>
> *Enviado:* Miércoles, 30 de mayo, 2018 8:40:02
> *Asunto:* Re: [Taxacom] What is Homo sapiens
>
> Dear All,
>
>       In the conclusions, he says: "By logical extension, hypothetical
> neanderthalensis and heidelbergensis clades, regardless of their
> relationship to a sapiens clade, should be regarded as separate genera."
>
>       I do not agree with that at all.  This is another example of the
> oversplitting that many anthropologists have long practiced, and it should
> be discouraged, not encouraged.
>
>                 --------------Ken
>
> ________________________________
> From: Taxacom <taxacom-bounces at mailman.nhm.ku.edu> on behalf of John
> Grehan <calabar.john at gmail.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2018 7:59 AM
> To: taxacom
> Subject: [Taxacom] What is Homo sapiens
>
> For anyone interested in such questions, see article at
>
> http://www.isita-org.com/jass/Contents/2016vol94/Schwartz/26963221.pdf
>
>
> Abstract below
>
> What constitutes Homo sapiens? Morphology versus received wisdom
>
> Although Linnaeus coined Homo sapiens in 1735, it was Blumenbach forty
> years later who provided the first morphological definition of the species.
> Since humans were not then allowed to be ante-Diluvian, his effort applied
> to the genus, as well. After the Feldhofer Grotto Neanderthal disproved
> this creationist notion, and human–fossil hunting became legitimate, new
> specimens were allocated either to sapiens or new species within Homo, or
> even to new species within new genera. Yet as these taxonomic acts
> reflected the morphological differences between specimens, they failed to
> address the question: What constitutes H. sapiens? When in 1950 Mayr
> collapsed all human fossils into Homo, he not only denied humans a diverse
> evolutionary past, he also shifted the key to identifying its species from
> morphology to geological age – a practice most paleoanthropologists still
> follow. Thus, for example, H. erectus is the species that preceded H.
> sapiens, and H. sapiens is the species into which H. erectus morphed. In
> order to deal with a growing morass of morphologically dissimilar
> specimens, the non-taxonomic terms “archaic” (AS) and “anatomically modern”
> (AMS) were introduced to distinguish between the earlier and later versions
> of H. sapiens, thereby making the species impossible to define. In
> attempting to disentangle fact from scenario, I begin from the beginning,
> trying to delineate features that may be distinctive of extant humans (ES),
> and then turning to the fossils that have been included in the species.
> With the exception of Upper Paleolithic humans – e.g. from Cro-Magnon,
> Dolni Vestonice, Mladeč – I argue that many specimens regarded as AMS, and
> all those deemed AS, are not H. sapiens. The features these AMS do share
> with ES suggest the existence of a sapiens clade. Further, restudy of
> near-recent fossils, especially from southwestern China (~11-14.5 ka),
> reinforces what discoveries such as H. floresiensis indicate: “If it’s
> recent, it’s not necessarily H. sapiens”.
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> Nurturing Nuance while Assaulting Ambiguity for 31 Some Years, 1987-2018.
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