They sure go to a lot of trouble to avoid mentioning how very recent the modern human brain really is.
PS- I don’t accept that the Moroccan finds were human. Where would their brains fit on that graph?
The Moroccan fossil is the blue area #1 in the above paper.
I think that both papers confirm that the human brain has been evolving and still evolving for millions of years and through different human species. H. erectus had exceptional cognitive abilities, most advanced of any species in the history of life on Earth. H. Sapiens has much more cognitive abilities beginning 300,000 years old. Compare H.erectus stone tools to H. Sapian stone tools. Evolution of human brain never stopped, evolving in cognitive power for two million years. Our cognitive powers continue to advance exponentially. Even the past 100 years average intelligence has increased significantly worldwide.
Yessir. And it clusters with the other two species. Prediction: if they get DNA from them it will wind up being closest to Denisovans.
That’s not evolution. It’s too fast. That’s nutrition, environment, and education. Now I wonder what’s happened in the last 30 years, because when I was teaching the complaint was that test scores were dropping and they finally “fixed” it be re-norming the test!
Already got DNA from them. No Neanderthals are closest to Denisovans. If you are of European decent, you probably have about 1.5% DNA from Neanderthals mixing with your ancestors 40,000 years ago in the area of present day Romania. If you are from Southern east Asia you could have as much a 5% of your genome from your ancestors mixing with Denisavans. David Reich’s book is worth a read and so is the video.
Do you have a link on that Patrick? I have been keeping an eye out for DNA from the Jebel Irhoud finds and have seen nothing. And I know Neanderthals are closest to Denisovans. I’m sayin ght Jebel Irhoud finds would cluster with THEM not us, and more on the Denisovan side.
I’ve had the test and I have the 1.5% but I have seen no evidence for Romania being the place of admixture. Everything I heard was the middle east because the whole OOA group except for the mysterious Basal Eurasians got a bit of it. East Asians actually have a bit more than Europeans likely due to a second event which only they participated in or because Europeans have more Basal Eurasian which “waters down” their neanderthal genes.
I call that evolution. Evolution is not just about genomes. Cultural evolution going on all the time. Cognitive evolution going on all the time. What about the evolution of Artificial Intelligent?.
Thank you for digging that out for me. I believe I am familiar with it. If I recall the details correctly this individual had more recent Neanderthal admixture than living humans today- and according to his DNA did not sort with any living group of humans to today. He was a dead end. All the evidence I have seen is that the breeding with Neanderthals happened one time 55K ago for all Eurasians. Maybe a smaller secondary event with east Asians shortly thereafter. Most of the time since has been evolution at work slowly getting rid of most Neanderthal genes in humans
Not exactly. Nobody living has this man’s genes but that doesn’t mean that this man couldn’t be in your genealogy. Isn’t that what GA is all about?
No, we still have a lot of Neanderthal genes for a lot of diseases like type-2 diabetes. In Tibet, a Denosivan gene allows for living at high altitude.
Interesting article but this is not DNA from the Jebel Irhoud finds. It is from some humans who lived much later in the same area. The DNA is only about 22K old.
The latter may be sticking around in a tiny population, the former may be sticking around too because we can treat it now, but it is at least mildly deleterious and until modern medicine evolution would presumably slowly weed it out of the gene pool.
How’s this. Doesn’t say about DNA though
I hope it weeds out of the gene pool by using future Crispr-Cas9 gen repair technology 
This would be an example of evolution continuing by unintelligent designer (natural selection) designing an intelligent designer (a genetic scientist) who develops gene repair technology that evolves human without genetic diseases that we carried in our genome for millions of years. Homo Deus - man who became God.
It is but GA being undetectable also depends on Adam having a non-remarkable genetic signature. This fellow does not. In addition GA says that after 20 generations it is possible that you could be a descendant of Adam yet not have any of his DNA, not that NO descendant of Adam would have ANY of his DNA.
@anon46279830, this would be totally up to God. Do you think it would be important to Him that SOME of Adam’s genetic material had to be preserved? If it was to be more than just a trace here or there…it would require generation after generation of 1st cousins marrying 1st cousins… which is quite common practice in Afghanistan!
And among the patriarchs for that matter. But I don’t think it would require any supernatural intervention to preserve some of it. After all, aren’t we all telling each other that Eurasians have 1.5% of their genes from Neanderthals even though the interbreeding took place 55K ago?
Well my GA was Neanderthal. My grandmother told me something like it in a story when I was young. And you can’t prove that he wasn’t.