Latest Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology Stories
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A multinational team of scientists led by the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology has sequenced nuclear and mitochondrial DNA extracted from the leg of an early modern human found in the Tianyuan Cave near Beijing, China. The Tianyuan human shared a common origin with the ancestor of many present-day Asians and Native Americans, the analysis showed. Moreover, the team found that the proportion of Neanderthal and Denisovan...
Skeletal remains in an island cave in Favignana, Italy, reveal that modern humans first settled in Sicily around the time of the last ice age and despite living on Mediterranean islands, ate little seafood. The research is published November 28 in the open access journal PLOS ONE by Marcello Mannino and colleagues from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Germany. Genetic analysis of the bones discovered in caves on the Egadi islands provides some of the first...
April Flowers for redOrbit.com - Your Universe Online A new study from the University of Cambridge finds that the DNA similarities between Neanderthals and modern humans are more likely to have arisen from a shared common ancestor than from interbreeding. Previously, it has been suggested that the shared parts of the genome sequence between the two populations was the result of interbreeding, but the new research, published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of...
[ Watch the Video ] Researchers have decoded the entire genome of a fossil from an extinct species of human related to Neanderthals. The team from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology sequenced every position in the Denisovan genome about 30 times over. They used DNA extracted from less than 10 milligrams of the finger bone discovered in Denisova Cave in southern Siberia. Svante Pääbo and his colleagues presented a draft version of the genome in 2010 that...
Compared to Neanderthals, modern humans have a better sense of smell Differences in the temporal lobes and olfactory bulbs also suggest a combined use of brain functions related to cognition and olfaction. The increase of brain size is intimately linked to the evolution of humanity. Two different human species, Neanderthals and modern humans, have independently evolved brains of roughly the same size but with differing shapes. This could indicate a difference in the underlying brain...
Scientists have recovered the DNA code of a human relative discovered recently in Siberia, which found that the relative roamed far from the cave that holds its only known remains. Scientists found evidence that these "Denisovans" from over 30,000 years ago ranged all across Asia. They apparently interbred with the ancestors of people that now live in Melanesia. There is no sign that Denisovans mingled with ancestors of people living in Eurasia, which made the connection between...
Whether cognitive differences exist between modern humans and Neanderthals is the subject of contentious disputes in anthropology and archaeology. Because the brain size range of modern humans and Neanderthals overlap, many researchers previously assumed that the cognitive capabilities of these two species were similar. Among humans, however, the internal organization of the brain is more important for cognitive abilities than its absolute size is. The brain's internal organization depends on...
High social status and maternal support play an important role in the mating success of male bonobosSuccess makes sexy - this does not only apply to human beings, but also to various animals. Male bonobos appear to benefit from this phenomenon as well. A team of researchers led by Gottfried Hohmann of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology has discovered that the higher up a male bonobo is placed in the social hierarchy, the greater his mating success is with female bonobos....
Genetic testing on a humanoid pinky finger bone discovered in a Siberian cave in 2008 has revealed the possible existence of a new, previously undiscovered pre-human life form, researchers announced on Wednesday.Researchers from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, the University of Montana's Division of Biological Sciences, the University of Vienna's Department of Anthropology, and the Russian Academy of Sciences published their research online in the journal Nature on...
DNA that is left in the remains of long-dead plants, animals, or humans allows a direct look into the history of evolution. So far, studies of this kind on ancestral members of our own species have been hampered by scientists' inability to distinguish the ancient DNA from modern-day human DNA contamination. Now, research by Svante Pääbo from The Max-Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, published online on December 31st in Current Biology "” a Cell Press...
