Africans aren't pure Homo Sapiens either ( Archaic Species Interbreeding In Africa)

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Africans aren't pure Homo Sapiens either, Homo neanderthalensis - Human
Origins, Homo neanderthalensis, neanderthals africa, neanderthals dna Archaic
Species Interbreeding In Africa, neanderthals genome, neanderthals all non-
africans, neanderthals eurasia, archaic genome, Archaic africans, african archaic
human

African ancestors interbred with Archaic species

Anatomically modern humans interbred with more archaic hominin forms even before
they migrated out of Africa, a team of researchers has found. The discovery
suggests genetic exchange with their more morphologically diverged neighbors was
more widespread than previously thought and all humans today may carry genes from
now-extinct Homo species.

When we discuss the origins of modern humans, the term �Out of Africa� is a bit
misleading. Our common ancestors came not from Africa as a whole but from a
relatively small area somewhere in East Africa. Beginning around 80,000 years ago,
this area was the scene of several population expansions that culminated in a �big
bang� c. 60,000 BP (Watson et al., 1997). This was a sustained expansion that
pushed out of Africa and into Europe, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas.

These modern humans spread at the expense of more archaic �hominins�: Neanderthals
in Europe and West Asia, and other poorly known groups elsewhere. But the latter
were not totally replaced, as seen in the 1 to 4% Neanderthal admixture of present-
day Europeans, East Asians, and Papuans. This has led some people to quip that only
Africans are pure Homo sapiens:

Better yet, and a blow to Caucasian and Asian racists, the comparison of the human
and Neanderthal genome makes it clear that it is only Africans who are 100 percent
Homo sapiens, while in European (including American and Australian settlers) and
Asian populations one can find up to 4 percent DNA stemming from the archaic and
often maligned Neanderthal species - a hominid that went extinct more than 20,000
years ago. (Camphausen, 2010)

Well, no. Sub-Saharan Africans actually have more archaic admixture. The difference
is that it came not from Neanderthals but from archaic groups within Africa. About
13% of the sub-Saharan gene pool comes from an earlier expansion of pre-modern
hominins that occurred c. 111,000 years ago and seems to correspond to the entry of
Skhul-Qafzeh hominins into the Middle East (Watson et al., 1997). This higher level
of admixture may have come about because archaic Africans were behaviorally and
physically closer to modern humans than the Neanderthals were.

Nonetheless, these �Paleoafricans� were clearly archaic. They lacked something that
modern humans had. What was this disadvantage that ultimately removed them from the
struggle for existence? The answer is much debated, but most authors posit a
limited capacity for symbolic thinking and social organization:

[�] the African exodus was predated by a cultural revolution involving new stone
blade technologies, skin working tools, ornaments and imported red ochre [�] More
advanced symbolic systems in language and religious beliefs could have provided a
competitive advantage to a group by promoting coordination and cohesion. (Atkinson
et al., 2009)

Thus, when we discuss human origins, the real split was not between Africans and
non-Africans but rather between two groups of Africans: archaics and moderns.
Dienekes (2005) uses the terms �Paleoafricans� and �Afrasians�:
It is common to distinguish between Africans and non-Africans, with the former
being much more genetically diverse than the latter. But, the real "gap" in human
origins seems to be between the really old Africans ("Paleoafricans") and the rest
("Afrasians").

The Paleoafrican element is entirely confined to Africa, while the Afrasian one is
found in both Africa and Eurasia. Indeed, modern humans can be entirely split into
two groups: (i) a group of "pure" Afrasians which includes all non-Africans, and
(ii) a group of Afrasian-Paleoafricans which includes all non-Caucasoid Africans.
Human groups of entirely Paleoafrican origin, unhybridized with the younger
Afrasians are no longer in existence.

All of this leads to an intriguing conclusion. Since present-day sub-Saharan

Africans were used as a benchmark to estimate Neanderthal admixture in present-day
Eurasians, and since Paleoafrican gene sequences should be less �derived� and more
similar to Neanderthal gene sequences, Neanderthal admixture in present-day
Eurasians is probably a bit higher than the estimated 1 to 4%.

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2011/09/africans-arent-pure-humans-
either/#.VnT5j-Ztd5Y

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110905/full/news.2011.518.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/09/110905160918.htm?
utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+sciencedaily+
%28ScienceDaily%3A+Latest+Science+News%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

http://dienekes.blogspot.com/

http://www.pnas.org/content/108/37/15123

http://www.thewire.com/technology/2011/09/it-wasnt-just-neanderthals-ancient-
humans-had-sex-other-hominids/42117/