Environmental News

Current understanding of (we) humans and closely related species.

- Because readers might want to know
- Backgrounding a new publication on Neanderthal demise

This is an OK starting point:
https://www.britannica.com/science/human-evolution

While recognizing that new details (bones) will be found in future, and new interpretations may come into general acceptance.

Homo neanderthalensis had time and space overlap with H. sapiens. The former persists to an extent in our genome because of, well, ‘interactions’. Their exit may be further explained by this new study:

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/04/260427050609.htm

TL,DR: their social networks were more limited and less effective.

So, next time readers despair over Facebook or twiX or even Priuschat (!), give this a thought.

 

If you mean sapiens and neanderthalensis, the abundance of opinion is yes.

 

We get few links to Inst. Creation Res here. I'd not oppose more

I quote an interesting sentence therefrom:
"Burial implies an awareness of the after life and demonstrates the existence of formal ritual."

As it contains two separate assertions. Second is "formal ritual" and does not call for much justification in my view. Dead of any group mean something, as they do while alive. "formal" adjective is undefined, but no quibble. Burial might only imply knowledge developed over time that corpses attract scavengers, thus corpses should be made unavailable. But there is much evidence (some mentioned here) that burials included rituals.

The first assertion there "Burial implies an awareness of the after life" does not slide in. Burial is consistent with beliefs concerning afterlives. Cremation is also consistent with beliefs concerning afterlives (do any theologies assert otherwise?). Tibetan Buddhism occupies a niche with corpse-scavenging leading to afterlives. Yes weird, but one should take a wide view.

Human afterlife is based on existence of a soul persistent. That troubles me not at all (in fact I prefer it), but how corpses are treated isn't central to soul notions.

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Constructing a sentence with both a strong claim and a weak claim may satisfy a lot of people, a lot of times. See I did not say fool a lot of people.

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But pro tip to any making rational arguments; do not construct sentences that confound wheat with chaff. Not even within paragraphs. Make some paragraphs with evidence presented by you. Make other paragraphs based on speculation, deserving 'print' because knowledge might later be harvested.

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Overlong reply based on one sentence quoted? Preposterous. Some/many other sentences there pose no problems, but I'm not going one by one, and none of y'all would read it anyway.

And yet: "Neanderthal anatomy is essentially human in scope, with the same number of bones as humans ..." AFAIK fossilized/recovered bone counts are never a basis for species separations.

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Genomic separations of species is currently hot topic, so I'd not link to a page with 1998 publications as newest.

 

If link to britannica I cited above is an adequate summary, there have been 16 other species during 4 million years, similar enough to us to declare. Fourteen were earlier and did not overlap with H. sapiens. Climate, conflict, resource availability, or some other factors extincted them. Not us.

Neanderthals and H. erectus overlapped with us in time. So maybe we snuffed them. It has been found that 2% of Neanderthal DNA is in us; less in some regional populations. So there was some boinking going on. Such has not been demonstrated for H. erectus, and it is interesting to think about why.

Bones persist as fossils and provide most of this story. But bones are not ideal for DNA preservation. Bones are mineral networks containing calcium, phosphorus and other elements, filled in with collagen (protein) and vascular tissues. They contain (plenty of) DNA but in a matrix accessible to microbial degradation. So, their DNA is not well preserved for long.

Teeth are different. Outside is enamel, a form of bone with more fluorine atoms substituted for hydroxyl ions. Enamel is the hardest structure in our bodies. Inside that is dentin with typical bone structure. Inside that is pulp, typical soft tissue. These packages can be better preserved and inform all we know about Neanderthal DNA. I am not aware of any H. erectus teeth having been collected and analyzed. It would be a thing for paleogenomics.

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Tooth Fairies are on to something.

 

Continuing effort to describe DNA here. Cell nuclei are full of it Mitochondria exist in all cells and have their own DNA. Fun thing is that nuclear DNA comes from both mom and dad, but mitochondrial DNA only come from mom.

That is for animals. Plants (most) also have chloroplast DNA and it also only comes from mother plant.

Is this interesting? Understandable? Other biological kingdoms are very different. Bacteria promiscuously exchange DNA upon cell contact, and they bud new cells individually. Fungi have >10 different cell types among which any 2 can mate and produce offspring.

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All I offer is that some biota reproduce by 2 genders participating. Vast majority of new cells on earth are made otherwise. If this erodes anyones' Theology, it's not my fault.

 

where did we come from, and why are we here?

"why are we here?" Trivial response, because no sequence of events on this lively planet prevented it.

"where did we come from?" Trivial response, as after the most recent common ancestor of similar species. Deeper cloudy response, first replicating cells may have originated on earth at hot springs or ocean-floor vents. Both offer chemical energy that could be harvested when cells blundered into making a lipid-barrier bag. That innovation could have happened on another planet and been delivered here by exo-impacts. Life requires such a bag, and self-replicating 'instruction' polymers that are here DNA and RNA.

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"why are we here?" More deeply, a Godly Overlord fiddled about for billions of years, then after much suffering and extinctions, found a sentient species had evolved to do Godly work on one (or more) planets. Then sentient species received God's instructions and were told to follow them.

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I as a meaningless organism believe there is an organizing force above humans, not adequately described by our Religious Texts. I infer that organizing force is indifferent to human suffering and extinction of 16 other wannabe species on earth.

Is our sole purpose in existing to exalt God? Are we help to help others also?