H. heidelbergensis is Neanderthal ancestor and not 'Denisovan' cousin

Quickies

The unprecedented sequencing of a small fraction of the autosomal DNA of Homo heidelbergensis from the Sima de los Huesos of Atapuerca proves that they are in direct ancestral line to H. neanderthalensis and not particularly related to Denisovans.

Matthias Meyer et al., Nuclear DNA sequences from the Middle Pleistocene Sima de los Huesos hominins. Nature 2015. Pay per view → LINK [doi:10.1038/nature17405]

Abstract

A unique assemblage of 28 hominin individuals, found in Sima de los Huesos in the Sierra de Atapuerca in Spain, has recently been dated to approximately 430,000 years ago¹. An interesting question is how these Middle Pleistocene hominins were related to those who lived in the Late Pleistocene epoch, in particular to Neanderthals in western Eurasia and to Denisovans, a sister group of Neanderthals so far known only from southern Siberia. While the Sima de los Huesos hominins share some derived morphological features with Neanderthals, the mitochondrial genome retrieved from one individual from Sima de los Huesos is more closely related to the mitochondrial DNA of Denisovans than to that of Neanderthals². However, since the mitochondrial DNA does not reveal the full picture of relationships among populations, we have investigated DNA preservation in several individuals found at Sima de los Huesos. Here we recover nuclear DNA sequences from two specimens, which show that the Sima de los Huesos hominins were related to Neanderthals rather than to Denisovans, indicating that the population divergence between Neanderthals and Denisovans predates 430,000 years ago. A mitochondrial DNA recovered from one of the specimens shares the previously described relationship to Denisovan mitochondrial DNAs, suggesting, among other possibilities, that the mitochondrial DNA gene pool of Neanderthals turned over later in their history.

Some articles that describe the findings:

→ at Nature News

→ at Público (in Spanish)

Matthieson also found that the Sima de los Huesos hominids were closer to Denisovans and Neanderthals in mtDNA two years ago. But this sequencing of their nuclear DNA puts them much closer to Neanderthals instead.

Prüffer et al. found in 2013 that Neanderthals form a cline with "Denisovans" in nuclear DNA but not in mtDNA, in which they are closer to us. This one is a very interesting read for background, as it explores in great detail the various possible scenarios.

That "Denisovans" could be closely related to H. erectus (a catch-all term for most archaic populations, particularly in Asia) has been considered as very possible before (Waddell et al. 2012) but there is no genetic confirmation so far, neither strong rejection. Getting DNA from such ancient specimens is considered a breakthrough and this partial sequencing of 400,000 years ago is believed to be within the very limits of absolute possibility.

[Conclusions edited on Mar 19th because I got it all wrong and don't wish to keep confusing anybody else. Instead I listed several relevant background studies, judge yourself].

Altitude-adaption in Tibetans is "Denisovan-like"

It seems that archaic humans left a small but critical legacy among us:

Emilia Huerta Sánchez et al., Altitude adaptation in Tibetans caused by introgression of Denisovan-like DNA. Nature 2014. Pay per view → LINK [doi:10.1038/nature13408] 

Abstract

As modern humans migrated out of Africa, they encountered many new environmental conditions, including greater temperature extremes, different pathogens and higher altitudes. These diverse environments are likely to have acted as agents of natural selection and to have led to local adaptations. One of the most celebrated examples in humans is the adaptation of Tibetans to the hypoxic environment of the high-altitude Tibetan plateau^{1, 2, 3}. A hypoxia pathway gene, EPAS1, was previously identified as having the most extreme signature of positive selection in Tibetans^{4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10}, and was shown to be associated with differences in haemoglobin concentration at high altitude. Re-sequencing the region around EPAS1 in 40 Tibetan and 40 Han individuals, we find that this gene has a highly unusual haplotype structure that can only be convincingly explained by introgression of DNA from Denisovan or Denisovan-related individuals into humans. Scanning a larger set of worldwide populations, we find that the selected haplotype is only found in Denisovans and in Tibetans, and at very low frequency among Han Chinese. Furthermore, the length of the haplotype, and the fact that it is not found in any other populations, makes it unlikely that the haplotype sharing between Tibetans and Denisovans was caused by incomplete ancestral lineage sorting rather than introgression. Our findings illustrate that admixture with other hominin species has provided genetic variation that helped humans to adapt to new environments.

Figure 3: A haplotype network based on the number of pairwise differences between the 40 most common haplotypes.
The haplotypes were defined from all the SNPs present in the combined 1000 Genomes and Tibetan samples: 515 SNPs in total within the 32.7-kb EPAS1 region. The Denisovan haplotypes were added to the set of the common haplotypes. The R software package pegas²³ was used to generate the figure, using pairwise differences as distances. Each pie chart represents one unique haplotype, labelled with Roman numerals, and the radius of the pie chart is proportional to the log₂(number of chromosomes with that haplotype) plus a minimum size so that it is easier to see the Denisovan haplotype. The sections in the pie provide the breakdown of the haplotype representation amongst populations. The width of the edges is proportional to the number of pairwise differences between the joined haplotypes; the thinnest edge represents a difference of one mutation. The legend shows all the possible haplotypes among these populations. The numbers (1, 9, 35 and 40) next to an edge (the line connecting two haplotypes) in the bottom right are the number of pairwise differences between the corresponding haplotypes. We added an edge afterwards between the Tibetan haplotype XXXIII and its closest non-Denisovan haplotype (XXI) to indicate its divergence from the other modern human groups. Extended Data Fig. 5a contains all the pairwise differences between the haplotypes presented in this figure. ASW, African Americans from the south western United States; CEU, Utah residents with northern and western European ancestry; GBR, British; FIN, Finnish; JPT, Japanese; LWK, Luhya; CHS, southern Han Chinese; CHB, Han Chinese from Beijing; MXL, Mexican; PUR, Puerto Rican; CLM, Colombian; TSI, Toscani; YRI, Yoruban. Where there is only one line within a pie chart, this indicates that only one population contains the haplotype.

See also this entry on Neanderthal introgression being subject to positive and negative selection.

Pan-Homo split: 11-17 million years ago

Chimpanzee mutation rate is largely determined by fathers' age and, overall, implies a Pan-Homo divergence rate of ~13 million years (95% CI: 11-17 Ma), about double than usually assumed by conservative scholastic inertia.

Oliver Venn et al., Strong male bias drives germline mutation in chimpanzees. Science 2014. Pay per view → LINK [doi:10.1126/science.344.6189.1272]

cc Matthew Hoelscher

The focus of this study are the important differences between patrilineal and matrilineal mutation rate depending on the father's age among chimpanzees, notably more biased than among humans. However the resulting estimate for Pan-Homo divergence is not less important because it radically challenges the usual assumptions of 5-7 Ma, repeated once and again in molecular clock estimates, which are based on studies that are already quite obsolete.

In the studied captive population of Western chimpanzees 30 out of 35 mutations happened in the paternal lineage, and these increase with the father's age. No effect could be attributed to maternal age or familiar peculiarities.

Interestingly most of these patrilineal mutations happen near the telomeres, an effect not seen in female line mutations.

Owing to this gender bias, the mutation rate of the X chromosome among chimpanzees is 74% that of autosomal DNA (in humans: 85%). 

The gender bias in mutation rate and its differential with humans is attributed to differences in mating systems among great apes, with chimpanzees having the greatest competition among males, what is reflected in testicle size. They predict that gorillas (who experience less competition between males) will show less patrilineal mutation rate bias than humans and chimpanzees.

This is probably the more synthetic paragraph from the study:

Under a model in which the mutation rate increases linearly with parental age, the rate of neutral substitution is the ratio of the average number of mutations inherited per generation to the average parental age. We predict the neutral substitution rate to be ~0.46 × 10⁻⁹ per base pair (bp) per year in chimpanzees, compared to estimates in humans of ~0.51 × 10⁻⁹ bp⁻¹ year⁻¹ (9). These results are consistent with near-identical levels of lineage-specific sequence divergence (12) but surprising given the differences in paternal age effect. In the intersection of the autosomal genome accessible in this study and regions where human and chimpanzee genomes can be aligned with high confidence, the rate is slightly lower (0.45 × 10⁻⁹ bp⁻¹ year⁻¹) and the level of divergence is 1.2% (13), implying an average time to the most common ancestor of 13 million years, assuming uniformity of the mutation rate over this time (95% ETPI 11 to 17 million years; table S11).

13 million years of the hominid line

This is not at all the first study to highlight the extreme dubiousness of the usual scholastic assumptions regarding the Pan-Homo divergence, which taint so many genetic studies, turning their chronological estimates totally worthless.

In 2010, Wilkinson et al. estimated a Pan-Homo divergence rate of 8-10 Ma. In 2012 Langergraber et al. recalibrated previous studies getting a Pan-Homo divergence bracket of 6.78-13.45 Ma (fig.2), while the divergence from Gorilla would be significantly older: 8.31-20.0.

Fig. 1 from Langergraber 2012. Legend: Diagram illustrating the branching pattern and timing of the splits between humans, chimpanzees, bonobos, western gorillas, and eastern gorillas. The paler shading indicates the range of split times inferred in this study. Cartoon skulls indicate approximate age of the indicated fossil remains, but do not imply that these fossils were necessarily on those ancestral lineages or that entire crania actually exist for these forms.

A key fossil affecting this controversy is Sahelanthropus tchadiensis (Toumaï), which has been recently confirmed to be in the human line on several hardly questionable traits and is dated to c. 7 Ma.

A related debate is whether primates in general are much older than usually claimed and lived already in the Jurassic, something suggested by the already mentioned Wilkinson study and also by Heads 2010. Here a major issue is that mainline conservative estimates would have the ancestors of New World monkeys swimming (island hoping) to South America, something that those monkeys (and most other primates) simply will not do. The radiation of primates to South America and possibly also Madagascar is much better explained if these animals could just tree-hop, rather than island-hop to their destinations. However this would demand a radical revision of the usual age estimate for vertebrate radiation, what so far lacks fossil support (but lack of evidence is not evidence of lack, you know: fossil ages can only be taken as terminus ante quem dates and not absolute direct references).

But this is a side question, what really matters to us is that our ancestors split from the chimpanzee line c. 13 Ma (according to this study) and not after 8 Ma in any case (weighting all the evidence). This not just renders most "molecular clock" estimates useless and effectively false (wrong, erroneous, inadequate, misleading, junk, pseudoscientific...) but also help us to rethink our ancestral history in the African savannas since long before we became humans (Homo sp.)

Looking for some ecological context clues, I found this 1996 study by Jean Maley, which shows that Africa was largely humid in the early Miocene (smectite: evidence of water) but that it became increasingly arid towards the middle Miocene (kaolinite: evidence of sand). Up to this key ecological change of the Middle Miocene, the rainforest extended all the way to Egypt and East Africa. This kind of ecology allows for the common ancestor of African great apes to have arrived and first diverged in a jungle-dominated ecology and, later, for the speciation event leading to humans (bipedalism) to have happened as this once widespread jungle became scarcer, yielding to deserts and savanna.

Sahelanthropus (from fossilized.org)

It just makes all sense that the evolution of bipedalism was coincident with the vanishing of that originally widespread jungle environment whose dating is of approx. 13 Ma ago. However it must be said that the consolidation of the Sahara only happened much later, c. 7 Ma ago, already approaching the Pliocene.

Regardless of the exact split-time, a big question I have on hominid evolution is how on Earth did our small-brained and small-toothed precursors like Toumaï survive in the open savannas and grasslands without fire nor weapons. Even if they resorted to trees (isolated or in patches) for refuge, there were already felines of the saber-toothed family roaming in Africa and these big cats were no doubt be able  to climb on trees and in some cases they have been shown to predate on australopithecines. How could our precursors in the hominin line be able to face this menace without the advantage of speed (as ruminants have) or good defenses? Were their strong forelimbs, together with team action enough to confront the threat of predators? Did they use primitive weapons such as branches and stone throwing?

Claim of 13 Ma Pan-Homo split

[Update (Jun 29): new entry on this issue available].

[Update: the origin of this news is Venn 2014 but I could not find the mention of the 13 Ma split initially, as it was not something they underlined at all. I will write something as soon as possible. Thanks to all the people who helped my confused mind].

Live Science reports this week that the divergence of the human and chimpanzee lines may be as old as 13 million years. This is the oldest range of what Langergraber 2012 suggested (8-13 Ma in Fig.1, although in text they wrote "6.8-11.6 Ma") and older than the Wilkinson 2010 estimates (8-10 Ma), and would totally break all the usual "molecular clocks" so extremely abused in human genetics because it is double of the usual scholastic mindless parroting (5-7 Ma, which are necessarily too recent because they do not allow for Sahelanthropus' evolution and not even for bonobo evolution under the protection of the mighty Congo river).

Sadly the article includes no reference to the source, not even the name of the scientists involved, and I could not find it any reference online. For a moment I thought it could be another new study on gender bias in chimpanzee mutation rate (Venn et al. 2014 (ppv)) but after getting a copy it does not seem to have any direct relation.

So I would appreciate if someone can give me a lead on where this claim may come from.

Atapuerca skulls show "intermediate" features

H. heidelbergensis from Atapuerca
Cranium 5 "Miguelón"
(CC by José Manuel Benito)

This has been in the news all around this week with various emphasis, but probably the most important highlight is that, according to Atapuerca researchers, Homo heidelbergensis may well be a diffuse category with varied degrees of affinity to their Neanderthal successors.

J.L. Arsuaga et al., Neandertal roots: Cranial and chronological evidence from Sima de los Huesos. Science 2014. Pay per view → LINK [doi:10.1126/science.1253958]

See also: article at Science Daily.

Months ago, it was found that Atapuerca's H. heidelbergensis and the Denisova hominins formed a single mitochondrial DNA clade to the exclusion of Neanderthals and us. However Arsuaga et al. find that facial traits in the hominins of Sima de los Huesos seem to be already much closer to those of Neanderthals than to the local precursors. Instead other cranial traits such as brain size do not seem to change yet. 

There seems to be some uncertain speculation by the researchers on what this partial "neanderthalization" process in Atapuerca hominins could signify. 

"We think based on the morphology that the Sima people were part of the Neanderthal clade," Arsuaga said, "although not necessarily direct ancestors to the classic Neanderthals."

This, I guess, could indicate some sort of convergent evolution or be caused by some Neanderthal admixture on the male side.

 

Another important finding is that, contrasting with the similitude of the various specimens from Sima de los Huesos ("Chasm of the Bones", a key subsite of Atapuerca), other contemporary European specimens look quite different, suggesting that H. heidelbergensis was a quite diverse human species.

The study includes seven new specimens, as well as ten other previously reported ones.

Planning area of the brain "specifically human".

That's what a new paper claims, based in scan comparison with macaques.

Franz-Xaver Neubert, Comparison of Human Ventral Frontal Cortex Areas for Cognitive Control and Language with Areas in Monkey Frontal Cortex. Neuron 2014. Pay per view → LINK [doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2013.11.012]

Highlights

• Fundamental similarities in human and monkey cognitive control and language areas
• Monkey areas resemble human cognitive control and language areas
• These areas differ in how they connect to areas in the temporal cortex
• Identification of a unique to humans area in the human lateral frontal pole

Summary

Human ventrolateral frontal cortex (vlFC) is identified with cognitive processes such as language and cognitive flexibility. The relationship between it and the vlFC of other primates has therefore been the subject of particular speculation. We used a combination of structural and functional neuroimaging methods to identify key components of human vlFC. We compared how vlFC areas interacted with other brain areas in 25 humans and 25 macaques using the same methods. We identified a core set of 11 vlFC components that interacted in similar ways with similar distributed circuits in both species and, in addition, one distinctively human component in ventrolateral frontal pole. Fundamental differences in interactions with posterior auditory association areas in the two species were also present—these were ubiquitous throughout posterior human vlFC but channeled to different frontal regions in monkeys. Finally, there were some differences in interregional interactions within vlFC in the two species.

→ Science daily article.

The vlFC is marked in red

According to the lead author:

This area has been identified with strategic planning and decision making as well as "multi-tasking".

So, I would say, this implies that we are human, psychologically speaking, mostly because of our planning capacity and related decision-making discernment? Multi-tasking may also be important because it implies the ability of partly or totally stopping an activity, according to priorities, and yet retake it at a later moment, what seems intimately related to planning and decision-making.

It would be most interesting to find out how it works in other intelligent animals such as many cetaceans, elephants or non-human great apes. Macaques are very intelligent anyhow but, from an evolutionary viewpoint, I wonder if other species are more similar to us in this aspect or even have developed their own alternative psycho-architectures with similar results.

More details on the Neanderthal legacy in modern humans

Is straight hair Neanderthal?

A quick note on two recent studies on the relevance of Neanderthal introgression on modern Humankind, notably the "out of Africa" branch.

Sriran Sankararaman et al., The genomic landscape of Neanderthal ancestry in present-day humans. Nature 2014. Pay per view → LINK [doi:doi:10.1038/nature12961]

Abstract

Genomic studies have shown that Neanderthals interbred with modern humans, and that non-Africans today are the products of this mixture1, 2. The antiquity of Neanderthal gene flow into modern humans means that genomic regions that derive from Neanderthals in any one human today are usually less than a hundred kilobases in size. However, Neanderthal haplotypes are also distinctive enough that several studies have been able to detect Neanderthal ancestry at specific loci1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. We systematically infer Neanderthal haplotypes in the genomes of 1,004 present-day humans9. Regions that harbour a high frequency of Neanderthal alleles are enriched for genes affecting keratin filaments, suggesting that Neanderthal alleles may have helped modern humans to adapt to non-African environments. We identify multiple Neanderthal-derived alleles that confer risk for disease, suggesting that Neanderthal alleles continue to shape human biology. An unexpected finding is that regions with reduced Neanderthal ancestry are enriched in genes, implying selection to remove genetic material derived from Neanderthals. Genes that are more highly expressed in testes than in any other tissue are especially reduced in Neanderthal ancestry, and there is an approximately fivefold reduction of Neanderthal ancestry on the X chromosome, which is known from studies of diverse species to be especially dense in male hybrid sterility genes10, 11, 12. These results suggest that part of the explanation for genomic regions of reduced Neanderthal ancestry is Neanderthal alleles that caused decreased fertility in males when moved to a modern human genetic background.

→ Synthesis at Science Daily.

B. Bernot & J.M. Akey, Resurrecting Surviving Neandertal Lineages from Modern Human Genomes. Science 2014. Pay per view → LINK [doi:10.1126/science.1245938]

Abstract

Anatomically modern humans overlapped and mated with Neandertals such that non-African humans inherit ~1-3% of their genomes from Neandertal ancestors. We identified Neandertal lineages that persist in the DNA of modern humans, in whole-genome sequences from 379 European and 286 East Asian individuals, recovering over 15 Gb of introgressed sequence that spans ~20% of the Neandertal genome (FDR = 5%). Analyses of surviving archaic lineages suggests that there were fitness costs to hybridization, admixture occurred both before and subsequent to divergence of non-African modern humans, and Neandertals were a source of adaptive variation for loci involved in skin phenotypes. Our results provide a new avenue for paleogenomics studies, allowing substantial amounts of population-level DNA sequence information to be obtained from extinct groups even in the absence of fossilized remains.

→ Synthesis at Science Daily.

I don't have access to the papers (update: I do have the second one now) but, honestly, I don't have time either, so, even with full access, I would have to be rather shallow, given the complexity of the matter.

Nevertheless I would highlight the following:

Fitness costs

Areas of dense gene presence tend to be more depleted of Neanderthal inheritance, meaning that, at least in many cases Neanderthal genes were deleterious (harmful) in the context of the H. sapiens genome. It's probable that they worked better in their "native" context of the Neanderthal genome but we must not understimate the risks of low genetic diversity, a problem that affected Neanderthals as well as H. heidelbergensis (species probably including Denisovans or at least their non-Neanderthal ancestry).

Partial hybrid infertility

The areas of very low Neanderthal genetic influence include those of reproductive relevance, including genes affecting the testes and the chromosome X. This is typical of the hybrid infertility phenomenon, which is part of species divergence, making more difficult or even impossible that hybrids can reproduce. This particular item emphasizes that the differential speciation of Neanderthals and H. sapiens was in a quite advance stage already some 100 Ka ago, what does not seem too consistent with the lowest estimates for the divergence of both human species (H. sapiens have been diverging for some 200 Ka and are still perfectly inter-fertile). 

Adaptive Neanderthal hair introgression

On the other hand the Neanderthal genetic legacy has been best preserved in genes that appear to affect keratin (affecting skin, nails and hair). This bit I consider of particular interest because, based on the modern distribution of hair texture phenotypes, I have often speculated that straight hair may be a Neanderthal heritage and this finding seems supportive of my speculation.

It's possible that straight hair conferred some sort of advantage in some of the new areas colonized by H. sapiens, maybe providing better insulation against rain or cold (the ancestral Sapiens thinly curly hair phenotype is probably an adaption to tropical climate, allowing for a ventilated insulation of the head).

Some 20% of the Neanderthal genome still lives in us

Collectively, that is. The actual expressed genes are probably a quite less important proportion anyhow and the actual individual Neanderthal legacy (expressing genes and junk together) seldom is greater than 3% in any case.

Is the ability to digest milk in Europeans caused by ancient social inequality?

I've got involved these days in a discussion at Dienekes' Anthropology Blog on the causes of lactase persistance (LP), i.e. the ability to digest milk as adults, in Europe. 

The discussion orbits around a recent pay-per-view study by O.O. Sverrisdóttir, which claims, with some soundness for what I can discern, that LP in Europeans must have gone through positive selection. 

Actually the study, as most of its kind, deals only with one LP marker, the well known SNP rs4988235, whose T variant allows adults (in dominant fashion) to digest milk, an ability often lost after weaning. 

As I discussed back in 2010, there must be other such SNPs because actual LP phenotype only partly corresponds with the known LP alleles. But for whatever is worth, this is the (2010) "known allele" LP map:

In Europe at least, it essentially corresponds with the T variant of rs49235, which concentrates in Scandinavia, Atlantic Islands and the Basque/SW French area. 

At first I boarded the discussion with perplexity, because, even if the positive selection argument seems sound, it seems hard to find a reason for it: milk is not such a "great" source of food, excepting the issue of calcium and a high content of protein and fat, and the occasional claims that it is related to vitamin D deficiency seem extremely feeble because this vitamin is present at extremely low frequencies in natural milk, being rickets (where milk's extra calcium could play some role) only a "less important" side effect of vitamin D deficiency, because its main harmful effect is to impair early brain development, a most serious problem for which calcium seems quite meaningless. So why would the ability to digest milk would have become such a matter of life or death to be actively selected for generation after generation until near-fixation?

A key piece of information is that not a single sequenced Neolithic farmer has ever been found to carry the relevant LP allele (being all CC) and only since Chalcolithic we begin to find some TT and CT individuals. These are found in Sweden and in the southern areas of the Basque Country (see here for a lengthier discussion):

• In Götland (Pitted Ware culture) only 1/20 alleles was T (i.e. 1/10 persons had the CT combo, all the rest being CC and therefore likely lactose intolerants). 
• In Longar (Navarre, dated to c. 4500 BP) 1/7 individuals was TT, while the other six were CC (intolerant). There were no CT cases.
• In San Juan Ante Porta Latinam (SJAPL, Araba, dated to c. 5000 BP), 4/19 were TT, 2/19 were CT, while the remaining 13 were CC.

In the Basque cases we can appreciate that there must have already been two different populations regarding this SNP, because the CT cases are rare, implying that the two groups were only beginning to mix. It is worth mentioning that the Basque sites are odd in several aspects: on one side they seem to be military cemeteries (mostly males, arrow injuries and arrow points) and, on the other, they are rather exceptional in the Basque historical sequence of mtDNA pools (a lot more K and some other lineages than usual, less H and U).

But a key finding in this study is that a Neolithic sequence from Atapuerca (near Burgos city, historical Basque SW border) was again CC for the relevant SNP (and therefore likely lactose intolerant). So it is very possible that proto-Basques did not have the T allele in notable frequencies either (although I keep some reservations for lack of larger samples).

Whatever the case, if the T allele was selected positively as it seems, there must be a powerful reason for it. Was it cows, as some have claimed a bit too vehemently? I doubt it. 

Why? Because for all we know from the Middle Ages, a period very similar in many aspects to the Metal Ages, it were goats and not cows the main providers of milk. This makes total sense because the hardy goats are rather inexpensive to rear, while cows are more costly and were often reserved for traction jobs. In most cases, cow produce, be it milk or meat, was an expensive luxury apt only for the upper echelons of a society that was becoming more and more hierarchical and unequal since precisely the Chalcolithic period. 

Some oral accounts I have heard tell that not so long ago "acorn bread and goat milk" were often staple for the poor. In other areas maybe it was not acorn bread but, say, oat meal (or whatever else), but almost certainly the milk came almost invariably from goat udders, which very efficiently transform leaves and almost any vegetable, even thorny ones, into milk (and meat) for our consumption.

It is crucial to understand that only if milk was a key survival staple, LP would have become fixated. Otherwise people would have preferred alternative foods and survived in similar shape, so positive selection would never have happened at this locus (non-LP individuals would have survived easily, selection would never have happened or would have been mild enough to retain much greater diversity). 

It is also crucial to understand that, for all we know, this positive selection only happened since the Chalcolithic, i.e. when social stratification, inequality and private aristocratic property became common. Obviously the upper classes (or castes) had no problems accessing high quality foods, including meat, but the masses probably had growing problems in this aspect as the land and cattle became more and more concentrated in few hands. 

Even where a wide class of free peasants existed, as was probably the case in much of Atlantic Europe, these were surely often not well-off enough to afford dairy cows. Instead goats would have been available for almost everybody, even the poorest of farmers. And very likely they were the only steady supply of proteins and fat, mostly via milk.

Plausibly this need of extra nutrients of animal origin was more intense in the Atlantic areas of Europe because cereals do not perform so well in the prevalent humid conditions. Also before the medieval development of the heavy plough, the deep Atlantic soils were not at all as productive as they are now (and that's why NW Europe only got its economic prominence in the last millennium, being before a peripheral area to the much more productive Mediterranean climate). 

But climatic and agricultural issues aside, I strongly suspect that the main driver of LP positive selection, were goats, because these and their dairy produce were almost certainly available for almost everyone and, in the Metal Ages, the vast majority of people were farmers, often rather poor peasants who had to rely on their goats for survival, very especially in the bad times.

I really do not see any other explanation that fits the data.


PS- This social inequality & goats argument makes sense assuming that the positive selection theory is correct. However before I fully embrace it, I would need a half-decent sample of aDNA sequences from the Atlantic areas of Europe, notably Britain & Ireland, the Basque Country & SW France and mainland Scandinavia, where the T allele peaks. I say because what we find in some Chalcolithic sites, notably in the Basque Country, rather strongly suggests that there was already a TT population somewhere and we have not yet found it. So maybe some of the premises of the positive selection theory are not as sound as I said above - but we do not know yet.

Human Y chromosome undergoes purifying selection

A somewhat technical yet interesting study on Y chromosome evolution in humans:

Melissa A. Wilson Sayres et al., Natural Selection Reduced Diversity on Human Y Chromosomes. PLoS ONE 2014. Open access → LINK [doi:10.1371/journal.pgen.1004064]

Abstract

The human Y chromosome exhibits surprisingly low levels of genetic diversity. This could result from neutral processes if the effective population size of males is reduced relative to females due to a higher variance in the number of offspring from males than from females. Alternatively, selection acting on new mutations, and affecting linked neutral sites, could reduce variability on the Y chromosome. Here, using genome-wide analyses of X, Y, autosomal and mitochondrial DNA, in combination with extensive population genetic simulations, we show that low observed Y chromosome variability is not consistent with a purely neutral model. Instead, we show that models of purifying selection are consistent with observed Y diversity. Further, the number of sites estimated to be under purifying selection greatly exceeds the number of Y-linked coding sites, suggesting the importance of the highly repetitive ampliconic regions. While we show that purifying selection removing deleterious mutations can explain the low diversity on the Y chromosome, we cannot exclude the possibility that positive selection acting on beneficial mutations could have also reduced diversity in linked neutral regions, and may have contributed to lowering human Y chromosome diversity. Because the functional significance of the ampliconic regions is poorly understood, our findings should motivate future research in this area.

Positive selection (or directional selection) happens when a variant gets so good that everything else becomes bad by comparison. This may be just because an environmental change, possibly caused by migration (or whatever other reason) substantially alters the rules of the game. Much more rarely a novel mutation (or accumulation of several of them) may happen to generate a phenotype that is much more fit even for pre-existent conditions. As I understand it, positive selection does happen only rarely (but spectacularly). An example in humans is the selection of whiter skin shades in latitudes far away from the tropics (because of the "photosynthesis" of vitamin D in the skin, crucial for early brain development), another more generalized one is the selection for improved brains (not necessarily just bigger), able to face changing conditions more dynamically and develop more efficient tools and weapons.

Purifying selection (or negative selection) is quite different and surely much more common. As novel mutations arise randomly, in at least many cases, the vast majority I dare say, they happen to be harmful for a previously well-tuned genotype (and its derived phenotype). As result, the carriers have decreased opportunities for reproduction, when they don't just die right away. Natural selection acts mostly this way and in many cases the types can become very stable for this reason, as happens with genera that have been successful on this planet since long before humankind arose, such as sharks or crocodiles.

This last is what seems to be happening to the human Y chromosome: novel mutations are at least quite often harmful (maybe they cause sterility or whatever other traits in the male that cause decreased reproductive efficiency) and they are regularly pruned off the tree by natural selection. 

Purifying selection slows down the effective mutation rate

Interestingly the authors mention that:

... if purifying selection is the dominant force on the Y chromosome, the topology of the tree should remain intact, but the coalescent times are expected to be reduced.

That would be, I understand, because the observed mutation rate has little relation with the actual accumulated (effective) mutation rate, which is much slower because of the continuous pruning of the negative selection.

Purifying selection has also been observed in the mitochondrial DNA, having the same kind of slowing impact on the "molecular clock".

Ancient Italian ape had human-like precission grip

Reconstruction of O. bamboli (Pavel Major / ICP)

Oreopithecus bamboli was primate species, surely a hominine (great ape excluding orangutans) that lived in Tuscany and Sardinia some 8.2-6.7 million years ago.

It has great interest regarding human evolution because it is the oldest known ape to have developed a pad-to-pad precision grip, a characteristic otherwise only found in the human genus.

This trait, hotly debated in the last decades, has been recently confirmed by researchers of the Catalan Institute of Paleontology Miquel Crusafont (ICP). It must be said however that this development is considered convergent evolution and not ancestral to our own precision grip.

O. bamboli fossil
(CC by Ghedoghedo)

I guess that much of the controversy is caused by the old hypothesis that argued that it was the precision grip itself which elicited human brain development, something that obviously did not happen with Oreopithecus.

Other traits of this species are quite different from our own or our australopithecine relatives. They probably walked upright but with different gait (unlike the more human-like Sahelanthropus, of similar age) and their feet were very much unlike ours, with a very open angle for the big toe (hallux).

It seems that their environment was swampy and not strictly forestal.

Sources[es/cat/en]: Pileta, Diari de Girona, Wikipedia.

Ref.: Sergio Almécija et al., The morphology of Oreopithecus bambolii pollical distal phalanx. AJPA 2014. Pay per view → LINK [doi:10.1002/ajpa.22458]

Neanderthals, Denisovans and everything else

A recent analysis of the nuclear DNA of a Neanderthal toe from Altai has caused widespread interest.

Kay Prüffer et al., The complete genome sequence of a Neanderthal from the Altai Mountains. Nature 2013. Pay per view → LINK [doi:10.1038/nature12886]

The story of a finger and a toe

Both the Denisovan and Neanderthal DNA sequences discussed in this paper come from small bones found at the same location: Denisova cave, Altai Republic. The Denisovan sequence that revolutionized human paleogenetics a few years ago corresponds to a finger phalanx bone of some 50,000 years ago. The less notorious Neanderthal sequence discussed in this study corresponds to a toe imal phalanx, which was found in a lower layer in the same gallery of the same cave, and hence should be older.

This is very interesting to underscore because it seems to imply that Neanderthals were in Altai and specifically in Denisova cave very early, at dates similar to those we find in West Asia (Tabun excepted) and they may even be older than Denisovans in the very cave that gave them their name.

The toe sequence was found in a previous study to have Neanderthal mtDNA, closely related to the lineages of European Neanderthals of various dates and sites. Instead the finger mtDNA (Denisovan) was derived from a more ancient branch of humankind than the very point of split between Neanderthals and modern humans (H. sapiens) and has been recently shown to be related to European H. heidelbergensis from Atapuerca. 

Notes in red are mine.

This study focuses on the autosomal DNA of both Neanderthals and Denisovans. Unlike mtDNA, whose phylogenetic position is simple and quite straightforward, autosomal or nuclear DNA (nDNA) is extremely much more complex to understand because of its recombining nature, requiring of statistical approaches, which may get extremely complex and potentially subject to premise biases. When comparing two individuals this gets largely simplified but it is a lot more complex when doing the same with larger samples.

And that is precisely what this study does: comparing one Denisovan, several Neanderthals and also several modern humans. Therefore it is a very complex paper and the authors necessarily assume some evaluation risks, which nevertheless are discussed in depth in the supplemental material, a methodology of the Pääbo team that we can't but greatly appreciate.

Age estimates

The study makes two age estimates, one based on a very conservative and truly unbelievable Pan-Homo split date of 6.5 Ma BP and the other based on observed per generation mutation rates, which happens to be perfectly coincident with a Pan-Homo split of 13 Ma BP, the oldest extreme of Langergraber's estimate. This coincidence alone is of enough relevance for all molecular clock approaches, because it effectively demands the doubling of all age estimates based on the ridiculously short 6.5 Ma Pan-Homo split supposition. 

Red outlines are mine. Click to enlarge.

It also produces a semi-reasonable San-West African age estimate of c. 86-130 Ka, although I would think it a bit older in fact or at the very least at the top end. This highlights the severe difficulties of such molecular clock estimates, because a 4 Ma divergence between the alleged introgressing mystery archaic in the Denisovan genome, seems out of the question according on the archaeological and paleontological record, which only documents Homo species since c. 2 Ma ago, half that time (within the estimate but clearly very far from the top end).

Altai Neanderthal inbreeding

An important finding of this study is that the studied individual was extremely inbred, with parents in effective relationship comparable to that of grandparent and grandchild or half siblings. This inbreeding tendency, even if extreme, is not so strange in populations that have experienced founder effect bottlenecks and small population sizes. The Denisovan and the modern human Karitiana people are not so extreme but range in the lower end of double first cousins level of genetic relationship between the parents. Other Native Americans like the Mixe are close to that range, while the other compared populations, Papuans and Sardinians, show much lower levels of inbreeding.

Whatever we may think of Altai Neanderthal inbreeding, their drift parameter is still very low when compared with European Neanderthals. This is not discussed in the paper but such extreme drift also seems to imply extreme inbreeding issues in European Neanderthals, even if these may have other causes such as an extremely strong founder effect or whatever.

Bonobo-specific segments were removed, so the bonobo position is not realistic.

Inferred population history

Both populations leading to the Altai Neanderthal and Denisovans, but not modern humans, appear to have gone through a strong decline in population size since hundreds of millennia ago. The Denisovan decline seems to begin c. 800 Ka ago while the Neanderthal one may have begun c. 500 Ka ago. While this is coincident with a general expansion of the H. sapiens branch (still undifferentiated in Africa), peaking around c. 250 Ka ago before differentiation and relative decline. In their words:

All genomes analysed show evidence of a reduction in population size that occurred sometime before 1.0 million years ago. Subsequently, the population ancestral to present-day humans increased in size,whereas the Altai and Denisovan ancestral populations decreased further in size. It is thus clear that the demographic histories of both archaic populations differ substantially from that of present-day humans.

Neanderthal and Denisovan admixture in modern humans

The new tests confirm in essence the previous findings: there is significant Neanderthal introgression in modern humans descending from the migrants out of Africa and there is also significant Denisovan one among Australasian populations.

Additionally and with some caution, the authors think that much lesser Denisovan introgression (of around 0.2%) is found among East Asians and that these, as well as Native Americans, show slightly more Neanderthal admixture than West Eurasians. In my understanding this may be caused by minor African flow to West Eurasia after the admixture event (and/or residual "First Arabian" persistence) and I would think that measuring South Asians would help to clarify this issue (because African admixture is negligible in the subcontinent but they are also distinct from East Asians).

These measurements are so weak that the authors agree to all kind of cautions about them in any case.

In addition to all this, the supplemental material (section 13) also detects tiny, almost homeopathic, amounts of Neanderthal gene flow to Yorubas (~0.02%), obviously mediated by H. sapiens backflow from Asia and Europe into parts of Africa, which eventually influenced other African populations. An even more diluted amount may also be present among the Mbuti Pygmies.



Altai Neanderthal admixture in Denisovans

This issue is not really explained in the paper as such, and we have to reach out to the Supplemental Information chapter 15 in order to grasp it.

It is clear that the Altai Neanderthals are closer to Denisovans than other Neanderthals are by approx. the following fractions (directly deduced from the raw affinities listed in fig. S6a.2):

• 2% more than Mezhmaiskaya
• 7% more than Vindija (avg.)
• 9% more than El Sidrón

Feldhofer appears closer instead but this sequence was not used by the authors in most tests because it has too dubious quality.

In section 15 of the supplementary material, using complex methodology and lamenting the lack of a second Denisovan sample which would be most useful, they estimate a minimal 0.5% (Altai) Neanderthal introgression in Denisovans, with strong warnings that this could well be quite higher. I don't know why they are not even considering a more direct approach, but I would dare to guesstimate the introgression to be close to 8% from the above raw data, assuming that there are no further complexities at play, such as other Heidelbergensis introgression in European Neanderthals, etc. The drift parameter (see above) does not seem to be one such complexity because Mezhmaiskaya is almost as drifted as Vindija yet it is consistently much closer, as it seems to correspond to its specific relatedness to Altai Neanderthals in mtDNA (and possibly also in nDNA if it is admixture what causes their pseudo-tree positioning closer to the root, what would be typical).

Note in blue is mine.

Mystery archaic genetic flow into Denisovans

The authors find that some 0.5-8% of the Denisovan genome appears to come from another hominin, which split from the human trunk even earlier.

We caution that these analyses make several simplifying assumptions. Despite these limitations, we show that the Denisova genome harbors a component that derives from a population that lived before the separation of Neanderthals, Denisovans and modern humans. This component may be present due to gene flow, or to a more complex population history such as ancient population structure maintaining a larger proportion of ancestral alleles in the ancestors of Denisovans over hundreds of thousands of years.

Later in the discussion section they ponder further the implications of this finding:

The evidence suggestive of gene flow into Denisovans from an unknown hominin is interesting. The estimated age of 0.9 to 4 million years for the population split of this unknown hominin from the modern human lineage is compatible with a model where this unknown hominin contributed its mtDNA to Denisovans since the Denisovan mtDNA diverged from the mtDNA of the other hominins about 0.7–1.3 million years ago⁴¹. The estimated population split time is also compatible with the possibility that this unknown hominin was what is known from the fossil record as Homo erectus. This group started to spread out of Africa around 1.8 million years ago⁴², but Asian and African H. erectus populations may have become finally separated only about one million years ago⁴³. However, further work is necessary to establish if and how this gene flow event occurred.

Going to the detail of the matter (i.e. supplemental material sections 16a and 16b), one of the key details is that present-day Africans share more derived alleles with Neanderthals than with Denisovans. This can only be explained because Denisovans have other archaic ancestry prior to their apparent divergence from Neanderthals or (what is about the same) because Denisovans diverged themselves prior to the Neanderthal-Sapiens split, what is what the mtDNA (unlike the nDNA) suggests. However the difference, even if consistent across comparisons, is too small (a few percentage points) to be attributed to the later scenario.

This means that Denisovans appear to be at nDNA level some sort of an independent branch of proto-Neanderthals with some other but minor archaic admixture. Instead at mtDNA level they appear to be unrelated to Neanderthals and related instead to H. heidelbergensis (a detail not discussed in this paper because it is a too recent independent discovery).

There are still many details to explore but, in principle, it would seem that the Denisovan branch appears to be a divergent proto-Neanderthal one (maybe related to the Hathnora hominin, which looks very much Neanderthal) with lesser other archaic (H. heidelbergensis?) admixture, which nevertheless remained prominent in their mtDNA for whatever accidental reason.

Whether the H. heidelbergensis population of Atapuerca responds to this same profile (i.e. they were Denisovans too) or belongs instead to the "other archaic" population which introgressed in the Denisovan genome remains to be solved. So far we only know the mitochondrial lineage and this one may be misleading, as seems to be the case with the Denisova hominin.

Note in red is mine

Modern human genetic evolution

Benefiting from the high quality of the archaic genomes of Altai, the authors cataloged a long list of simple mutations exclusive to our species: 31,389 single nucleotide substitutions and 4,113 short insertions and deletions (indels). Additionally they found other 105,757 substitutions and 3,900 indels shared by 90% of their modern human sample of 1094 individuals.

They suggest some lines for future research in this regard, maybe focusing on genes known to influence brain development or regions that could show signs of positive selection. These preliminary lines of research are explored in SI-20, noticing potential selection in genes that affect the ventricular zone of the brain and cell proliferation in fetal brain development.

The Denisovans were not alone

H. heidelbergensis from Atapuerca
Cranium 5 "Miguelón"
(CC by José Manuel Benito)

About half an hour ago, somewhat cryptic comments in this blog and my email woke me up, more abruptly than I would have desired maybe, to a new game-breaking finding: researchers have sequenced the mtDNA of a 400,000 years old Homo heidelbergensis from Atapuerca (Iberian Peninsula, Europe) and it was not at all like most would have expected.

Mathhias Mayer et al., A mitochondrial genome sequence of a hominin from Sima de los Huesos. Nature 2013. Pay per view → LINK [doi:10.1038/nature12788]

Abstract

Excavations of a complex of caves in the Sierra de Atapuerca in northern Spain have unearthed hominin fossils that range in age from the early Pleistocene to the Holocene¹. One of these sites, the ‘Sima de los Huesos’ (‘pit of bones’), has yielded the world’s largest assemblage of Middle Pleistocene hominin fossils^{2, 3}, consisting of at least 28 individuals⁴ dated to over 300,000 years ago⁵. The skeletal remains share a number of morphological features with fossils classified as Homo heidelbergensis and also display distinct Neanderthal-derived traits^{6, 7, 8}. Here we determine an almost complete mitochondrial genome sequence of a hominin from Sima de los Huesos and show that it is closely related to the lineage leading to mitochondrial genomes of Denisovans^{9, 10}, an eastern Eurasian sister group to Neanderthals. Our results pave the way for DNA research on hominins from the Middle Pleistocene.

The key figure is this one, which phylogenetically relates the newly sequenced mtDNA with the known Homo ones:

Figure 4: Bayesian phylogenetic tree of hominin mitochondrial relationships based on the Sima de los Huesos mtDNA sequence determined using the inclusive filtering criteria.
All nodes connecting the denoted hominin groups are supported with posterior probability of 1. The tree was rooted using chimpanzee and bonobo mtDNA genomes. The scale bar denotes substitutions per site.

It has been argued by all sides (myself included) that the H. heidelbergensis of Atapuerca and other European locations are ancestral to Neanderthals. Some say that also to H. sapiens, while others argue that ours is a wholly distinct line, derived from H. rhodesiensis, and yet others claim that H. rhodesiensis is not different from H. heidelbergensis in spite of being older and rooted, it seems, in South Africa.

The clear evidence for migrations out of Africa, before our species, is limited to two periods: (1) the c. 1.8 Ma old migration of H. erectus/georgicus with Olduwayan technology (mode 1, "choppers"), and (2) the c. 1 Ma old migration of H. ergaster/antecessor (sometimes also confusingly called H. erectus) with Acheulean technology (mode 2, typically "hand axes"). Archaeological evidence for later migrations does not exist.

See: Late human evolution maps at Leherensuge.

So we could well ask, if H. heidelbergensis is not ancestral to Neanderthals, then where do Neanderthals come from?

It must be answered that we do not know yet if H. heidelbergensis is or not ancestral to Neanderthals or in what degree it is. The mitochodrial (maternal) lineage may well be misleading in this sense. Denisovans themselves were much more related to Neanderthals via autosomal (nuclear) DNA than the mtDNA, so it may also be the case with European Heidelbergensis.

In fact it is still possible that these individuals represent some sort of admixture between older and newer layers of human expansion. But there is no clear answer yet. What is clear is that no Neanderthals have these mitochondrial sequences but others closer to those of H. sapiens - and this is the most puzzling part in fact. 

But one thing is clear: the World is much bigger than just Europe, and that was also the case back in Paleolithic times. Our answer may well lay under the sands of some tropical desert, the waters of the sea or whatever other place in Asia or Africa.

Even if we'd find the "missing link", so to say, we might not be able to discern it as such without genetic sequencing and that is often not even possible at all. However this pioneer research, as well as its precursors on a bear also from Atapuerca and a 700,000 years old horse (the true record of ancient DNA recovery), give us some hope of getting an improved, even if sometimes perplexing, understanding of the complexity of the human adventure.

Echoes from the past (August-28-2013)

Oh, yeah, I admit it: I have been procrastinating a lot. Result: an extremely long "to do" list. Naturally, I can't make up for all the past laziness, so here goes a synthesis of what would otherwise be left unattended, take your time, please. 

Middle Paleolithic:

Atapuerca holds "uninterrupted" sequence of European humans since 1.2 million years ago. Soon-to-be-published theory of continuity from H. erectus to Neanderthals in the Castilian site → Paleorama[es], EFE Futuro[es].

More Neanderthal evidence for symbolism found in Fumane cave (Veneto, Italy): polished and ochre-painted shells (pictured) → PLoS ONE (open access), El neandertal tonto ¡qué timo![es].

Upper Paleolithic:

Epigravettian burial, dated to ~14,000 BP, found in Cuges-les-Pins (Provence). The Epigravettian (and not the more widespread Magdalenian) culture of this site indicates a direct link to Italy → INRAP[fr], La Provence[fr], Los Andes[es].

Oldest modern human remain of Galicia found at Valdavara cave (Becerreá, Lugo province). The milk tooth is 17,000 years old, 7000 years older than any other such finding in the NW Iberian country → Pileta[es], IPHES[cat].

Epipaleolithic:

Thousands of engravings, dated to c. 6000 years ago, found in Coahuila (Mexico) → RTVE[es].

"World's oldest calendar" found in Scotland → BBC.

Female burial found at Poças de São Bento (Sado basin, Portugal) → Paleorama[es].

Neolithic:

First farmers were inbred (at least in Southern Jordan) → Science Magazine.

Qatar Neolithic dig shows the peninsula was in contact with early Sumerian civilization (Eridu or Ubaid period, the first empire ever) → The Archaeology News Network.

Manure was already used by Europe's first farmers → Science.

Chalcolithic:

Haryana (India) town is oldest large IVC settlement → Business Standard.

East China engravings show first Oriental writing (~5000 years' old, just slightly younger aged as Sumerian cuneiform writing but much more recent than the controversial Tărtăria tablets of Bulgaria) → The Guardian, English People.

North American natives caused lead pollution in Lake Michigan (oldest recorded) → PPV paper (ER&T),  University of Pittsburg.

Perdigões enclosure and collective burial was pilgrimage center. Antonio Valera (often so scholarly cryptic at his blog) loosens up when interviewed by a Portuguese publication, giving meaning to the archeology he's working with → Super Interesante[por].

Bronze Age:

Cypriot harbor city dug: Hala Sultan Tekke, near modern Larnaka, had 25-50 Ha. and was active between the 16th and 12th centuries BCE → The Archaeology News Network.

Also from Cyprus: large settlement dug out near Nicosia (Cyprus), dated to 2000-1500 BCE → The Archaeology News Network.

Human evolution:

Modern human shoulder much more efficient than chimpanzees' at throwing... but also than H. erectus' → BBC.

Neanderthals did speak (of course) → Science Daily, open access paper (Frontiers in Psychology).

Note: their unfounded insistence on most unlikely H. heidelbergensis shared origins of Neanderthals and us casts some doubt on elements of their reasoning however.

Genetics:

Record ancient DNA: ~700,000 years' old horse sequenced → Nature Communications (PPV).

Experimental archaeology:

How to carve your own stone tools and weapons out of modern materials: very interesting videos (in English) at Paleorama[es] (scroll down). 

More tomorrow (nope my "to do" list is not at all finished with this entry).