Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Scientist obtain DNA sample from the Grand Poopah...it's too old to be sequenced.

http://www.foxnews.com/science/2015/04/13/oldest-neanderthal-dna-found-in-italian-skeleton/

Oldest Neanderthal DNA found in Italian skeleton

The calcite-encrusted skeleton of an ancient human, still embedded in rock deep inside a cave in Italy, has yielded the oldest Neanderthal DNA ever found.

These molecules, which could be up to 170,000 years old, could one day help yield the most complete picture yet of help paint a more complete picture of Neanderthal life, researchers say.

Although modern humans are the only remaining human lineage, many others once lived on Earth. The closest extinct relatives of modern humans were the Neanderthals, who lived in Europe and Asia until they went extinct about 40,000 years ago. Recent findings revealed that Neanderthals interbred with ancestors of today's Europeans when modern humans began spreading out of Africa — 1.5 to 2.1 percent of the DNA of anyone living outside Africa today is Neanderthal in origin. [Image Gallery: Our Closest Human Ancestor]

In 1993, scientists found an extraordinarily intact skeleton of an ancient human amidst the stalactites and stalagmites of the limestone cave of Lamalunga, near Altamura in southern Italy — a discovery they said had the potential to reveal new clues about Neanderthals.

"The Altamura man represents the most complete skeleton of a single nonmodern human ever found," study co-author Fabio Di Vincenzo, a paleoanthropologist at Sapienza University of Rome, told Live Science. "Almost all the bony elements are preserved and undamaged."

The Altamura skeleton bears a number of Neanderthal traits, particularly in the face and the back of the skull. However, it also possesses features that usually aren't seen in Neanderthals — for instance, its brow ridges were even more massive than those of Neanderthals.These differences made it difficult to tell which human lineage the Altamura man might have belonged to. Moreover, the Altamura skeleton remains partially embedded in rock, making it difficult to analyze.

Now, new research shows that DNA from a piece of the skeleton's right shoulder blade suggests the Altamura fossil was a Neanderthal. The shape of this piece of bone also looks Neanderthal, the researchers said.

In addition, the scientists dated the skeleton to about 130,000 to 170,000 years old. This makes it the oldest Neanderthal from which DNA has ever been extracted. (These bones are not the oldest known Neanderthal fossils — the oldest ones ever found are about 200,000 years old. This isn't the oldest DNA ever extracted from a human, either; that accolade goes to 400,000-year-old DNA collected from relatives of Neanderthals.)

The bone is so old that its DNA is too degraded for the researchers to sequence the fossil's genome — at least with current technology. However, they noted that next-generation DNA-sequencing technologies might be capable of such a task, which "could provide important results on the Neanderthal genome," study co-author David Caramelli, a molecular anthropologist at the University of Florence in Italy, told Live Science.

Whereas previous fragmentary fossils of different Neanderthals provided a partial picture of what life was like for Neanderthals, the Altamura skeleton could help paint a more complete portrait of a Neanderthal — for instance, it could reveal more details about Neanderthals' genetics, anatomy, ecology and lifestyle, the researchers said.

"We have a nearly complete human fossil skeleton to describe and study in detail. It is a dream," Di Vincenzo said. "His morphology offers a rare glimpse on the earliest phase of the evolutionary history of Neanderthals and on one of the most crucial events in human evolution. He can help us better understand when — and, in particular, how — Neanderthals evolved."

The scientists detailed their findings online March 21 in the Journal of Human Evolution.

It would be fun if they were able to take DNA from this find and recreate Neanderthals....



Oh wait, never mind, we have Hillary.

It would be really cool to find his living relatives..

The world is only 6,000 years old....

All else is God's plan to trick us into free something or other...

I think when it comes to the Poobs, they have to resort to Carbon dating...


Interesting article though, AS.

That aint all. Have you driven a vehicle on a public highway lately?

I would love to see these samples carbon dated. But that's not gonna happen. Even if it did they would claim contamination.

they are to old for carbon dating....carbon dating only works to 50,000 years....have to use a different isotope.....which is what you dont seem to get, there are several ways to do it and they have overlap to help you double check rather than going by one set of data.....but that would require you to do some research...

either isotope dating works, or radiation therapy is hocus pocus and shouldnt be allowed....cant have it both ways.....either we understand how to measure isotope half lives and how to measure proportions of those isotopes in a piece of material or we dont....

I know. That's what I posted last time. I also posted every sample tested showed carbon 14! Scientific facts that go against brain washing are tough to take.

I also explained half lives to you, but it seen you were not paying attention.

once again, for the hundredth phuggin time.....Carbon 14 is everywhere including the air your breathing in and out....they DO NOT look for carbon 14, they look at the ratios of it in a sample.....it is going to show up everywhere cause new Carbon 14 is constantly being produced......every single sample not discovered in a vacuum is going to have new carbon 14 from the atmosphere.....REAL carbon 14 dating tests take that into consideration cause they arent looking for the isotope....they care how much of it, once the background amount is factored out, the sample contains versus a sample from some living critter/plant newly dead....

BTW it is for the above fact that "your" scientists use Carbon 14 to state their case rather than trying to put a spotlight on any of the other more than 16 commonly used radiometric dating isotopes....talk about brain washed

No point in arguing with Ringman, he ain't interested.

No point in explaining the physical principles involved, he ain't interested.

He has no desire to educate himself beyond what some site featuring "Dr" somebody-or-other tells him and then comes on here and spouts scientific absurdities and factual untruths.

Birdwatcher

This fall go to any pro foot ball game and ask the fellows to spit in a cup.

Jim

You folks forget the earth was one hundred million years old about a century ago. Now it is 4.6 billion years old! These ages are not based on scientific facts, but interpretations of facts. It will make no difference what scientific facts are presented, the old earther will start with the idea the earth is old and reinterpret everything inside that mental framework. The same thing goes for the young earther. The interesting thing is there are Ph.D scientists in both camps.

If I remember correctly I mentioned the half life of carbon 14 in our last conversation. So I guess we both get to take credit for something. I am not egotistical enough to do a search, so continue to remember who brought up the half life of 5,730 years.

By the way I am still looking for a couple creationist Ph.D physical scientists who after earning their degree became evolutionists. At the same time I can come up with dozens of Ph.D evolutionists who became creationist because of their research.

You are truly a moronic, stupid, ridiculous, laughable excuse for anything resembling intelligent life.

Please, do this place a favor and go get another job where you can work for free and not understand how not getting paid is a bad thing.

You haven't a clue about science and are as self-blinded by your religious dogma as those similarly moronic idiots in ISIS. Just because some other religious nutjob convinces you that science and fact AREN'T real doesn't mean that he's right or that you have a clue.

At least you serve as an example to us all - of exactly what's wrong with religion and "believers".

I believe a genetic study concluded that Neanderthal genes are present in all modern humans except sub Saharan Africans.

Its now a fact that species intermingled. Modern Humans contain Neandethal DNA.

Precisely why I finally put him on ignore. Being grouped in with him as a Christian became embarrassing.

Nope, gave it up when the vertigo got bad. Now I only sit in the passenger seat but that is enough to scare a guy speechless.

You bring up an interesting point. Carbon 14 is rather limited. It doesn't go back very far. Really old stuff is generally dated by what sedimentary layer it is found in. And these sedimentary layers are based on the assumptions that the processes that laid them down were the same then as they are now. And of course, once that is established they think they know what layer certain fossils are found in, the presence of these fossils is used to date the layers. It is rather circular.

I'm not saying it is wrong. I'm not that dogmatic about it. But, the point is that beyond a certain point, it really is elaborate guesswork about the age of fossils.

And there are anomalies that really can't be explained. For instance, if twenty-five years ago you had asked a scientist if it were possible to recover soft tissue remains from dinosaur fossils, they would have scoffed at you. No soft tissues could remain viable for the tens of millions and even hundreds of millions of years since the dinosaurs. Maybe a few thousand years, but no way could they remain for millions. Yet, here they are and relatively common too. So, now scientists will tell you that soft tissue can remain viable that long, because obviously, dinosaurs couldn't have been around just a few thousand years ago...