Substack cometh, and lo it is good. (Pricing)

Archaic-modern hybridization

Over at my other weblog there is a post titled Reconstructing human origins in the genomic era, a commentary on a review paper in Nature. Here are the two bullet points I want to highlight:

  • These genome-scale patterns could be best accounted for by models that involve low levels of gene flow among archaic populations before the emergence of anatomically modern humans – that is, they imply the existence of ancestral population structure.
  • There is also growing evidence that some highly divergent genetic lineages might have entered our genome through hybridization between an expanding anatomically modern human population and archaic forms of humans.

Over the past year I’ve been talking up hybridization. Some people have expressed exasperated skepticism. After all, the consensus is Out of Africa, total replacement, right? Well, I have posted links to papers which suggest introgression before, but I want people to remember that Richard Dawkins pointed to a introgression/admixture model with a dominant African element in The Ancestor’s Tale last year. Dawkins might not be a pioneering scientist in his own right, but he is someone with “sources,” and it is important to see where he leans to get a sense of the direction of evolutionary science. This review paper/commentary in Nature is contingent upon the fact that I’m sure that these two individuals have access to prepress papers and research gleanings that will be more prominent within the next 6 months (keep reading Nick Wade in The New York Times).

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