Anthropomorphism is one of the oldest tropes in human culture. Some of the earliest known artworks, from cave paintings to sculptures, depict creatures that mix human and animal characteristics. Even today, the most technologically advanced computer entertainments are full of anthropomorphic characters.
Why are humans so predisposed to humanising other animals? For the same reason, I suspect, that we are so desperate to find other thinking creatures in outer space: as the sole sentient species on Earth, we long for other creatures like us.
Humans are almost exceptional in the animal world in not being accompanied by closely-related species. Many species have “cousin” species who are so closely related that they can interbreed: dogs and wolves, the great cats, bears, and so on. But not us.
Yet, it wasn’t always so. Until relatively recently — later than the human settlement of Australia — we had at least one, as many as three closely related cousin species. It’s long been suspected that humans may have interbred with our hominid cousins, such as Neanderthals and Denisovans. The belief is bolstered by a new discovery showing that the latter two species, at least, definitely cross-bred.
An ancient child from Siberia is believed to be the only known individual whose parents were from two different species.
Until about 50,000 years ago, Siberia and other regions of Eurasia were home to the Denisovans. Comparably little is known about the Denisovans, compared to the Neanderthals. But new testing done on remains unearthed in 2010 has unveiled a remarkable discovery.
The remains were unearthed from the Denisova Cave in the Altai Mountains of Siberia more than a decade ago. But it was only recently that scientists were able to use the fossil pieces to arrive at some answers.
MSN
At first, it was difficult to even identify the bones, as nearly all of them had been chewed by animals.
Using cutting-edge techniques, scientists have been able to determine that at least some of the bones belonged to an individual believed to have lived 90,000 years ago and who was about 13 years old. DNA analysis indicates that the child’s mother was a Neanderthal and her father was a Denisovan.
Considering that there are only a few Denisovan individuals known, the discovery of the hybrid indicates that such mating events were not rare.
‘Neandertals and Denisovans may not have had many opportunities to meet,’ says [scientist Svante Paabo]. ‘But when they did, they must have mated frequently – much more so than we previously thought’ […]
The sister groups are currently understood to have diverged about 400,000 years ago, after their last common ancestor split with Homo sapiens at least 500,000 years ago.
Though all three human group were distinct, genetic evidence shows that they were closely related enough to have mated and had children.
The new research accounts for two out of the three species — but did homo sapiens stand aloof while their cousins were busy getting it on? Hardly likely.
Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA can still be found within modern humans, so considering that the two ancient populations were more closely related to each other than to Homo sapiens, it is hardly surprising that they were also mating.
The remains found in Denisova Cave also shed some dim light on ancient migration patterns.
Denisova Cave is located on the far eastern edge of the Neanderthal’s historic range. Earlier Neanderthal fossils have been found within the same cave but despite this, the results indicate that the child’s mother did not come from the earlier eastern population but was more closely related to later Neanderthals in both Europe and Asia.
This shows that there must have been quite a high population turnover among the Neanderthals and that earlier populations were replaced by movements across Asia during the last 120,000 years.
Natural History Museum
Which should not be so surprising. The relatively recent history of homo sapiens is one of continual migration and displacement of one population by others. Even in the furthest reaches of Australia, in Tasmania, linguistic evidence suggests waves of migration and displacement spaced tens of thousands of years, with the last wave of migrants landing beginning just 250 years ago.
