Our DNA now compared to 70,000 years ago?

[JonM]

I remember hearing somewhere that our DNA is nearly the same as the Homo sapiens that lived say 70,000 years ago... which means if I take a baby born 70,000 years ago and put him in our society he would grow up normal (discounting for genetic diseases) and the same would work visa versa..

 

 

Is this true?

[ecoli]

Has anyone actually found homo sapien DNA intact from this long ago? Without that, I would think it would be rather hard to obtain a conclusive answer either way.

[JonM]

yes I believe they have, I know a team in Germany extracted neanderthal DNA, so I am assuming they must have extracted ancient homo sapien...

 

 

But even if it is not 70,000 years.. if it were 20,000 or 10,000 the fact would still be very interesting

[m4rc]

Even if our DNA is nearly the same as 70 000 years ago, these differences may be significant. The level of intelligence may be affected by these small differences. The mind has evolved in the last thousand years and is still evolving. "New variants of two genes that control brain development have swept through much of the human population during the last several thousand years, biologists have found." [http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn7974]

[cosine]

I don't understand what is exactly suprising about ancient homo sapians being able to function in modern society (adjusting environmental factors of course). Society really hasn't changed since ancient times, as much as we'd like to think we aren't barbaric, sometimes we can give ourselves too much credit and our ancestors too little.

[JonM]

I don't understand what is exactly suprising about ancient homo sapians being able to function in modern society (adjusting environmental factors of course). Society really hasn't changed since ancient times, as much as we'd like to think we aren't barbaric, sometimes we can give ourselves too much credit and our ancestors too little.

 

 

exactly thats what this fact would support...

[sunspot]

I believe that not only specific genes matter but also the order of those genes on the chromosomes. Like any molecule if you rearrange the same number and types of atoms into a different orderring you can get very different properties. The genes are atoms arranged in space with different orderring of the four bases leading to vastly different proteins. If we alter the location of genes, than there will also be a difference in the overall DNA functionality, i.e., final multicellular differentiation summation.

 

As far as the ancient homo sapiens, their minds worked differently. They were probably much closer to the animals than modern humans. One can put a tuxedo on a dirt farmer and may him look sophisticated but deep down he wants to be in the fields.

[SkepticLance]

You don't actually have to have 70,000 year old DNA. Various study groups have looked at differences between DNA from one current group of humans to another. For example : the Australian aboriginal is thought to have colonised Australia about 60,000 years ago. If so, a study of their DNA, and comparing it to other racial groups can show changes in genes over that time.

 

The studies I have read about cover a shorter time span - only about 10,000 years, and reveal 3 to 4 important gene changes. For example : certain European groups, including those like me who are of British descent, have a gene to permit digestion of lactose, that is absent in some other groups of people. This permits milk (other than human milk) to become a significant part of the human diet. Lactose intolerance is a trait more typical of certain ethnic groups, due to this genetic change.

 

Over a 70,000 year period, people will still be Homo sapiens. Speciation for slow reproducing animals like us takes a bit longer. The people living then would have looked very like modern humans, and if raised in our society would probably have fitted in socially quite well.

[tejaswini]

i think it is definetly possible, that is if the dna is so exactly the same as ours.and if anybody is intrested in knowing about the work that is going on in this field i suggest you vist the site http://www.becominghuman.org. there is a beautiful documentary on the evolution of man.