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Deciphering African late middle Pleistocene hominin diversity and the origin of our species

The origin of Homo sapiens remains a matter of debate. The extent and geographic patterning of morphological diversity among Late Middle Pleistocene (LMP) African hominins is largely unknown, thus precluding the definition of boundaries of variability in early H. sapiens and the interpretation of in...

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Autores principales: Mounier, Aurélien, Mirazón Lahr, Marta
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Nature Publishing Group UK 2019
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6736881/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31506422
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11213-w
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author Mounier, Aurélien
Mirazón Lahr, Marta
author_facet Mounier, Aurélien
Mirazón Lahr, Marta
author_sort Mounier, Aurélien
collection PubMed
description The origin of Homo sapiens remains a matter of debate. The extent and geographic patterning of morphological diversity among Late Middle Pleistocene (LMP) African hominins is largely unknown, thus precluding the definition of boundaries of variability in early H. sapiens and the interpretation of individual fossils. Here we use a phylogenetic modelling method to predict possible morphologies of a last common ancestor of all modern humans, which we compare to LMP African fossils (KNM-ES 11693, Florisbad, Irhoud 1, Omo II, and LH18). Our results support a complex process for the evolution of H. sapiens, with the recognition of different, geographically localised, populations and lineages in Africa – not all of which contributed to our species’ origin. Based on the available fossils, H. sapiens appears to have originated from the coalescence of South and, possibly, East-African source populations, while North-African fossils may represent a population which introgressed into Neandertals during the LMP.
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spelling pubmed-67368812019-09-12 Deciphering African late middle Pleistocene hominin diversity and the origin of our species Mounier, Aurélien Mirazón Lahr, Marta Nat Commun Article The origin of Homo sapiens remains a matter of debate. The extent and geographic patterning of morphological diversity among Late Middle Pleistocene (LMP) African hominins is largely unknown, thus precluding the definition of boundaries of variability in early H. sapiens and the interpretation of individual fossils. Here we use a phylogenetic modelling method to predict possible morphologies of a last common ancestor of all modern humans, which we compare to LMP African fossils (KNM-ES 11693, Florisbad, Irhoud 1, Omo II, and LH18). Our results support a complex process for the evolution of H. sapiens, with the recognition of different, geographically localised, populations and lineages in Africa – not all of which contributed to our species’ origin. Based on the available fossils, H. sapiens appears to have originated from the coalescence of South and, possibly, East-African source populations, while North-African fossils may represent a population which introgressed into Neandertals during the LMP. Nature Publishing Group UK 2019-09-10 /pmc/articles/PMC6736881/ /pubmed/31506422 http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11213-w Text en © The Author(s) 2019 Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Article
Mounier, Aurélien
Mirazón Lahr, Marta
Deciphering African late middle Pleistocene hominin diversity and the origin of our species
title Deciphering African late middle Pleistocene hominin diversity and the origin of our species
title_full Deciphering African late middle Pleistocene hominin diversity and the origin of our species
title_fullStr Deciphering African late middle Pleistocene hominin diversity and the origin of our species
title_full_unstemmed Deciphering African late middle Pleistocene hominin diversity and the origin of our species
title_short Deciphering African late middle Pleistocene hominin diversity and the origin of our species
title_sort deciphering african late middle pleistocene hominin diversity and the origin of our species
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6736881/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31506422
http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-019-11213-w
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