The Palaeobiology Thread:

[tater]

There is (I assume) a difference between scavengers that eat rotting meat vs merely "killed by someone else" meat. One is a specific adaptation, while another is not. Kills don;t tend to last long on the savanna, either the predator eats it, or it' is driven off by larger or numerous individuals to poach the kill. Places with fewer predators might have different dynamics. A critter drops dead, and it takes days before any carnivore comes by, and it's a stinky mess.

I know from the 2 safaris I was on that Kenya was covered with bones. They look prepped they were so clean, lol.

[sh1pman]

If you're a hulking tower of meat made mostly of muscle like T-Rex, you need a lot of energy just to keep your body functioning. Scavenging is hardly a reliable food source for such a creature. And it's not needed if you're an apex predator and can hunt pretty much every other animal of similar size and smaller and eat it fresh.

[Green Baron]

11 minutes ago, tater said:

There is (I assume) a difference between scavengers that eat rotting meat vs merely "killed by someone else" meat. One is a specific adaptation, while another is not. Kills don;t tend to last long on the savanna, either the predator eats it, or it' is driven off by larger or numerous individuals to poach the kill. Places with fewer predators might have different dynamics. A critter drops dead, and it takes days before any carnivore comes by, and it's a stinky mess.

I know from the 2 safaris I was on that Kenya was covered with bones. They look prepped they were so clean, lol.

Sure there is a big difference.

From out of a car it is very difficult to tell if a bone was gnawed. I am not sure if the rangers picturesquely place bones, probably if the scenery was covered with them. I was once in Kenya and Tanzania on guided tours and only saw a few bones. A bone in the open sun quickly looses its biological components, what remains is the bright white mineral part.

[PB666]

10 hours ago, sevenperforce said:

Behaviors of dinosaurs are only conjectural insofar as we lack examples. Examples are not entirely lacking, however. We have fossilized prey dinosaurs with healed wounds made by T. rex, including one case where the . . . . . .

I think the question is being asked is a correct question but one that can be replaced by a better question . . .how likely is it that T. rex is only a predator. From predators to herbivores . . . the entire spectrum. How common is it when looking at all animals that we find animals that only eat what they kill. If you do this you find that the only examples pertain to certain lineages, for example snakes generally won't eat something they did not kill. If you put a rat and a rattlesnake in a cage, and the rat bites the snake, the snake may envenom the rat, but if he does not eat it soon after, he just leaves it and waits for the next rat to be thrown in. As you move into the warm-blooded animals that are social, they tend to have higher learned behaviors, these behaviors allow them to learn for example to create a learned behavior that when something is this level of dead, you can eat it, and beyond that level of decay you leave it. Most mammalian carnivores practice this and most birds also practice this to some degrees (I've seen bald eagles chomping down on dead cows). Crocodiles, Birds, Mammals, Turtles for the peak predators all practice this. So the question based on the dinosaur lineages and based on the their dentate, etc how likely is it that the were strict carnivores in the sense that they never scavenged. The answer is that it is not very likely, but still possible.

Here are some scenarios, T rex might have had a community of other animals that followed it, potentially indicators species (like the honey-catcher, humans and lions of Gujarat) where the indicator informs the hunter this is the prey, he kills, eats the choice bits, his entourage eats the rest, he moves on. This is just an example where the waste works, in the case of farmers its to their benefit the lions kill as many competitors as possible, even if they don't eat them. Another situation is that he kills, the offspring eat the remains, and he/she moves to the next prey, and since the offspring could be endangered by claim-jumping other kills, then the hunter then just quickly moves from kill to kill and leaves a trail of partially dead bodies. So there are potential examples were T.rex only killed or at a certain stage of life only kills (but at another stage of life only eats what other T.rex have killed). So there are complex reasons why they might or might not have killed.

We have to look at pre-KT as a sort of 'other-earth' in that the smaller organisms were more accessory, this system evolved over 100Ms of years and so trend in the inter-species interactions between apex predators and the system may have been evolved, complex and advanced but with an Achilles heal, the ability both to survive the social advances in mammals and the effects of a catastrophe. The dinosaurs did survive in a genetic context, but the apex predators did not, that component was completely eliminated and replaced. We really cannot, today look backwards with any reasonable certainty and estimate the complexities of these interactions. So that its best to generalize, for example T. rex was a meat eater that commonly killed. 

 

[Green Baron]

41 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

If you're a hulking tower of meat made mostly of muscle like T-Rex, you need a lot of energy just to keep your body functioning. Scavenging is hardly a reliable food source for such a creature. And it's not needed if you're an apex predator and can hunt pretty much every other animal of similar size and smaller and eat it fresh.

This is not incorrect, but there are contemporary animals far larger in terms of body mass than Trex and they fed on herbs. In a world without grass !

One must get a broader picture of how an organism works, all together from teeth over skull, appearance of the skeleton, movement etc. This is called functional morphology and takes into account the material in use (bones, muscles, etc.) and how that works, like what angles are possible, what is the maximum stress the frame can endure, what can be done with the teeth and the jaws, were and how are muscle joints to the bones arranged, and the joints between the bones, flexibility and rigidity and so on. If there is more info about the environment that can be used as well. And then there are strategies that work and others that don't.

That is how e can infer how fast that animal may have run and how it kept balance, the force of its bite if you stayed for the night :-), and more.

All together traces sum up to a more or less probable picture ...

[tater]

45 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Sure there is a big difference.

From out of a car it is very difficult to tell if a bone was gnawed. I am not sure if the rangers picturesquely place bones, probably if the scenery was covered with them. I was once in Kenya and Tanzania on guided tours and only saw a few bones. A bone in the open sun quickly looses its biological components, what remains is the bright white mineral part.

These were not placed. It was a working trip (we were there to look at rather older bones in the vault at the National Museums of Kenya), and we are the types to notice bones. The bones were scattered, and They were all over the place. I notice bones here in New Mexico as well, just fewer, because there are far fewer cattle on the mesa here than wildlife in East Africa. None the less, if you have an eye for it, you see specks of white all over out here---sort of like the fact that once you realize there is archeology everywhere here, when I look down I constantly fine pot sherds, and flakes from knapping points. Some places you can't walk without treading on both, every step.

[sevenperforce]

44 minutes ago, sh1pman said:

If you're a hulking tower of meat made mostly of muscle like T-Rex, you need a lot of energy just to keep your body functioning. Scavenging is hardly a reliable food source for such a creature. And it's not needed if you're an apex predator and can hunt pretty much every other animal of similar size and smaller and eat it fresh.

Right, this is the key. Scavenging large carcasses is not a reliable food source for a large obligate scavenger. Even less so over the millions of years that selection pressure would need to evolve a large obligate scavenger.

19 minutes ago, PB666 said:

I think the question is being asked is a correct question but one that can be replaced by a better question . . .how likely is it that T. rex is only a predator.

Au contraire. The original claim, proposed by paleontologist Jack Horner in the early 1990s, was that T. rex was only a scavenger; that it could not hunt on its own.

This claim was challenged at the time, progressively debunked, and has now been conclusively disproven. No one I know of disputes that T. rex could have scavenged, or perhaps scavenged often, but the claim that it only scavenged is false.

19 minutes ago, PB666 said:

We have to look at pre-KT as a sort of 'other-earth' in that the smaller organisms were more accessory, this system evolved over 100Ms of years and so trend in the inter-species interactions between apex predators and the system may have been evolved, complex and advanced but with an Achilles heal, the ability both to survive the social advances in mammals and the effects of a catastrophe. The dinosaurs did survive in a genetic context, but the apex predators did not, that component was completely eliminated and replaced. We really cannot, today look backwards with any reasonable certainty and estimate the complexities of these interactions. So that its best to generalize, for example T. rex was a meat eater that commonly killed. 

Yet there are some cases where we can ascertain behavior with a high degree or certainty. Biomechanical analysis can tell us how a species could or could not have moved and what they could or could not have eaten. Usually, this only eliminates certain behaviors, but even that is helpful. Then we have occasional smoking guns, like teeth or specifically-sized toothmarks embedded in prey animals. We know Allosaurus preyed on stegosaurids because of this. 

A friend of mine used fossilized mud trails to prove that trilobites used primitive vibration-sensing organs to hunt and consume invertebrate worms way back in the Cambrian.

8 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

This is not incorrect, but there are contemporary animals far larger in terms of body mass than Trex and they fed on herbs. In a world without grass !

Well, yes. But again, it's about availability. Herbivores need lots of plants to have selection pressure for gigantism; carnivores need lots of prey animals to have selection pressure for gigantism. 

[PB666]

1 minute ago, sevenperforce said:

Au contraire. The original claim, proposed by paleontologist Jack Horner in the early 1990s, was that T. rex was only a scavenger; that it could not hunt on its own.

This claim was challenged at the time, progressively debunked, and has now been conclusively disproven. No one I know of disputes that T. rex could have scavenged, or perhaps scavenged often, but the claim that it only scavenged is false.

Yet there are some cases where we can ascertain behavior with a high degree or certainty. Biomechanical analysis can tell us how a species could or could not have moved and what they could or could not have eaten. Usually, this only eliminates certain behaviors, but even that is helpful. Then we have occasional smoking guns, like teeth or specifically-sized toothmarks embedded in prey animals. We know Allosaurus preyed on stegosaurids because of this.

And plit-down man was considered to be an intermediate between apes and humans that lived once in Europe. The number of debunk-able theories out there far exceeds theories with substantial enough support, whenever you lead an argument with 'this theorist said' in the context of soft science, unless the argument begins with here we had these competing lines of thought, its basket fodder. See Langford JHE 33 as an example of bunk trying to debunk with bunk.  You could ask the same question, how likely was it that T. rex was only a scavenger. In either case you are asking what it the likely hood of an extreme behavior when the plurality of relevant living examples are not extreme. That's the point. The question that is being ask what evidence, if any might support the extreme.

The null hypothesis basically states that you stick with a foundation until something with data comes along that makes you abandon that hypothesis. So that anyone who proposes an extreme hypothesis without also providing the evidence of that extreme hypothesis is by default, debunked. You really don't want to get me started on paleontology, i can shred the science of 40 ago into pieces without breaking a sweat. Only arguments that scientifically holistic in the approach have meaning. For example human paleoanthropology before genetics and serious climate modeling and a whole bunch of physics (essentially before 1980) was bunk, and people made alot of money selling bunk. Many popular theories are now in the garbage bin.

[Green Baron]

27 minutes ago, sevenperforce said:

Well, yes. But again, it's about availability. Herbivores need lots of plants to have selection pressure for gigantism; carnivores need lots of prey animals to have selection pressure for gigantism. 

I don't question that, we can further discuss how it came to the abundance of large organisms that grew to the limits of the material in use, i only gave an example that an organism does not necessarily have to be a predator to be "a towering hulk of meat and muscle". Btw., there were bigger ones ...

Don't get me wrong, Trex was a hunting predator who probably didn't let a shortly deceased body go back to the kitchen if he (or she) stumbled upon one. But the shear size is not a good criterion. As you have mentioned just like i did, you need to look at the organism as a whole and the environment, all information that you can gather to get a picture of the niche it filled.

Edited January 25, 2018 by Green Baron

[PB666]

7 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

I don't question that, we can further discuss how it came to the abundance of large organisms that grew to the limits of the material in use, i only gave an example that an organism does not necessarily have to be a predator to be "a towering hulk of meat and muscle". Btw., there were bigger ones ...

Don't get me wrong, Trex was a hunting predator who probably didn't let a shortly deceased body go back to the kitchen if he (or she) stumbled upon one. But the shear size is not a good criterion. As you have mentioned just like i did, you need to look at the organism as a whole and the environment, all information that you can gather to get a picture of the niche it filled.

If I could give this five likes I would.

[Green Baron]

44 minutes ago, tater said:

These were not placed. It was a working trip (we were there to look at rather older bones in the vault at the National Museums of Kenya), and we are the types to notice bones. The bones were scattered, and They were all over the place. I notice bones here in New Mexico as well, just fewer, because there are far fewer cattle on the mesa here than wildlife in East Africa. None the less, if you have an eye for it, you see specks of white all over out here---sort of like the fact that once you realize there is archeology everywhere here, when I look down I constantly fine pot sherds, and flakes from knapping points. Some places you can't walk without treading on both, every step.

In Nairobi ? That's a cool Museum. I was there 6 years ago. Or 7 ?

That is an extraordinary place where you live, then.

[tater]

I was there in the 90s. Being in the vault was kind of amazing. Got to handle some paleoanthropological crown jewels.

New Mexico has some amazing archeology.

Kids looking through an anthill for beads brought to the surface (bone and turquoise):

The site:

Spoiler

A different site:

Spoiler

Some stuff:

Spoiler

And what I meant about underfoot:

 

(sorry, realized the spoiler thing might actually be useful here)

Edited January 25, 2018 by tater

[DAL59]

 

[Green Baron]

It would be nice if you could give a short excerpt of what it is about because people like me don't watch half an hour of video for something we already know or expect to be just plain nonsense a waste of time.

If the video is about re-breeding or back-breeding or however one wants to call it of extinct species then someone else has not understood how evolution works and the stuff is grossly misleading people. It is impossible to resurrect lost species, evolution does not have a direction. Once you have understood that it will become clear.

One can replicate certain traits by actively selecting them, but this is then a new organism, human-made. Even if you could bring ancient worlds back to life (which is impossible) and set out similar species in them, they will not evolve to the same species that once were, there will be differences simply because just one mutation leads to different outcomes, the space is limited, climate is different, the ecology has changed .....

If the video comes to the same conclusion then everything is fine :-)

Edited January 25, 2018 by Green Baron

[PB666]

3 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

It would be nice if you could give a short excerpt of what it is about because people like me don't watch half an hour of video for something we already know or expect to be just plain nonsense.

If the video is about re-breeding or back-breeding or however one wants to call it of extinct species then someone else has not understood how evolution works and the stuff is grossly misleading people. It is impossible to resurrect lost species, evolution does not have a direction. Once you have understood that it will become clear.

One can replicate certain traits by actively selecting them, but this is then a new organism, human-made. Even if you could bring ancient worlds back to life (which is impossible) and set out similar species in them, they will not evolve to the same species that once were, there will be differences simply because just one mutation leads to different outcomes, the space is limited, climate is different, the ecology has changed .....

If the video comes to the same conclusion then everything is fine :-)

Actually your probably could undo extinction the new DNA techniques nwo allow you to basically tranform certain genes without removing from their native cells from knowledge about extinct species to reconsitute the traits, but you would have to know what all the SNP variance means, as well as the occasional insertion and deletion. You could, with enough DNA same create a few woolly mammoths. In my work we found that some SNPs in gene deserts 100,000s of nucleotides from any know genes had meta-analysis confirmation, its not clear how they are meaningful. But in the case of extinct species you cannot do risk analysis on something dead for 10,000 years so you cannot apriori know if a mutation is just random drift or an SNP that has undergone selection.

Whether you call it a species or something else is a matter of debate, there is a definition of what animal species are, and the phraseology is extensive abused and used inappropriately. We call a dog a dog, and its species was, up tom about 20 years ago Canis domesticus, its a wolf, a coyotes is either a species of wolf or a subspecies or a gradient species depending on who you talk to. If you converted an Asiatic elephant embryo into a woolly mammoth it would still be an Asiatic elephant until you produced enough to create a breeding population, Again the DNA technologies (CrispR) to allow the sensing and recombinant replacement of nucleotide sequence you could get back to a woolly mammoths and it would no longer be an Asiatic elephant even at the level of random drift. If you did this sampling enough ancient DNA you cold create a viable population of individuals and you could continue to use CrispR to add variation (e.g. add elephant variation to MHC genes). The woolly mammoths would not have innate immunity to diseases over the last 10,000 years so you would have to create vaccines and immunize them for every thing they might contact. But over time if you gave them a minimal herd immunity they could evolve their own defensive traits.

Could you put them anywhere, Antarctica if it substantially warmed, There are also the krugerland Islands. Without predators they would lose their tusks, they would lose their fear of predators, it would just be a zoo. I would like to see what would happen if someone tried to recreate them, its an incredibly expensive undertaking and the pygmy mammoths might be a good place to start.

I don't think they are trying to evolve new species (certainly dinosaurs would not be possible, the best you could do is go back to the last common ancestor of all birds), certainly there sauropod dinosaurs can never be built. They are talking about gene substitution on a massive scale in some living relative to recreate an extinct species.

I agree with you about the Videos, many of them I start watch and just quit, too too much speculation and repetition of common knowledge. I wish DAL would stop spamming them and at least use a paragraph to describe the contents.

[tater]

Yeah, I’m not watching a video, either.

[kerbiloid]

Why resurrect the prototypes? We should move on.
We like the extinct animals for their particular features. Then why move back, we shall make better ones.

Spoiler

 

[Green Baron]

Early modern humans may have left Africa for the first time ~60.000 years earlier than previously thought, placing it to ~180.000 years bp., if the dating is correct (1 of 4 methods (uranium series) gave a date of 70.000ybp).

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6374/456

 

[PB666]

Quote

A maxilla and associated dentition recently discovered at Misliya Cave, Israel, was dated to 177,000 to 194,000 years ago, - http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6374/456

 

[Green Baron]

@PB666, if you are expressing doubts as to the classification of the bones, for those who know a tooth is really tell tale. Especially when it comes to to the transitions between late Erectusses, Neandertals and early likes of us. I'd rather wait for an independent confirmation of the dates and further analysis of the sediment samples.

Edited January 26, 2018 by Green Baron

[Scotius]

Now we have the question: was it an early wave of colonists out of Africa? Or just an unlucky member of a small hunting group that eventually returned home or even died off in the new, foreign land?

[Green Baron]

The concept of colonization or foreigners is not applicable. Those were hunting or foraging groups wandering around just because it is nice here but it may be nicer elsewhere.

The modern way of thinking "out of Africa" is exactly that. There were no waves or directed movements as frequently pictured but just wandering groups, and they went in and out of Africa, Europe, Asia, wherever. Erectuses left Africa >1.5 my (Dmanisi). It is just interesting to know when people had the ability to live long and prosper outside the climate of their origin, because they had to take that climate with them (clothing, fire, ...).

Edited January 26, 2018 by Green Baron

[PB666]

1 hour ago, Green Baron said:

@PB666, if you are expressing doubts as to the classification of the bones, for those who know a tooth is really tell tale. Especially when it comes to to the transitions between late Erectusses, Neandertals and early likes of us. I'd rather wait for an independent confirmation of the dates and further analysis of the sediment samples.

I have doubts, although my intent was not to express them.  (Erectine I think it the proper terminology). If you want a brief outline, and it really comes no where close to giving the topic justice is the typology issue. In terms of non-human hominid species typology was a horrifically overstated case (meaning specifically defined was a definition lacking substance) but has improved. In this structure we place the Earth into a manifold by which all surface points are laid out in two dimension and a third dimension is time, and we roll this out from about 6 mya to the onset of the middle eastern Neolithic (lets say 12 kya, even though in principle since the ME neolithic begins all neolithics its hard to define). Then as we cross a barrier between 2.3 and 1.8 million years ago (the hominims) a putative genus (a significant one, as opposed to potentially trivial species like boisei, robustus, (as opposed to paraanthrops) and later australopithiforms) homo arises . There in lies the problem as Erectines (homo ergaster strictu sensu) spread from Africa into Asia. Following this groups and tolerating some interbreeding with australopiths we get basically a partially representative structure.

So here is the problem, some of these structures intermixed, some for only brief periods of time and some almost never (meaning leaky species barrier). We being good scientist presume that we do not know all of these, but we know enough to make some conclusion that there was a multihominim world. There is no real genetic understanding of this since humans are geographically isolated and the samples of ADNA must be less than 100,000 years. The problem with this report is that these numbers are well before 100,000 years. So I am going to give a timeline of the origin of homo sapiens sapiens. At the beginning of a time manifold about 250,000 years ago homo sapiens would fall into the category of archaic homo sapiens which applies to almost all homo living in africa at the time. It share traits with Neanderthals and other traits uncommon in Neanderthals and modern humans. By 235,000 years ago the SSA component entered a bottle neck, in which it emerged within 50 to 100ky, so by the time 170 ky come along, and there are studies in Africa suggesting the population ebbed and flow, at this time there are still a large number of primitive traits in human. From that period on the human population only grew slowly up until about 80 kya. The genetics gives a kind of neat answer and currently both mtDNA and Y chromosomal studies are in pretty strong agreement at the inflection point in the branching we have homo sapiens sapiens. HLA studies suggest two centers of expansion in Africa, one from Central (Cameroon, CAR, N. Congo) and East Africa. The dominance of traits among click speakers at the core of these regions testifies to the driving forces of modernization many of these populations are gracile and short stature, which makes sense for a survival perspective in confined population living in an equitorial region.

So then we have to ask the question what is going on in Africa, and that is very much more complex. To start, there is, after 170 kya,  no single species Africa population that actually works. According to Paabo, although the timeline of isolation goes back before 500ky, there has been some admixture in the intermediate times, and there is a perfect candidate for this, the N.African Levantine Neanderthal population. The problem, a non-trivial one, has been distinguishing the southward (but still in the northern hemisphere) 2-D+time construct of that population over time, no such boundary can be defined. And its not because of the lack of fossils, its because in the time between 200 kya and 20 kya such clear distinctions cannot be made. So one possible theory here is that you had Homo sapiens sapiens, Homo sapiens sapiens x neandertalensis (southern), Homo sapiens neandertalensis (southern; Levanatine Neanderthals) Homo sapiens neandertalensis, Homo sapiens neandertalenis (Desanova), Homo floresiensis, Homo erectus (& subspecies) in which the modes of each population does not intermix but the peripheral of some populations do. For example Desanova, although largely archaic homo sapiens carries a presumably erectine mtDNA and does have non-Neanderthal/non-human DNA (whereas the contribution of Desanovan-like peoples to Indonesia does not). I have to state I believe there were other admixture events in Asia, we just don't have a sensor to parse these out of humans (and because they contributed trace amounts of heritable material.

If you can't see my skepticism then let me lay it out clearly; the fossil record from super-equitorial Africa is not such that it clearly allows delineation of Hss in parts of Africa south of the Mediterranean border regions prior to 50 kya (even as late as 20kya). The people who lived there, obviously human, may no longer be apart of the human population, or alternatively, admixed with humans when they left in small units (a handful of admixture events)(I should add that Sarah Tishkoff the leading expert in human evolution in Africa does not believe, last I read, that humans and Neanderthals admixed in Africa). This indicates possibly that not only did the classic Neanderthal went extinct, but also large swaths of the human population). I am not questioning the dates per say, but even in SSA its hard to find a clearly modern Hss representative 160-180 kya. Thus the dentate is open to multiple interpretations.  Even as far south as the Klaisus river, primitive traits continue to appear in the human population after the expansion into Eurasia occurred, and in the west/central African region primitive traits continue to appear into 20 kya.

And the argument is coming from a person who deeply questions the results of Paabo (from the pre 2000 period) suggesting humans spread 52,000 +/-29,000 years ago from Africa, I was and am advocate for earlier expansion and exit from Africa, but in further study I find that the physical anthropology has not supported a clean time-line and it is unclear the method by which people left. I should remind everyone that there is human evidence of arrival in Australia up to 65 kya despite a land route that places them there, that humans arrived in the Okinawa chain ~30 kya despite a visible route of arrival. So that the first arrivals of Hss (our guys) to Eurasia need not have come through the Levant and spread. In fact if you look at the M lineages of DNA, there is a much cleaner route that travels from the horn of Africa and b-lines into India. This is not the only tme this route has been used. . . . . So really the question revolves not around did genes flow from Africa into the Levant, we know this is true even looking at Levantine Neandertals, the question is whose genes traveled into the Levant.

Again avoid drawing me into arguements of Paleontology, its not conducive to pleasant debate.

Edited January 26, 2018 by PB666

[Green Baron]

Sorry m8, my eyes fell close when you came to manifolds and the neolithic. And it has little to do with the paper that deals with the dating of a maxilla and teeth from cave in the Levant, 60.000 years older than previous finds of modern humans outside Africa, right at the side of those previous finds.

Teeth from a modern human, a neandertal or an erectus are perfectly distinguishable, especially when they are so well preserved like the ones in the publication, there is no sign of traits of neandertal or earlier human forms. Read Chris Stringers comment for example.

And, by the way, if you claim dates and pretend to cite others you should provide some links, and not just Wikipedia ;-)

 

To say it clear and for everyone understandable: these are so far the earliest finds of anatomically modern humans outside Africa.

Edited January 26, 2018 by Green Baron

[PB666]

11 minutes ago, Green Baron said:

Sorry m8, my eyes fell close when you came to manifolds and the neolithic. And it has little to do with the paper that deals with the dating of a maxilla and teeth from cave in the Levant, 60.000 years older than previous finds of modern humans outside Africa, right at the side of those previous finds.

Teeth from a modern human, a neandertal or an erectus are perfectly distinguishable, especially when they are so well preserved like the ones in the publication, there is no sign of traits of neandertal or earlier human forms. Read Chris Stringers comment for example.

And, by the way, if you claim dates and pretend to cite others you should provide some links, and not just Wikipedia ;-)

 

To say it clear and for everyone understandable: these are so far the earliest finds of anatomically modern humans outside Africa.

Chris falls into a camp that focuses on two populations Hss and Hn or He, if you read my post, you will see that manifolds are only description of spatially defined peoples over time, it does not detail the relationships between peoples. And the problem here is that unless you have some idea about those populations you have not idea about gene-flow. Both Stringer and Wolpoff  both idealized populations over time but to opposite extremes. As the genetic information unveils itself this has proven to be much more complex (you should read my post). If you define populations in absolute terms then the teeth are absolute determinants. But if you cannot then they are not. But the people I know who studied human evolution of Africa would say maybe, but probably not. And I reluctantly agreed.

 

 

This is what stringer says.

Quote

“Misliya breaks the mould of existing scenarios for the timing of the first known Homo sapiens in these regions,” said Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London. “It’s important in removing a long-lasting constraint on our thinking.”

This is just hype and this is not true, it doesn't break the mold, it just verifies what we have know for a long time, as humans evolved apomorphies in Africa and as the population expanded northward (As evidence by L2, L3 lineages which branched ~120 kya) and even before this . . .that humans and the archaics that lived in North Africa interacted and moved back and forth with respect to time. We've know this to be true for a long time. We also know that as the Human popualtion expanded in Africa, the Neandertal populations began loosing ground and we see more human influences.

If you disregard dentate as anything important, what you will note is that in North Africa  that human Apomorphies were appearing more frequent over time. IOW, to state succinctly it only tells you that human apomorphies (modernisms) were appearing more frequent over time, it does not tell you whether they come from humans or admixtures of humans and other archaics living in the region. This is the same caution you gave the other day, and I caution you that these things have to be studied in a larger context, not just physical anthropology, because physical anthropology by itself has a terrible historical track record for making correct conclusions. Same goes for all paleontology.