Today’s New Reason To Believe

Posted by Fazale ‘Fuz’ Rana, Ph.D.

Does Palau Island Discovery Challenge the Status of Homo floresiensis?

My youngest daughter’s all-star cheer team was recently invited to perform during half-time at an LA Breakers game. The LA Breakers are a professional dwarf basketball team made up of male and female players from 4’ to 4’ 9” in height. After the game, my daughter got to meet the team members, several of whom are TV and movie stars. The list of celebrities included Martin Klebba who had a role in the Pirates of the Caribbean trilogy. Needless to say this experience created quite a stir in our house later that evening as my daughter recounted all that happened and showed us the freshly autographed team picture of the Breakers.

A recent discovery of the fossilized remains of little people on the island of Palau also has created quite a stir among paleoanthropologists. A team headed by a scientist from South Africa unearthed a large number of remains of modern human dwarfs in two caves on raised limestone islets off the coast of the southern part of Palau.

These modern human specimens date between 940 and 2,900 years old. Evidence for human occupation on the island extends back to 3,000 to 4,500 years ago. There were no fauna or flora associated with the human remains, nor have any artifacts been recovered. This evidence suggests that these caves served as a graveyard, of sorts. Unfortunately, none of the skeletal elements are articulated (connected). The burial site shows evidence that wave activity repositioned and redeposited the remains within the caves.

The paleoanthropologists noted that many of the humans buried in the cave were smaller than contemporary pigmies. Using pelvic girdles and femur heads, the paleoanthropologists estimated the body mass of the females in the caves to be about 75 kilograms and about 100 kilograms for males. The research team focused their attention on some of the smaller individuals in the fossil assemblage, most notably a cranium embedded in limestone. This specimen has yet to be extracted from the site, so their analysis of the cranium was conducted in situ.

Although the research team observed that the facial features were distinctly those of modern humans, they also identified other features found in primitive hominids. The brain size of this individual was estimated at about 1,000 cubic centimeters, the low end of the brain size range of modern humans.

The researchers proposed that these remains represent a group of modern humans who made their way to the island of Palau and underwent insular dwarfism, rendering them small in stature. This process involves a microevolutionary reduction in the size of animals when isolated for a significant period of time, often on an island. In the face of limited resources and no predatory threat creatures respond by undergoing a dramatic reduction in size.

These findings on Palau are reminiscent of another fossil find reported in 2004, the recovery of small-bodied hominids on the Indonesian island of Flores. The Flores finds were interpreted as a new species, termed Homo floresiensis. Since that discovery, controversy has surrounded this interpretation with some paleoanthropologists arguing that these are the remains of microcephalic modern humans. (For a discussion of how these hominids fit into RTB’s human origins model, see the article I wrote recently for our free minimagazine Connections.) The researchers who discovered the Palau dwarfs are now weighing in on this issue. They argue that perhaps the Flores island hominids were actually modern humans that also experienced insular dwarfism. They noted that the primitive features they detected in the Palau island people suggest that the primitive features of the Flores island specimens were a consequence of the changes that stemmed from insular dwarfism.

While it appears that the Palau people are modern humans who experienced insular dwarfism, the extension of this explanation to the Flores island hominids appears unwarranted upon closer inspection.

The hominids from Flores island did not display any modern human features, which contrasts with the dwarfs recovered in the caves of Palau. This observation means that H. floresiensis were not likely insular dwarfs of modern humans.

The brain size of H. floresiensis was about 380 cubic centimeters, much smaller than that of the smallest brain of the Palau people, measuring about 1,000 cubic centimeters.

The tools associated with H. floresiensis belonged to the Acheulean technology, associated exclusively with Homo erectus.

The paleoanthropologists focused their analysis on the smallest members of the Palau fossil assemblage. There are dwarf remains larger than those recorded for H. floresiensis.

Even though the discovery of the Palau dwarfs has mixed things up a bit among paleoanthropologists, at the end of the day it appears as if the excitement is for naught, at least with respect to the status of H. floresiensis. This creature appears to be a hominid that has a strong kinship to the erectines.

The biological and behavioral differences between modern humans and H. floresiensis finds ready accommodation in the RTB model of human origins. This scientific theory of creation views the hominids as creatures made by God to possess some level of intellectual and emotional capacity. Still, according to the RTB view, these creatures lacked God’s image. The model predicts that the hominids should be biologically and behaviorally distinct from modern humans, and that appears to be the case for H. floresiensis.

Posted by Fazale ‘Fuz’ Rana, Ph.D.

Lice DNA Supports Biblical Account of Humanity’s Creation

Every parent dreads receiving a note from their children’s school announcing an outbreak of lice. Messages of this sort set in motion a series of unpleasantries for the child, parent, and sometimes the rest of the family.

Some anthropologists, however, take a certain delight in lice infestations. These obligate surface parasites, and their genetic variability, offer insight into human origins and the migration of the first people around the world.

Most scientists who study lice are interested in these parasites for biomedical reasons. For example, some choose to focus on the natural history of these disease-causing organisms. Learning about the timing and location of lice origins, the historical pattern of their spread, and consequently, the contemporary distribution of their genetic variation helps biomedical researchers understand how infectious diseases harbored by insects spread. This information can potentially lead to more effective public health programs and, in some cases, treatments.

In the process of studying the origin and natural history of human parasites, like lice, molecular geneticists have stumbled upon an exciting new way to characterize humanity’s origin and movements around the world. Researchers believe that the timing and location of the origin, as well as the spread, of disease-causing and disease-harboring pests around the world mirrors the timing and location of the origin and spread of humanity. As such, the worldwide genetic variation of these infectious agents can be used in the same way that molecular anthropologists use human genetic variation to gain understanding of human prehistory.

A remarkable study on the global circulation of head lice illustrates how this creature can be used to track the spread of humanity around the world.*

There are three types of head lice (based on genetic fingerprints) distributed around the world: types A, B, and C. Type A is found throughout the world. Type B occurs in North and South America, and Europe. Type C is rare and geographically restricted to Ethiopia and Nepal.

Some investigations posit that Type A head lice established its association with modern humans in Africa shortly after the first people appeared. Type B originated in Europe after humanity spread into Asia and then Europe. Accordingly, Type B head lice appeared in the New World when Europeans colonized the Americas. If this model is correct, then Native Americans would have carried Type A head lice with them when they originally migrated into the Americas from Asia.

Researchers recognized a unique opportunity to test this model with the discovery of pre-Columbian mummies in Peru, dating to about 10,000 years in age, well before the Spanish and Portuguese arrived.

Anthropologists were able to recover the remains of ancient lice from the hair of the mummy. They then successfully extracted DNA from the lice specimens, then amplified and sequenced it. The lice possessed the Type A DNA fingerprint. This result means that the first immigrants into the Americas most likely carried the same genetic version of lice as the first humans in Africa. Type B lice must have been introduced by European settlers.

The natural history of lice matches the expected pattern of the Out-of-Africa hypothesis for human origins. Though often presented and discussed within the context of the evolutionary paradigm, this model has profound biblical implications. This hypothesis, which is substantiated by numerous studies, maintains that humanity originated recently (about 100,000 years ago) from East Africa (near the location theologians ascribed to the Garden of Eden) from a small population. Studies using mitochondrial and Y chromosomal DNA markers trace humanity’s origin back to a single man and woman. The genetic data also indicate that humanity’s migration around the world began at or near the Middle East.

If humanity’s genesis happened in the way described in Scripture, the genetic diversity patterns observed among international people groups would be very similar to those discovered by anthropologists. It looks as if Adam and Eve really existed, giving rise to all humanity.

For a detailed discussion of the myriad evidence in favor of the Out-of-Africa hypothesis and the use of parasites to characterize the origin of humanity see my book Who Was Adam?

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*This study made science news headlines when first published. I discussed the scientific and biblical implications of this research on the February 11, 2008 edition of our new podcast, RTB’s Science News Flash. This podcast offers a unique Christian perspective on headline-grabbing discoveries. A free subscription is available through iTunes.

Posted by Fazale ‘Fuz’ Rana, Ph.D.

Three New Studies Support Biblical Account of Humanity’s Creation

What’s the first thing that comes to mind when you think of the state of Kentucky? Horse racing? Wildcat basketball? The Louisville Slugger? Bluegrass music? What about burgoo?

Though most people probably haven’t heard about this spicy stew, it’s as much a part of the traditions of the Bluegrass State as the Kentucky Derby. Burgoo consists of a mixture of meats (beef, chicken, pork, mutton, and game animals, if available) and vegetables cooked (and re-cooked) in a large kettle over an open flame until all the flavors meld together. No two Burgoo recipes are the same. The preparation and consumption of Burgoo serves as a center piece for social gatherings. At times the entire community contributes the ingredients to make a large pot of stew.

Molecular anthropologists have recently concocted a burgoo of their own consisting of discoveries that turn the heat up on the support for the Out-of-Africa hypothesis of human origins, and with it, the biblical account of humanity’s beginnings.*

Out of Africa Hypothesis

In a nutshell, this model (also called the replacement model) maintains that modern humans evolved recently (about 100,000 years ago) in East Africa from a small hominid population and then migrated around the world to replace pre-existing hominids. Proponents believe that Homo neanderthalensis and Homo erectus are evolutionary side branches and dead ends.

Relative Proportion of Harmful Mutations in European and African Populations

One recent study, carried out by an international team, examined genetic variation in fifteen African American and twenty European Americans. These workers characterized genetic variability by examining single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) and categorizing the DNA sequence differences as benign, possibly damaging, and probably damaging.

They noted that African Americans harbor a greater degree of SNP diversity than European Americans. Interestingly, European descendents have a greater proportion of harmful variations than people with an African ancestry.

These results find explanation if humanity arose in East Africa from a small population, and recently migrated into Europe through a genetic bottleneck. Bottlenecks result when a population drops to low levels and then recovers its numbers, or if a small subpopulation becomes separated from the main group and then later grows in size.

Genetic and Copy-Number Variation

Another study characterized the genetic variability of twenty-nine populations from around the world by monitoring 525,910 SNPs and 396 copy-number differences.

Again, the patterns of genetic variability noted in these two studies for people groups from around the world fit with the predictions of the Out-of-Africa hypothesis.

A third recently reported study focused on about 650,000 SNPs found in the genomes of 938 people representing 51 populations from around the world. The SNP data clustered into a number of groups displaying a geographical relationship that indicates an African origin of humanity and subsequent spread around the world.

Overwhelming Evidence for the Out-of-Africa Hypothesis

These three new research reports can be thrown into a large simmering kettle of studies that support the Out-of-Africa model. (For a detailed discussion of the myriad evidences in favor of the Out-of-Africa Hypothesis see the book Who Was Adam? Collectively, the consensus that emerges from this work indicates that humanity originated recently (about 100,000 years ago) from East Africa (near the location theologians ascribed to the Garden of Eden) from a small population. Amazingly, studies using mitochondrial and Y chromosomal DNA markers trace humanity’s origin back to a single man and woman. These studies also indicate that humanity’s migration around the world began at or near the Middle East.

Though often presented and discussed within the context of the evolutionary paradigm, this model has profound biblical implications. In some respects, the Out-of-Africa hypothesis appears to be the biblical model awkwardly forced into the evolutionary framework, like an incorrect puzzle piece. If humanity’s genesis happened in the way described in Scripture, the genetic diversity patterns observed among people groups around the world would be very similar to those discovered by anthropologists. It looks as if Adam and Eve really existed, giving rise to all humanity.

Next week I will describe another study using DNA extracted from ancient head lice that also lends credence to the biblical account of humanity’s origin. I decided it would be best not to describe this work for now. I didn’t want to ruin anybody’s appetite.

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*These studies made science news headlines when first published. I discussed the scientific and biblical implications of this research on the February 22, 2008 edition of our new podcast, RTB’s Science News Flash. This podcast offers a unique Christian perspective on headline-grabbing discoveries. A free subscription to this podcast is available through iTunes.