Question

I am writing about evolutionary evidence for replacement models/ partial replacement models in modern Homo sapiens. One of the facts that supports the African origin model was in the genome of indigenous African populations. The African populations sampled showed greater genetic variation than all of the other indigenous populations sampled. I wanted to point out that genetic variation within a species occurs at a fairly consistent rate but I cant remember where I read this. Help/discussion would be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

I remember watching a documentary a long time ago which stated that indigenous africans are pure homo sapies and no neantherthal heritage can be found in their genes.
Not really on topic but perhaps it will help somehow.

Answer 2

They recently sequenced the neandertal genome and what you say is correct of all of the populations sampled only Africans show no trace of neandertal genetic material (although there is currently only a small number of sequenced specimens available)

Answer 3

Ah i just remembered more from the documentary, it stated that imigration of homo sapies originated from Africa, Homo sapies started to reproduce with Neaderthals who were superior and more intelligent but ... were less fertile, basically the better version of us died out due to low fertility.
I believe this is one of the way they determined how it originated from Africa due to the fact that they have no trace of them in the genome while almost all the other has it.

Answer 4

What evidence did they provide to support the statement that neandertals were superior to Homo sapiens? Do you happen to remember the name of the documentary?

Answer 5

I will attempt to locate it, if it's in my documentary folder it should easily located, i'll get back to you on this within 1 hour

Answer 6

Thanks I appreciate you looking for it.

Answer 7

I was thinking that the genetic variation of the African populations probably indicates that the population has been around and uninterrupted for a longer period than other populations. The other possibility would be another population that originated before the African populations but later went through a bottleneck? Im guessing even though our text doesn't mention it genetic variation in populations slowly decreases as it radiates outward.

Answer 8

Just by the fact that i have difficulty finding it leads me to the conclussion thats it's either outdated or bias. The only reoccuring evidence i could find was that they had more muscularity and other features which made them fit for surivial, a article i found claims they were "more evolved" culturally and technologically. " http://news.softpedia.com/news/Neanderthals-were-too-smart-to-survive-15264.shtml "
Im not sure if this is a nonbias source you'd have to judge for yourself.
I can't remember the name of the documentary sorry, i believe i deleted it after watching it.
Though it seems like it's either a unfounded claim or it's a highly controversial claim which makes our evolution the inferior choice of the two which might be hard to take it.

I hope i've been of some help, this is so far beyond my area of expertise i can't even see the horizon anymore.

Answer 9

Thanks exuras! Your input has been useful. I usually jump on here when I need to bounce ideas around and bounce them around I have so thanks for chatting with me.