Introducing Denny: Offspring of a Neanderthal Mother & Denisovan Father

In 2008 the paleoanthropological community was rocked by the announcement of a new hominid discovery.  While this may not seem like that great of news, particularly as the discovery of new hominid species has become commonplace, this particular discovery was groundbreaking because the identification of this species was based on paleo-DNA collected from a tooth and finger bone.  Further analysis demonstrated that the newly discovered species, named after its place of discovery, the Denisovans, interbred with anatomically modern humans throughout Eastern Asia, which was evidenced by the presence of their DNA within those populations.  Since that initial 2008 discovery further study into Denisovans has been done, but unfortunately very few physical pieces of evidence (i.e. anatomically remains) have been discovered.  This makes further study difficult but not impossible.  With the advances in paleo-DNA methods a new Denisovan related discovery has been made-that of Denny, the 13 year old daughter of a Neanderthal mother and Denisovan father. 

Denny was an accidental discovery by several different researchers associated with the Max Plank Institute, where the original investigators who discovered Denisovans are based.  A cache of bones were being studied as part of a Masters thesis when a set of mysterious, human-like bones were identified (pictured above).  The bones looked morphologically similar to anatomically  modern humans but were also similar to other species, and it was again paleo-DNA that positively identified this specimen as human…ish.  The DNA signature was similar to Denisovans but not identical. 

Paleogeneticists Viviane Slon and Svante Pääbo took custody of the remains at this point and conducted more analyses, which they published prelimary results on in 2006.  Further research demonstrated that the species was one born from an expected but not yet discovered union-that of a Neanderthal and Denisovan union.  When the results were first brought to Slon’s and Pääbo’s attention they did not think it was possible, leading them to conduct additional analyses to confirm and reconfirm their initial findings.  It was from here that a more robust picture of the specimen was fleshed out.

The bone specimens belong to a 13 year old female who lived approximately 90,000 years ago, who has been nicknamed Denny.  While there is evidence that Neanderthals were living at the same site as Denny none of these Neanderthals were her mother.  Instead her mother most closely resembles Neanderthals who resided in Western Eurasia, specifically in Croatia.  This suggests that Neanderthals were migrating into Asia, although not en masse.  Furthermore, the Denisovan father had at least one Neanderthal relative in his lineage, spanning several generations previous. 

Taken together this evidence demonstrates that Neanderthals and Denisovans were interbreeding, although the extent is considered small since both species remained genetically distinct for several hundred thousand years.  This has led researchers to hypothesize that Neanderthal-Denisovan offspring were infertile (not as likely given the lineage of the Denisovan father) or that Neanderthals and Denisovans did not interact as much given their geographic separation.  The majority of Neanderthal specimens have and continue to be found throughout western Eurasia, while Denisovans have been found on the eastern side of the continent, still largely in the Denisova Caves in Siberia.  Therefore it is most likely that geographical separation led to genetic separation, as well, hence why Denny is the first Neanderthal-Denisovan offspring to be found.

While the first and only one discovered thus far Denny provides scholars a great deal of insights into our human origins.  While we already knew that Neanderthals and Denisovans were breeding with anatomically modern Homo sapiens the discovery of Denny further blurs the lines of what is considered biological human within our hominid ancestry.  She suggests that instead of distinct, genetically isolated species that at least among the three species they were genetically similar, which may not warrant specific species classifications that currently exist.  This means instead of recognizing Neanderthals as Homo neanderthalensis we might be changing it to Homo sapiens neanderthalensis to acknowledge they and Denisovans (who have not yet been given a formal species name) were just as human as the rest of us existing today.

References

Choi, C. Q. (2018, August 22). Neanderthals and Denisovans Mated, New Hybrid Bone Reveals. Retrieved from Live Science: https://www.livescience.com/63400-neanderthals-denisovans-mated-leg-bone.html

McKie, R. (2018, November 24). Meet Denny, the ancient mixed-heritage mystery girl . Retrieved from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2018/nov/24/denisovan-neanderthal-hybrid-denny-dna-finder-project

Scharping, N. (2018, August 22). Hybrid Hominin: This Girl’s Mother and Father Came From Two Different Species. Retrieved from Discover Magazine: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2018/08/22/neanderthal-denisovan-interbreeding-hybrid-species/#.XREX8CB7mUk

Warren, M. (2018, August 22). Mum’s a Neanderthal, Dad’s a Denisovan: First discovery of an ancient-human hybrid. Retrieved from Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-06004-0

Endangered Culture & Language Profile: Uyghurs

One of the central areas of study within the field of linguistic anthropology is the study of endangered languages.  Language loss is a sign of cultural loss, which is a big deal within the field of anthropology.  Language and cultural loss can occur through a variety of means, but the systematic and purposeful extermination is the culprit for language and cultural loss among the subject of today’s blog post, the Uyghurs.  This blog post will discuss the Uyghur language, the Uyghur ethnic group (Figure 1), and the institutional discrimination leading to their ethnocide.

Figure 1: Map of China, with the Xinjiang province highlighted in red

The Uyghur people and language reside in the Xinjiang province of northwestern China (Figure 2).  This is part of the rural hinterlands of the country where many provinces have some of their own basic autonomy/control.  The Xinjiang province is largely populated by the Uyghur, who are one of China’s largest minority groups (n=11 to 13 million).  The Uyghur ethnic group is descendent from Muslim groups who settled various parts of central Asia, including adjacent Pakistan, and the Uyghur language is traced back to Middle Eastern language families.  The language is considered part of the Turkic linguistic family, which further demonstrates a Middle Eastern ancestry of the culture and language. 

Being one of the largest ethnic groups in China the Uyghur have benefited from the autonomy provided by the Chinese government, which allows Chinese citizens the legal right to speak whatever language they chose and provincial governments the ability to identify official provincial languages.  In the Xinjiang province both Mandarin and Uyghur are officially recognized, with the majority of the Uyghur ethnic group being very proficient in their native language.  

Unfortunately, the Chinese government has been eroding away those rights, particularly ramping up their efforts for ethnic extermination of this ethnic group in the past few years.  These initiatives were reported in 2017 when the Chinese government issued a new “bilingual education program” for the entire country.  Under this new program Mandarin was to be the primary and only language spoken during instruction, and all other languages spoken in an area were to be taught as second language courses.  Anyone caught speaking anything outside of Mandarin was subject to “severe punishment”.  The Chinese government rationalized this move by claiming that Mandarin was the language of commerce in China, and by requiring it in curricula meant that Chinese citizens, regardless of ethnic background, would all have equal access for economic success.

Figure 2: Uyghur family (Source: Radio Free Asia)

Shortly thereafter, in the Xinjiang province road signs written in Uyghur were removed, leaving only the Mandarin signs.  The government also began sending out official agents on short or long term exchanges to the Xinjiang province.  They were sent under the guise of teaching Mandarin among local groups, but these agents would report back to the government on the level of Mandarin language proficiency in the population.  Those who were deemed as lacking basic proficiency were sent to “re-education camps”, of which the Chinese government officially recognized as occurring in 2018.  In these camps detainees are forced to speak only Mandarin, go to classes to renounce their faith in Islam, forced to eat pork (which is strictly prohibited by their faith), among other activities.  Various human rights groups have spoken out against these camps, noting that a number of detainees have been killed or disappeared as a result.  Orphaned children of detainees are sent to “boarding schools” where they are treated similarly to their parents.

At the present time the Chinese government has made no moves to end these re-education camps.  Instead they have doubled down their efforts by claiming that it is a national security issue that requires them to keep the camps open.  The Chinese government claims that if the Uyghur are not assimilated into the dominant Chinese culture that they are at risk of being recruited by unfavorable terrorists groups in the surrounding regions.  There has been no evidence to demonstrate that the majority of the detainees are affiliated with terrorists groups, however.

As previously noted language loss is evidence of cultural loss, and in the case of the Uyghur their loss of language and culture is a symptom of a larger problem: ethnocide.  The Uyghur who live outside of China are working diligently to preserve their language and culture through various means, including publishing books and teaching Uyghur language and culture courses.  Many are afraid to publicize these efforts for fear of retaliation against family members still residing in China.  Together the endangerment of the Uyghur culture and language demonstrates the power of loss.

Bibliography

Bouscaren, Durrie. "'We Need to Keep Our Language Alive': Inside a Uyghur Bookshop in Istanbul." Pacific Standard 9 April 2019. Electronic.

London Uyghur Ensemble. Uyghur language. 2013. Electronic. 24 June 2019.

No Author. Uyghur at Indiana University. No Date. Electronic. 24 June 2019.

Shir, Rustem. "China’s Effort to Silence the Sound of Uyghur." The Diplomat 16 May 2019. Electronic.

Sulaiman, Eset. "China Bans Uyghur Language in Schools in Key Xinjiang Prefecture." Radio Free Asia 8 July 2017. Electronic.

Thompson, Ashley. Uyghurs in America Aim To Keep Language Alive. 19 February 2019. Electronic. 24 June 2019.

Applying Anthropology: Environmental Anthropology

Photo of an Asian farmer.  Cattle are indigenous to Africa and only used in Asia after their introduction many centuries ago, a demonstration of paleoecology.  Photo credit: University of Kent

With the discipline of anthropology being broadly defined as the study of all humans (from their biology to their cultures) there really is no end to the possible applications of the discipline to any other type of scholarly or professional inquiry.  Despite this I am still regularly surprised when people ask me what one can do with anthropology.  This blog post is part of a series of posts dedicated to exploring that very question and providing various answers since there really is not a one size fits all answer (well there is, which is you can do anything and everything with anthropology *:)*).  Today’s blog post will explore one such applied field of anthropology: environmental anthropology.

Environmental anthropology is a sub-subfield of anthropology that is concerned with the interactions of humans with their environments and environmental interactions that drive both biological and cultural evolution among humans.  This a very basic definition for a broad sub-subfield.  Environmental anthropologists exist in all four subfields of anthropology as the study of human-environmental interactions can and is quite vast.  It can and does include the study of environmental degradation in the past (e.g. the fall of ancient Maya city-states); how global interactions among various groups leads to changing subsistence strategies, particularly when the environment is not hospitable for such changes but technological innovations allow it (e.g. farming in desert environments due to the interventions of irrigation and fertilizer); how groups identify and define environmental phenomenon (e.g. definitions of weather), and how specifically the environment drives biological evolution (e.g. the various skin colors that exist among all humans).  This list, however, is not comprehensive by any means. 

The field is derived from the work of Julian Steward, who in the mid-20^th century became very concerned with how environments drove cultural evolution among humans.  He noted patterns in cultural traditions among groups that existed in similar but geographically separated environments (e.g. the Chinchorro of South America and the San! of Southern Africa) and wanted to explore the environmental interactions further through comparative studies of cultural groups.  This led to a variety of conclusions that show that people can and will be innovative with solving problems but there are limitations to these solutions based on the environmental conditions that exist for each.  For example, both the Chinchorro and San! were (are in the case of the San!) foraging based groups who exist in deserts on opposite ends of the Earth. 

There are obvious unique characteristics to their cultural traditions (e.g. the Chinchorro practice mummification, whereas the San! do not), which was a sticking point for many anthropologists.  This sticking point led to the evolution of the field of environmental anthropology to move away from cultural evolution to biological evolution.  The pendulum swung back to cultural studies within environmental anthropology later, but instead of a cultural comparative aspect to the field anthropologists were concerned with how globalization affected human-environmental interactions.

Today, environmental anthropologists are involved in a variety of projects.  Paleoecologists (biological anthropologists and archaeologists) continue to study changing biological landscapes to understand how humans affected their natural environment, but they are also discovering plants and animal species that were once lost and can be reintroduced into an area.  For example, native species of cotton, which were almost wiped out but are actually much heartier than modern cotton plants, are being reintroduced to provide farmer more viable crop options.  Environmental social justice is another area of inquiry, in which primarily cultural and linguistic anthropologists focus on how cultural interactions negatively affect some groups while privileging others.  This has led to research into environmental pollution affecting lower socioeconomic groups who accept these consequences because of the income it provides to poor economic practices by international lending agencies that force poor countries to invest their agricultural production in highly profitable but environmentally harmful products.  There are also several environmental anthropologists that work with conservation agencies in determining how best to educate groups of people around the globe on how not to overuse and abuse their natural resources while also remaining able to live comfortable, safe, healthy, and environmentally sustainable lifestyles.

The possibilities for research and employment opportunities are quite endless for environmental anthropologists, much like it is for anthropologists generally.  With major economic/job forecast agencies predicting a 22% increase in the need for anthropologists in the next two decades anthropology is definitely a field that anyone should consider either entering into directly or indirectly.  Anthropological inquiry has so much potential to enhance any and all professional fields, just as demonstrated here with the versatility with environmental anthropology

References

Ingold, T. (n.d.). Environmental Anthropology. Retrieved from Royal Anthropological Institute: https://www.discoveranthropology.org.uk/about-anthropology/specialist-areas/ecological-environmental-anthropology.html

Panakhyo, M., & McGrath, S. (n.d.). Ecological Anthropology. Retrieved from Anthropological Theory Database: https://anthropology.ua.edu/theory/ecological-anthropology/

Stanford University. (n.d.). Environmental Anthropology. Retrieved from Stanford University Department of Anthropology: https://anthropology.stanford.edu/research-projects/environmental-anthropology