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How different are the species and subspecies of the Homo genus?

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Accelerator

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Ok. I know that homo sapiens have several cousins. Neanderthal, Devonians, yes yes yes.

Problem. Are they really that different? If you were to put them in modern day clothes, shave them, let them walk around.... would they look different? Would they act any different? If you were to pick them out of a lineup or talk to five people, and pick out one, would you be able to?
 
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Accelerator said:
Ok. I know that homo sapiens have several cousins. Neanderthal, Devonians, yes yes yes.

Problem. Are they really that different? If you were to put them in modern day clothes, shave them, let them walk around.... would they look different? Would they act any different? If you were to pick them out of a lineup or talk to five people, and pick out one, would you be able to?
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Please change "subspecies" to "species" the title, it's grossly inaccurate and misleading, to "How different are the different species of Homo?". (edit: perhaps even better and more comprehensive: "How different are the different species and subspecies of Homo?")

Homo is the genus, sapiens the species.

Homo sapiens has a single non-extinct subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens (with fancy words, our species is monotypic).

It's unclear whether neanderthals and denisovans were subspecies or separate species.

Recently, an unarguable (extinct) subspecies was discovered, Homo sapiens idaltu.
 
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xa na xa said:
Please change "subspecies" to "species" the title, it's grossly inaccurate and misleading, to "How different are the different species of Homo?". (edit: perhaps even better and more comprehensive: "How different are the different species and subspecies of Homo?")

Homo is the genus, sapiens the species.

Homo sapiens has a single non-extinct subspecies, Homo sapiens sapiens (with fancy words, our species is monotypic).

It's unclear whether neanderthals and denisovans were subspecies or separate species.

Recently, an unarguable (extinct) subspecies was discovered, Homo sapiens idaltu.
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What is a homo sapien is an open question. If we go with the biological species concept then it is easy to argue that the various Homo Sapiens that were alive in the last 100,00 years are all the same species because we have evidence of interbreeding of sufficient frequency that the genes still exist today. In most any mammal evidence like that would be good enough to show that these species where actually subspecies. In birds it wouldn't because bird researches love splitting like it is going out of style. In plants it would... actually fuck plants they don't want to play by the rules. Though if we throw the concept of chronospecies in there then there is a strong case to be made that it is just homo erectus sub species all the way down.
 
Accelerator said:
Ok. I know that homo sapiens have several cousins. Neanderthal, Devonians, yes yes yes.

Problem. Are they really that different? If you were to put them in modern day clothes, shave them, let them walk around.... would they look different? Would they act any different? If you were to pick them out of a lineup or talk to five people, and pick out one, would you be able to?
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H.s.neanderthalensis isn't actually that different from us anatomically. Like toss one in a jacket and throw them on the subway and they'd fit in pretty well. You could pick one out if you were looking, but some short stocky dude with a heavy set brow isn't that far from the norm.

Denisovans, we really don't know about just yet. Like current information suggests that they all had GIANT FUCKING MAN HANDS, but that's based off a single data point. We won't get further information on that until the Chinese DNA labs start processing ear bones, since they're not letting Reich's team do that work for what are some very valid reasons.

Vindictus said:
Well, we were able to breed with neanderthals, so I'd imagine they are probably a subspecies? IDK about denisovans.
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We have DNA from a Neanderthal/Denisovan F1 cross, and there's a ton of Denisovan DNA in modern humans as well. Including IIRC an HPV strain that might be from them. Sorting out species is a really complicated question for groups as closely related as the various late Human/Pre-AMH groups are. Especially since Behavioral Modernity is turning out to be a bullshit concept thanks to the H.naledi gravesite that was found in Rising Star Cave.
 
Gamerlord said:
What is Behavioural Modernity and why is it turning out to be bullshit?
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Behavioral Modernity is the set of behavioral/Cognitive traits that supposedly make (gracile) Anatomically Modern Humans like ourselves distinct from other Human groups (Human being of course the name for everything in the genus Homo.) This includes things like Art, abstract thinking, complex/novel tool use, and ritual burial of the dead. Previously, the more-or less accepted model was that mankind magically acquired behavioral modernity about 50kya (the so called "Upper Paleolithic Revolution".)

Of course since then, we've found art and evidence of trade that's significantly older at sites associated with AMH, ranging back to 130kya, leading to the idea that it's basal to AMH (who arose about 200kya.) Those Neanderthal cave paintings from Spain however push that mark closer to 750kya (given the rough timeframe for divergence between the two populations,) and the H.naledi gravesite in Dinaledi Chamber (from roughly 250kya, and yes the consensus is that it has to be a grave site,) suggests that at a minimum funerary rites are basal to the entire genus given how archaic H.naledi anatomy is.

Part of this is that dating stone tools is actually really hard because you know they're stone and all, and that anything aside from stone, shell and cave paintings is actually really fragile and will not preserve well over hundreds of thousands of years. Also, we don't have Neanderthal or Denisovan lice, so we can't do bullshit like try to figure out how old clothing is for them by doing genetic surveys on lice species (basically dating head lice, body lice and crabs to find out when they all diverged.) But we've also found a sewing needle in Denisova cave, so we do know they had clothing.
 
Accelerator said:
..... is this allowed?

I'm on the phone. And that's 1 hour
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At some point, you're gonna have to accept that if you want to learn something, you will need to read articles and watch videos, rather than hope the subject matter is simple enough that someone who bothered to educate themselves can give you a TL;DR on it.
 
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