Origins of mankind

Although I’ve retired from active involvement in science and technology I retain my interest.  I aim to keep abreast of developments and I sometimes write about them in this blog. To this end I’ve been looking at a recent New Scientist review on mankind’s origins with great interest.

One massive change in my lifetime has been the discovery and partial decoding of the recipe which makes a human or indeed any animal: it’s DNA. Techniques using DNA are now good enough to throw new light on the evolution of mankind. Until recently the only way was to discover and examine fossils. The simple fossil story was that hominin’s ( broadly human like creatures) developed in Africa, moved to grassland, walked upright, evolved larger brains, moved out of Africa to colonise the world, and, with a side branch that gave Neanderthals, developed into modern man.

A lot of new evidence gives rise to doubts. It seems that hominin types developed in several different forms. While broadly similar they are thought to all be different hominin types. It seems we may have some evolutionary ideas back to front. Rather than hominins being descended from great apes it seems possible that apes and men are descended from a common hominin. It also seems that hominins may have left Africa earlier than thought and at a stage further removed  from modern man.

The most surprising new evidence is that human like hominins may have co-existed on earth until quite recent times. Recent meaning within the last few tens of thousands of years. In case you might think this isn’t recent reflect that earth has existed for about 3.5 billion years and it is thought life started evolving 3 billion years ago. The most ancient hominin dates from something like 7 million years ago.

Two entirely new human like species have been discovered. One is the diminutive “hobbit,” Homo floresiensis and the other Homo Denisovans.  The former only appear to have lived on one small Indonesian island but the latter were a widespread group. Fossil remains of Denisovans are sparse ( one finger bone and a few teeth) but DNA analysis identifies them as different to Neanderthals and modern humans.

A fascinating fact to emerge from DNA analysis is that to a limited extent Denisovans, Neanderthals and Humans interbred. In fact we modern humans carry a small but significant amount of Denisovan and Neaderthal DNA in our genome.. There is a sense in that this is unsurprising as our DNA has filched bits from many other organisms however nothing is else is so recent. This shows humans lived alongside these other hominins and occasionally interbred with them.

Some comment suggests that if we sat next to a Neaderthal in modern dress we would accept him as human albeit with characteristics at the edge of a “normal” human. One of the puzzles of mankind’s development is why these recent hominin types died out and Homo sapiens went on.

The New Scientist item poses the question whether there is a true homo sapien as we are all something of a mash up.

The only conclusion is to study further.

After dinner speaker

I never set out to be an after dinner speaker. When I had an invitation to do so at the Anker Rotary club it seemed churlish to refuse. In fact the invitation came at the recommendation of a contact I made while on the local literary festival group. The invitation was to speak about the book on our village history of which I’m co-author and sole agent.

My involvement came about because I researched and “home published” a slim volume for our village Millennium celebrations. We had a “Memory Lane” exhibition for which we had copied and exhibited photographs from bygone times as well as my village history.

Although I have added a little to that history as new information came to my attention it has been increasing put aside and forgotten about. The exception has been occasional talks on village history at our local village school.

I was rather surprised to be approached by Ralph James of Lichfield Press. He had been given a villagers account of his childhood between the wars and sought more material to make into a book. I should say immediately that Lichfield Press is just a name which has little relation to Lichfield as Ralph lives in France. The only connection is that Ralph lived in Lichfield for a long time and he is keen to provide books about the villages around about.

I was able to supply much of the material he needed plus an introduction to another village amateur historian who had written monographs on the village churches, waterworks etc. We rounded off the material by asking a villager to talk about her 60’s childhood.

Arriving at the new hotel at Drayton Manor theme park I found the club assembling for dinner. I immediately tried to assess their ages ( all male ) because I planned in my talk to ask if they knew some of the war time abbreviations noted in the book. At an average of 71 they were rather familiar with them.

After a rather mediocre meal of Cesar salad followed by Pizza with potato wedges and a little club business I was called upon to speak. I had been intensively preparing over the past couple of days and had made extensive notes. There isn’t a lot of humour in our book but my set piece joke aroused smiles rather than laughter.

I had taken along some of our “Memory Lane” photos and I aroused more laughter than from the joke by referring to the person who held them up as “my glamorous assistant”.

During the meal I learned that my former maths teacher is a Rotarian who is now very ill. Apparently one feature of the group is to visit members who are ill and report on their condition as these fortnightly meetings. I was able to send my good wishes.

The person who gave the vote of thanks turned out ( to my surprise ) to be the brother of the lady who had given our 60’s childhood account. I was thankful that my set joke, while involving her as a child, was quite innocuous.

I know there are people who make a living as an after dinner speaker- I’m not one. I am content with my sole experience.

I will pass on the joke which was voted best at the Edinburgh Fringe.

I don’t like the new pound coin, but then I don’t like change.

Visiting Trevor

Trevor is a friend from school who was best man at my wedding. We have been in distant contact over the years. I was shocked when I contacted him earlier in the year to find that following a sepsis attack he was bedridden unable to walk. Unfortunately this is but one of several health problems which also include a dislocated hip and badly deformed hands. He finds this issue depressing because he can no longer play instruments like the mandolin and guitar.

It was rather later in my school life that I became friends with Trevor. Because he entered with a gaggle of other middle class boys I rather presumed he was the same. This was quite false because he was working class although by reason of his schooling he had a middle class veneer.

I should say immediately that although my form at school was predominantly middle class there was no snobbery whatsoever, indeed my best friend particularly in the early years was definitely middle class as the son of a bleach works manager.

Trevor and I shared a common interest in current affairs and politics. He was fairly left wing and I was right wing and we argued about this which had the result of bringing us together. Trevor was both bright and hard working and to my shame I would entice him  into arguments during our free periods at school. I was rather lazy and very argumentative so not only I didn’t do the work I should, but I distracted Trevor also.

I wasn’t as right wing as I made out and I rather think Trevor wasn’t as left wing as he posed but we both liked an argument so it suited us to adopt extreme positions.

We both had other friends in common and in our mid teens we formed a sort of gang. This mainly meant we met in each others houses and played cards on a Saturday evening. We also went to pubs while slightly under age enjoying the illicit thrill. This seems slightly pathetic looking back.

When I did pass the magic age of 18 I would meet Trevor for lunch once a week in a regular pub. Looking back my headmaster would have had a fit if he had seen me in school uniform eating my sandwiches with a half pint of mild. My contemporaries at school thought this was highly amusing although I never really understood why. By this time I was going out with Annette so lunch times were a good time to meet. Trevor had won sponsorship by Boots for university but a condition was that he spent a year before at one of their pharmacies. I was still at school so as our contemporaries had mostly left we were naturally thrown together.

I mentioned my headmaster above. He was the only exception to the general lack of class consciousness at school as he was a terrible snob. Because of an innocent misunderstanding the head had a big down on me anyway. He showed this in ways I can find amusing now but which could have been highly damaging. The worst was my further education reference. When I went to Loughborough for interview it was remarked upon by the interviewer as damning with faint praise. In fact it made absolutely no difference as the Loughborough policy was to accept anyone with minimum qualifications and then have a massive sort out at the end of the first year. About a third of the entrance were told to leave.

Trevor and his family live in a old schoolhouse in very rural Cheshire. A long drive leads to their very attractive and spacious house. The house is in a tiny hamlet. Although only a few miles from the M6 it feels utterly rural; thatched cottages and all. It is one of the charms of England that so many places like this exist.