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Phenotypic traits of primate hybrids: Recognizing admixture in the fossil record
Author(s) -
Ackermann Rebecca Rogers
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
evolutionary anthropology: issues, news, and reviews
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.401
H-Index - 85
eISSN - 1520-6505
pISSN - 1060-1538
DOI - 10.1002/evan.20288
Subject(s) - neanderthal , fossil record , evolutionary biology , nobody , hybrid , biology , homo erectus , morphology (biology) , human evolution , phenotype , genealogy , history , paleontology , genetics , gene , pleistocene , computer science , archaeology , operating system , botany
For many years, the likelihood that hybridization occurred in human evolution has been debated. Tattersall and Schwartz pointed out one of the core problems with resolving this debate, namely “that nobody has any idea what a Neanderthal/modern human hybrid might look like in theory, and few have dared to suggest in practice that any particular known fossil represents such a hybrid.” 1:7117 Moreover, while molecular data is proving increasingly useful for characterising hybrid zones, the utility of the phenotype for this purpose is not clear. 2 Here I address these issues, discussing both theoretical and empirically‐derived expectations for what hybrid morphology looks like, with an emphasis on the skeleton of hybrid primates, and consideration of the hominin fossil record.