Agreements and Misunderstandings among Three Scientific Fields

Abstract

The emergence of paleogenomics (the study and analysis of ancient genomes) has provided a new, powerful source of information that can be used to test previous hypotheses regarding human evolution. However, various misunderstandings concerning the interpretation of genetic data in an archaeological and paleontological context and the existence of different scientific goals tend to hinder the fluent and fruitful collaboration between these fields. Here we explore some of the subjects creating confusion, such as the problems associated with molecular clocks, the difference between sequence divergence and species divergence, and the limitations of the uniparental markers. Limited understanding of how the expression of a genome shapes the phenotype (including morphology and cognition) is the main obstacle to linking the genetic and the morphological evidence available. In the case of Neanderthals (and probably Denisovans, too), it is obvious that the conspicuous morphological differences cannot be explained b...