Scientists reveal health benefits of breeding with Neanderthals

Humans rose to dominance across the world after breeding with Neanderthals, according to new research.
Interbreeding between the two species between 65,000 and 90,000 years ago speeded up modern man’s rapid rise to the head of the evolutionary tree, it is claimed.

It was established last year that a small part of the human genome can be traced back to Neanderthals.

But Prof Peter Parham, an expert in immunology at Stanford medical school in California, has now proved how this instilled a “hybrid vigour” in Homo sapiens that allowed them to go on to populate the world.

According to The Sunday Times, crossbreeding provided humans with a ready-mixed cocktail of disease-resistant genes when the species first ventured out of its native Africa.

This, in effect, speeded up man’s global dominance as they did not need to wait for evolution to do the job, it was claimed.

Matt Pope, a senior research fellow in the Department for Archaeologist at University College London, said the latest study presented exciting evidence of man’s relationship with his ancestors.

“If modern humans were getting close enough to share DNA, what else were they sharing?” he told the paper.

“Rather than having to evolve from scratch as they moved out of Africa into Europe and Asia, this interaction would have provided a fast-track to new environments.”

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/8714018/Scientists-reveal-health-benefits-of-breeding-with-Neanderthals.html

Homo erectus was first master chef: study

Homo erectus was probably the first ancestor of modern humans to have mastered the art of cooking, according to a new US study.

The ability to cook and process food allowed Homo erectus, the Neanderthals and Homo sapiens to make huge evolutionary leaps that differentiated them from chimpanzees and other primates, said researchers at Harvard University.

Based on an analysis of DNA, molar size and body mass among non-human primates, modern humans, and 14 extinct hominids, the findings, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, support previous studies that suggested Homo erectus, which evolved around 1.9 million years ago, may have known how to cook.

Preparing food with tools and fire meant more calories could be consumed and less time needed to be spent foraging and eating. Molar sizes shrunk while body mass increased.

Among primates, animals with larger body sizes grew bigger molars and spent more time eating - great apes of similar size to humans spend about 48 per cent of the day consuming calories.

"Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalensis spent 6.1 per cent and 7 per cent, respectively, of their active day feeding," said the Harvard study, adding that modern humans spend 4.7 per cent of their days eating.

"Human feeding time and molar size are truly exceptional compared with other primates, and their oddity began around the start of the Pleistocene," said the study, referring to the epoch that began about 2.5 million years ago and ended 11,700 years ago.

Cooking may actually have originated with other species that also lived in Africa and came just before homo erectus, including Homo habilis and Homo rudolfensis, the study said.

In any case, the tools and behaviours necessary to support a cooking culture "related to feeding and now necessary for long-term survival of modern humans evolved by the time of Homo erectus and before our lineage left Africa."

People at darker, higher latitudes evolved bigger eyes and brains

People who live at higher latitudes have larger eyes and more processing power in their brains to deal with visual information compared with those living nearer the equator, a study suggests.

"As you move away from the equator, there's less and less light available, so humans have had to evolve bigger and bigger eyes," said Eiluned Pearce from the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University, a lead author on the study.

"Their brains also need to be bigger to deal with the extra visual input. Having bigger brains doesn't mean that higher-latitude humans are smarter, it just means they need bigger brains to be able to see well where they live."

This suggests that someone from Greenland and someone from Kenya will have the same ability to discern detail, but the person from the higher latitude needs more brainpower and bigger eyes to deal with the lower light levels.

Professor Robin Dunbar, director of the Institute of Cognitive and Evolutionary Anthropology at Oxford University and a co-author of the study, said that people whose ancestors have lived within the Arctic circle, have eyeballs 20% bigger than people whose ancestors lived near the equator. They have an associated increase in the size of the brain's visual cortex, which previous studies have shown correlates with the size of the eyeball.

Brain volume is known to increase with latitude: people living at high latitudes north and south of the equator have bigger brains than people living near the equator and . Dunbar said that scientists have wondered whether these inherited differences in total brain volume were driven by the pressure to adapt to low light levels at high latitudes.

The researchers measured the brain volumes and eye sockets of 55 skulls kept at the Oxford University Museum of Natural History dating from the 19th century. The skulls represented 12 different populations from around the world, including indigenous people from England, Australia, China, Kenya, Micronesia and Scandinavia.

The results, published on Wednesday in the journal Biology Letters, showed that the biggest brains, averaging 1,484 millilitres, were from Scandinavia, while the smallest brains, around 1,200 millilitres, came from Micronesia. Average eye socket size was 27 millilitres in Scandinavia and 22 millilitres in Micronesia.

Dunbar said the increase in brain volume must have evolved relatively recently in human history. "It's only within the last 10,000 years or so that modern humans have occupied all latitudes right up to the Arctic circle. This is, I guess, an adaptation that's happened within the last 10,000 years."

The researchers controlled for possible confounding variables influencing their data, such as the fact that people who live at higher latitudes are physically bigger and the possibility that the size of a person's eye socket in colder climates might be bigger to allow for a thicker layer of insulating fat.

The results for human eyes mirror those found in birds and non-human primates. Bird species that sing earlier in the dawn chorus at high latitudes have bigger eyes than those that sing later, and nocturnal primates have bigger eyeballs than species that are awake during the day.

Alok Jha, science correspondent

guardian.co.uk

http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2011/jul/27/higher-latitudes-bigger-eyes-brains

Study to create the first archive of human evolution at Mungo

A foundational project is currently underway at Lake Mungo and those lakes that abound it to document the history of human settlement, past environmental change and landscape evolution that has occurred in this area. This immense undertaking comes after a long hiatus of research being conducted here and hopes to provide the first systematic archive of its archaeological traces.


Documenting the history of human settlement seems like an epic task in any part of the world; in the stark beauty of the Willandra Lakes World Heritage Area, it involves tracing back no less than 45,000 years.


Upon arriving to the now dry lake bed which lies at the heart of Mungo National Park, it is not hard to appreciate the ancient nature of this part of the world - it is one of the oldest places outside of Africa to have been occupied by modern humans.

The site of the world's oldest known cremation and ritual ochre burial, as well as the longest trail of ancient human footprints, surprisingly little is known about the people who lived here.

Enter La Trobe University's palaeolithic archaeologist, Dr Nicola Stern, whose Mungo Archaeology Project hopes to redress this shortfall in our collective knowledge.

"There's an untold story at Mungo; Mungo is famous because of Mungo Lady, Mungo Man; a trail of fossil footprints," says Dr Stern.

"We know surprisingly little about how people actually lived in this landscape over 45,000 years - and that's really what I'm trying to document by looking at the archaeological traces in the Mungo lunette."

The Mungo lunettes are half-moon shaped sand dunes built from ancient layers of the earth's surface and form the 'Walls of China' - a major drawcard for visitors to the World Heritage site that is Mungo National Park.

Containing rich deposits of information, the lunettes have preserved hundreds of rare, snapshot images of Australia's earliest history and provide a unique record of the ways in which the first settlers may have adapted to the changes to their climate over time.

They form the basis for Dr Stern's foundational research into this narrative of human evolution.

"It's the foundation - there's a lot that we could do if we had already had this information," she says.

It is not only the scientific community who have longed for this work to be done; elders from the region's Aboriginal tribal groups are also supportive of the project and are working in collaboration with Dr Stern's team to monitor it.

"Finding out what's there, and then monitoring what's happening to what's there, is something that the elders tell me they have wanted for a very long period of time."

With such an endeavour, Dr Stern has a loyal team of around 20 others working with her and says there will be more to come on board in the future.

"Over time we will be training people and hope that they will pick this up and carry it on into the future - but there is a certain, you know knowledge and expertise that is required to figure out how to tackle a record on this scale."

Author: Charlotte King
Source: ABC News Website [July 14, 2011]
http://archaeologynewsnetwork.blogspot.com/2011/07/study-to-create-first-archive-of-human.html

4 March 2011 Last updated at 13:14

Island tool finds show early settlers' diversity

The barbed points may even have been arrowheads, moving the earliest known use of arrows back by thousands of years

Caches of tools and animal remains from around 12,000 years ago, found on islands off the California coast, have given remarkable insight into the lives of the first Americans.

The finds show fine tool technology and a rich maritime economy existed there.

The tools vary markedly from mainland cultures of the era such as the Clovis.

The finds, reported in Science, also suggest that rather than a land route to South America, early humans may have used coastal routes.

A team studying California's Channel Islands, off its southern coast, has found that the islands show evidence both of differing technologies and a differing diet, even among the few islands.

"On San Miguel island we found a lot of pretty remarkable tools, but the animal materials there were largely shellfish," said Torben Rick, an anthropologist from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC.

"Over on Santa Rosa, that site was dominated by bird remains and a few sea mammal and fish remains... and no shellfish at all.

"What's interesting about that is it shows us not only were these people out there living a coastal life, but they were taking advantage of the full suite of resources available to them; they had a very diversified maritime economy."

The tools that the team found hold the greatest surprise, however, in that they differ significantly from those of mainland cultures like the Clovis and Folsom.

Points found on the islands - which could even be arrow-heads - are thin, serrated, and have barbed points that show striking workmanship for the period.

Inland tools had fluted points, and it is known they were used to hunt large animals including the woolly mammoth. The island points were so delicate as to almost certainly have been used for hunting fish. What is more, many of them do not reappear in the archaeological record.

"These are extremely delicate, finely made tools that don't occur later in time," Dr Rick said. "Finding these types of tools at all three of these sites really suggests a similar group of people, in terms of technology and subsistence - and were pretty different from what came later."

Dr Rick said that the evidence supported the idea that the islands were short-term or seasonal encampments, rather than permanent settlements. The team also found a piece of obsidian on the islands.

"The Coso obsidian source [is] on the mainland a couple hundred miles away, so we know they were participating in long-distance exchange networks," he said.

'More surprises'

A long-standing model of human exploration and settlement of the Americas holds that, after reaching North America through the Bering Straits off Alaska, a concerted push southward led early humans including the Clovis culture across inland parts of the continent to South America.

But anthropologist Tom Dillehay of Vanderbilt University said that the Channel Island finds were part of a mounting body of evidence against that simplistic story.

The thin, serrated crescents are a testament to the island inhabitants' manufacturing capabilities

"What they tell us is that there was widespread cultural diversity at the outset of human entry and dispersion throughout the Americas, and that the old, now-dead Clovis first model often misleads us to believe that there was only one major way of first human expansion throughout the Western Hemisphere," he told BBC News.

"As today, there are cultural continuities but there also is constant change, which is well evidenced by these and other sites being discovered throughout the Americas. As more research produces more sites, we will see that the story of the first Americans is not linear and that there will continue to be more surprises.

"As I have published and said before, there were probably many different migrations and many different migration routes overland and along the coastal ways, and this evidence is pointing in that direction too."

However, Dr Rick said that it was too early to upend the larger picture of human migration across the Americas, and that further finds - some of which now lie underwater around the Channel Islands - could shed more light on the story in the future.

"My colleague Jon Erlandson refers to them as 'postcards from the past'," Dr Rick said. "They give us just a brief snapshot of 'hey, we were here and here's what we were doing for a brief period of time'.

"We have to be a little cautious in our interpretations; we're trying to put together a puzzle, and the puzzle may have 150 pieces and we've got five of them. So it's really difficult to get the full picture of what they were doing."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12646364

'Hobbit' Was an Iodine-Deficient Human, Not Another Species, New Study Suggests

ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2010) — A new paper is set to re-ignite debate over the origins of so-called Homo floresiensis -- the 'hobbit' that some scientists have claimed as a new species of human.

The University of Western Australia's Emeritus Professor Charles Oxnard and his colleagues, in a paper in PLoS ONE have reconfirmed, on the post-cranial skeleton, their original finding on the skull that Homo floresiensis in fact bears the hallmarks of humans -- Homo sapiens -- affected by hypothyroid cretinism.

The remains, allegedly as recent as 15,000 years, were discovered in 2003 in the Liang Bua caves on the Indonesian island of Flores by archaeologists seeking evidence of the first human migration from Asia to Australia.

When Professor Oxnard and fellow Australian researchers suggested in a 2008 paper that the skull showed evidence of endemic dwarf cretinism resulting from congenital hypothyroidism and were not a new species of human, their claim caused controversy.

In order to test their thesis, in their new paper Professor Oxnard and his team summarised data on the rest of the skeleton and mathematically compared the bones of cretins in relation to chimpanzees, unaffected humans and H. floresiensis. They used two methods with different statistical bases: principal components analyses (PCA) and non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (MDS).

Their work confirms the close grouping of H. floresiensis with the hypothyroid cretins, and the clear separation from both modern humans and from chimpanzees. This leads them to conclude that the Liang Bua remains were indeed most likely cretins from a population of unaffected H. sapiens. They have, further, provided a series of predictions for the further testing of the cretin hypothesis.

"This is consistent with recent hypothyroid endemic cretinism throughout Indonesia, including the nearby island of Bali," Professor Oxnard said.

"Cretinism is caused by various environmental factors including iodine deficiency -- a deficiency which would have been present on Flores at the period to which the dwarfed Flores fossils are dated."

Professor Oxnard has received the Charles R. Darwin Award for Lifetime Achievement in Physical Anthropology; was honoured as the dedicatee on a book Shaping Primate Evolution, Cambridge University Press; and was awarded the Chancellor's Medal of The University of Western Australia.

His co-authors in his most recent paper are Professor Peter Obendorf, School of Applied Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne; and Professor Ben Kefford, Centre for Environmental Sustainability, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Technology Sydney.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100928025514.htm

-----
Charles Oxnard, Peter J. Obendorf, Ben J. Kefford. Post-Cranial Skeletons of Hypothyroid Cretins Show a Similar Anatomical Mosaic as Homo floresiensis. PLoS ONE, 2010; 5 (9): e13018

http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013018

Abstract:

Human remains, some as recent as 15 thousand years, from Liang Bua (LB) on the Indonesian island of Flores have been attributed to a new species, Homo floresiensis. The definition includes a mosaic of features, some like modern humans (hence derived: genus Homo), some like modern apes and australopithecines (hence primitive: not species sapiens), and some unique (hence new species: floresiensis). Conversely, because only modern humans (H. sapiens) are known in this region in the last 40 thousand years, these individuals have also been suggested to be genetic human dwarfs. Such dwarfs resemble small humans and do not show the mosaic combination of the most complete individuals, LB1 and LB6, so this idea has been largely dismissed. We have previously shown that some features of the cranium of hypothyroid cretins are like those of LB1. Here we examine cretin postcrania to see if they show anatomical mosaics like H. floresiensis. We find that hypothyroid cretins share at least 10 postcranial features with Homo floresiensis and unaffected humans not found in apes (or australopithecines when materials permit). They share with H. floresiensis, modern apes and australopithecines at least 11 postcranial features not found in unaffected humans. They share with H. floresiensis, at least 8 features not found in apes, australopithecines or unaffected humans. Sixteen features can be rendered metrically and multivariate analyses demonstrate that H. floresiensis co-locates with cretins, both being markedly separate from humans and chimpanzees (P<0.001: from analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) over all variables, ANOSIM, global R>0.999). We therefore conclude that LB1 and LB6, at least, are, most likely, endemic cretins from a population of unaffected Homo sapiens. This is consistent with recent hypothyroid endemic cretinism throughout Indonesia, including the nearby island of Bali.

(Submitted by Chad Arment)

'Hobbit' Was an Iodine-Deficient Human, Not Another Species, New Study Suggests

ScienceDaily (Sep. 28, 2010) — A new paper is set to re-ignite debate over the origins of so-called Homo floresiensis -- the 'hobbit' that some scientists have claimed as a new species of human.

The University of Western Australia's Emeritus Professor Charles Oxnard and his colleagues, in a paper in PLoS ONE have reconfirmed, on the post-cranial skeleton, their original finding on the skull that Homo floresiensis in fact bears the hallmarks of humans -- Homo sapiens -- affected by hypothyroid cretinism.

The remains, allegedly as recent as 15,000 years, were discovered in 2003 in the Liang Bua caves on the Indonesian island of Flores by archaeologists seeking evidence of the first human migration from Asia to Australia.

When Professor Oxnard and fellow Australian researchers suggested in a 2008 paper that the skull showed evidence of endemic dwarf cretinism resulting from congenital hypothyroidism and were not a new species of human, their claim caused controversy.

In order to test their thesis, in their new paper Professor Oxnard and his team summarised data on the rest of the skeleton and mathematically compared the bones of cretins in relation to chimpanzees, unaffected humans and H. floresiensis. They used two methods with different statistical bases: principal components analyses (PCA) and non-metric multi-dimensional scaling (MDS).

Their work confirms the close grouping of H. floresiensis with the hypothyroid cretins, and the clear separation from both modern humans and from chimpanzees. This leads them to conclude that the Liang Bua remains were indeed most likely cretins from a population of unaffected H. sapiens. They have, further, provided a series of predictions for the further testing of the cretin hypothesis.

"This is consistent with recent hypothyroid endemic cretinism throughout Indonesia, including the nearby island of Bali," Professor Oxnard said.

"Cretinism is caused by various environmental factors including iodine deficiency -- a deficiency which would have been present on Flores at the period to which the dwarfed Flores fossils are dated."

Professor Oxnard has received the Charles R. Darwin Award for Lifetime Achievement in Physical Anthropology; was honoured as the dedicatee on a book Shaping Primate Evolution, Cambridge University Press; and was awarded the Chancellor's Medal of The University of Western Australia.

His co-authors in his most recent paper are Professor Peter Obendorf, School of Applied Sciences, RMIT University, Melbourne; and Professor Ben Kefford, Centre for Environmental Sustainability, Department of Environmental Sciences, University of Technology Sydney.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/09/100928025514.htm

-----
Charles Oxnard, Peter J. Obendorf, Ben J. Kefford. Post-Cranial Skeletons of Hypothyroid Cretins Show a Similar Anatomical Mosaic as Homo floresiensis. PLoS ONE, 2010; 5 (9): e13018

http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0013018

Abstract:

Human remains, some as recent as 15 thousand years, from Liang Bua (LB) on the Indonesian island of Flores have been attributed to a new species, Homo floresiensis. The definition includes a mosaic of features, some like modern humans (hence derived: genus Homo), some like modern apes and australopithecines (hence primitive: not species sapiens), and some unique (hence new species: floresiensis). Conversely, because only modern humans (H. sapiens) are known in this region in the last 40 thousand years, these individuals have also been suggested to be genetic human dwarfs. Such dwarfs resemble small humans and do not show the mosaic combination of the most complete individuals, LB1 and LB6, so this idea has been largely dismissed. We have previously shown that some features of the cranium of hypothyroid cretins are like those of LB1. Here we examine cretin postcrania to see if they show anatomical mosaics like H. floresiensis. We find that hypothyroid cretins share at least 10 postcranial features with Homo floresiensis and unaffected humans not found in apes (or australopithecines when materials permit). They share with H. floresiensis, modern apes and australopithecines at least 11 postcranial features not found in unaffected humans. They share with H. floresiensis, at least 8 features not found in apes, australopithecines or unaffected humans. Sixteen features can be rendered metrically and multivariate analyses demonstrate that H. floresiensis co-locates with cretins, both being markedly separate from humans and chimpanzees (P<0.001: from analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) over all variables, ANOSIM, global R>0.999). We therefore conclude that LB1 and LB6, at least, are, most likely, endemic cretins from a population of unaffected Homo sapiens. This is consistent with recent hypothyroid endemic cretinism throughout Indonesia, including the nearby island of Bali.

(Submitted by Chad Arment)

Geneticists say Chinese and Tibetans were once one. The news appears to be welcome to neither side

http://www.economist.com/node/16595117?story_id=16595117

Banyan
Splittism on the roof of the world
Geneticists say Chinese and Tibetans were once one. The news appears to be welcome to neither side

Jul 15th 2010

TO DREAMERS in the West, Tibet is a Shangri-La despoiled by Chinese ruthlessness and rapacity. To China’s rulers it is a backward kind of place whose former serfs, “liberated” by the Communist army, have repaid the favour with ingratitude and even outright “splittism”. But to excited scientists, Tibet is the site of possibly the fastest case of human evolution through natural selection in the history of mankind.

The Tibetan plateau has an altitude of 4,000 metres (13,000 feet or two-and-a-half miles), where the air has two-fifths less oxygen than at sea level. When China’s dominant Han come to Tibet, they succumb to altitude sickness and suffer lower birth rates and higher child mortality than locals.

A study led by the Beijing Genomics Institute and published in Science earlier this month identified a particular genetic mutation as a key to Tibetans’ high-altitude adaptability. Studying contemporary Tibetan and Han populations, the researchers claim that the two ethnic groups were once a single population, divided, they guess, 2,750 years ago, when one lot of splittists—who became Tibetans—moved to the plateau.

There, they say, the mutation that existed in under a tenth of the population spread to nearly nine-tenths—because those with it survived far better than those without. The particular gene seems to code for a protein involved in making red blood cells and regulating the body’s aerobic and anaerobic metabolism.

So much for the science. Now for the politics. Genetics is a minefield given Tibetans’ aspirations to govern themselves. Not everybody is happy with the notion that Tibetans were Chinese until 2,750 years ago. For a start, says Robbie Barnett, a prominent scholar and defender of Tibetan culture at Columbia University, most archaeologists agree that the plateau has been settled for much longer than that. And what’s to say the “Han” were not descended from the “Tibetans”, rather than the other way around? What would be the correct communist term for describing that, Mr Barnett wonders: Meta-Über-Reverse Splittism, perhaps?

Others respond that a plateau culture predating the migration is in fact compatible with the science. Genetic change can overlay archaeological or cultural continuity. For Mr Barnett to dismiss the connections between early Han and Tibetans, says another scholar, is “just misguided Tibetan primordialism”.

When it comes to the contentious issue of China’s political and territorial claims on Tibet, the basis of its current repression rests not on a sense of common heritage or shared ancestors but on a sense of legitimacy based on territories historically controlled by the Qing dynasty. They were Manchus who ruled China from the mid-17th to early 20th centuries and expanded the country’s borders. The irony is that while the communists cling to the frontiers of the Qing empire, their official history condemns the Qing as feudal, foreign, imperialist and usurping.

Holding to the Qing frontiers calls for some curious historical nomenclature. Because ethnic Mongolians live within China’s borders today, Genghis Khan is given star billing as a “national minority”—yet he never set foot in what was then China, and his offspring conquered the place. In north-east China lie the archaeological remains of the Koguryo kingdom of 37BC-668AD, the fount of Korean culture and myth. Chinese historians claim them as Chinese. Scholars and others thus project current political imperatives on to the past, and the notion of “minorities” affirms one big, longstanding Chinese family.

In Tibet the narrative is enforced with a few blandishments and many shows of state power. Like the Qing dynasty, the communists invaded Tibet on a pretext. Like them, they control the Buddhist religion by claiming a right to select lamas.

Qing precedent, over two centuries old, matters. Emperor Qianlong sent a golden urn to Lhasa, in which the names of candidates proposed for reincarnation would be placed. Its later use was fitful. But in the mid-1990s the urn was brought into service again. With it the communists chose their own Panchen Lama, the Yellow Hat sect’s second-most-revered reincarnation. The Dalai Lama’s earlier choice simply vanished. The boy, his family and the abbot who oversaw his selection have not been seen since. This month China’s atheist leaders, led by President Hu Jintao, used the occasion of the Dalai Lama’s 75th birthday to say bluntly that only they, with the golden urn, would approve the ageing man’s reincarnation.

Low-altitude sickness

Now the government appears to be gearing up for a big celebration on October 27th of the 60th anniversary of the defeat of the “rebel” Tibetan army. Yet for all China’s propaganda—and the new science suggesting how genetically close the two peoples may be—unity is elusive and “splittism” a constant threat. And now come signs of splits in Chinese circles over Tibet. Though many Chinese rally to the official line, even harder after anti-Chinese riots in 2008, others differ. Before their foundation was closed, some Beijing scholars last year wrote: “When you can no longer find work in your own land…and realise that your core-value systems are under attack, then the Tibetan people’s panic and sense of crisis is not difficult to understand.” Some may dare to hope that such views will, one day, be allowed to be aired in polite company in China.

Meanwhile, Han Chinese flood in their tens of thousands each year on to the Tibetan plateau, making up in numbers what they lack in genetic disposition. As for Hu Jintao, he was first marked for great things when, as a younger cadre, he was the Communist Party secretary in Tibet. Little remains in folk memory of that time—except that Mr Hu suffered from high-altitude sickness and ruled Tibet from Beijing.