Nick Taylor

Biology 1615
Professor Justin Hill
4/4/2015
Genetic Analysis of Lice Supports Direct Contact between Modern
and Archaic Humans
This article discusses the research of ancient human body lice being a
means of further research into the origin of modern humans. They discuss
the current models of human origin such as the Recent African Replacement
model, and the Multiregional Evolution model. These models were looked
into further with genetic and human fossil data, but neither of them have
been fully supported by the data. Human fossils are the only things that can
provide data on most of the species of archaic humans and are therefore
extremely important. Missing pieces of fossil and other resources make it
hard to recreate a full model, but DNA sequencing has given much insight
into the matter. Even then, it does not tell us everything we would wish to
know.
A new form of gathering data had to be implemented to obtain
information of our human history. Quite a few studies were carried out in an
attempt to study the evolutionary history of human parasites to gain a
greater understanding of our own evolutionary past. As it turned out,

studying parasites was a great way to gather data as their data is formed
independent of their host data. For example, tapeworms and malarial
parasites have evolutionary origins in Africa, data that is consistent with
information gained through molecular data as well as human fossil data. This
meant that studying the origins of lice could lead to interesting discoveries
about our own past.
The procedure that they used was quite interesting. They collected
human body and head lice from a bunch of different locales including
Honduras, China, The United Kingdom, and The United States. They also
obtained lice from chimpanzees, baboons, and a few rodents. The DNA was
extracted from the lice by separating the abdomen and thorax and placing
them into a kind of digestion buffer for 48 hours. Afterwards, they
reassembled each louse under a microscope as a voucher specimen that
matched up with each DNA sequence. They then used some advanced
software to compare genetic information between the lice.
They found that the Pedicinus species on humans and chimpanzees
are very closely related, which together form another relationship with the
species Pthirus. Using another type of software they were able to determine
that there is a major similarity between the primate and louse phylogenies
allowing them to assume that there was cospeciation occurring. Basically
they were using this information to understand the split between modern
species of humans, and the now extinct species with this relationship
between lice samples.

Being quite honest, I didnt fully understand this article as the words
they used are incredibly scientific and hard to grasp in my opinion. However,
I do think it is fascinating that seemingly meaningless parasites can provide
such complex information involving the origin of modern humans. Even more
fascinating are the people behind such experiments. The ones that come up
with these miraculous ideas on how to get past barriers that fossil analysis
and DNA sequencing have provided are truly talented in my opinion.
Works Cited
Reed, David L et al. Genetic Analysis of Lice Supports Direct Contact
between Modern and Archaic Humans. Plos Biology. 2004. Web. 4 Apr.
2015.