Re:Humans evolved to tolerate smoke poisoning [pdf]
by AimHere on Friday February 17, 2017 @05:26AM
(#13667274)
Might the selection pressure have been fire related, without necessarily being just the use of fire?
If, for one speculative example, Neanderthals mostly used fire outdoors, while modern humans used it indoors with correspondingly thicker smoke concentrations, wouldn't that account for the difference? Or perhaps only a few Neanderthals out of any given population used it regularly (for crafting tools, say), while almost all modern humans could have used it for cooking food.
They compared with Neandertal AHRs and found that human AHRs may have undergone selective pressures since they're quite different, so the authors tried to connect these changes with the invention of fire. However AHRs bind to many things.
Also, Neandertals also used fire extensively (see for example http://www.pnas.org/content/108/13/5209 ) so they should have undergone the same selective pressures, so they should have the same or similar changes as humans?