Newest evidence. This used to be heresy to think humans would stoop to doing it with Neanderthals. of course if you really think about it, you’ll realize that humans will mate with just about anything that moves and a few things that don’t, so why Neanderthals should be an exception has always been beyond me… Like, “Well, I’m a member of a species that has screwed animals and corpses, but there’s NO WAY any of us would ever mate with a Neanderthal!”
August 5, 2007
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The last class in anthropology I took the teacher was fairly matter of fact that interbreeding likely occurred. The real questions are 1) if it occurred at any significant level, and most modern DNA evidence seems to say no, but if it indeed did 2. was it to the level where Neanderthals where assimilated or did they died out because of lack of adaptability. Neanderthals had larger cranial capacity than even modern H. sapiens, though the cranial morphology suggest a different brain structure. IIRC there has not been any remains of Neanderthal that hasn’t shown some evidence of pre-mortality trauma. They lived extremely rough lives, even more so than their homo counterparts, the only comparably modern culture that comes close to that level of trauma are rodeo riders.
Comment by admin — August 6, 2007 @ 1:19 am
From New Scientist (subscription only link from March 30th 2007, http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg19325931.300;jsessionid=KDLEMEMCKPNF), on why we have so much significant Neanderthal genetic material:
“…new lines of evidence have started to emerge, largely from genetics but also from new fossils. As the findings stack up, researchers are edging towards the conclusion that interbreeding not only happened, but that it played an important role in our evolution…. In this model, modern humans did evolve from a single population in Africa, but occasionally acquired genes from other human species by having sex with them.
“Interbreeding would explain why our genome contains some chunks of DNA with deep ancestry: they evolved in archaic species and “introgressed” into us. If that’s true then we are, to some extent, a hybrid species - a mosaic of “our” genes, Neanderthal genes and possibly even Homo erectus genes too.
“To some that’s a step too far. Surely our direct ancestors would not have been remotely interested in inter-species sex. And even if they were, what are the chances of such dalliances producing viable, fertile offspring? Many experts, however, think human-Neanderthal mixing would have been entirely possible. “They were very closely related, so there could be interbreeding,” says Stringer, even though he thinks the biological significance of this is likely to be low….”
He is wrong: “…Trinkaus suggests a more radical notion: the hybrids come from a population of humans that regularly interbred with Neanderthals. In other words, they are the result of generations of sex between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons.”
The more research is done, the closer we come to the conclusion that we are them.
Comment by Jim — August 6, 2007 @ 6:06 pm