Did Neanderthals and modern humans get it together?
Hybrid fossils in Romania add to story of ancient human pairings.
The idea that Neanderthals and early humans living in Europe may have interbred has been strengthened by a re-analysis of bones unearthed in a Romanian cave more than 50 years ago.
Read the story here.
Comments
Past research on the prevalence of neanderthal genes in the modern day human gene pool were flawed mainly because they did not represent the whole genetic profile of humans. They only represented the genetic information contained in mitochondria. As you may well know mitcochondrial genes are passed on only down the maternal lineage and neanderthal mitochondrial genes mixed with the cro-magnon population at the time may have easily been cut out after a few generations. Particularly if neanderthal/cro-magnon hybrid females were undesirable to mate with compared to cro magnon females. This does not mean modern day europeans may not have neanderthal genes as some genes may have persisted in nuclear genes, for example the Y-chromosome. Female hybrids may have been undesirable to mate with but male hybrids may have been better at competing in areas such as strenghth or cold resistance and therefore may have had their genes persisting in the gene pool. A comprehensive study is needed analysing the nuclear DNA of modern populations in comparison with nuclear DNA from neanderthal bone samples to sufficiently answer the question of whether or not there may be a little neanderthal in all of us.
Posted by: Stephen Brown | November 1, 2006 06:32 PM
Mates or Conquerors?
If there was hybridization between human and Neanderthal, perhaps it was the humans taking 'spoils of war', i.e. the Neanderthal womenfolk as they arrived in Europe.
Posted by: Michael Krieger | November 1, 2006 07:16 PM
From a Darwinian standpoint, shouldn't humans be considered a "hybrid" of Neanderthals? Mating with what, though?
Posted by: Heidi Pribell | November 1, 2006 11:55 PM
Doesn't anyone wonder how creatures such as these in a period of a meer 20,000 years finally saw their own image and declared themselves created in the image of God? So sad that science does not expose the lies of the religions of the human worshippers>
Posted by: Carl Lutz | November 2, 2006 12:14 AM
Whether or not Neanderthals and modern humans mated, Neanderthals are still very much human.
Posted by: David Harrison | November 2, 2006 01:45 AM
After reading these comments, I wonder: why do some people seem to think that anyone of any kind living in Paleolithic Eurasia or Africa would have had the same "beauty standards" as modern, Western people(particularly some men)? Trinkaus seems to think this was not the case. I am inclined to agree with him, at least in the sense that most likely, what "attracted" Neandertals or "moderns" would more likely have been things like skills at hunting or foraging or being able to bear healthy children. The latter *might* have been a problem *if* "crosses* were less viable than the parents, but there's no way of proving that this was the case.
Posted by: Anne Gilbert | November 2, 2006 01:45 AM
It seems to me Neanderthal DNA evidence is still too sparse to draw conclusions about mating. Europe is a big place with many spots for isolated pockets of peoples. Likely some intermixed and some did not. We are talking 30,000 years-- that is a vast amount of time. How many families can exist and die out in a space the size of Europe over 30K years?
Posted by: Martha | November 2, 2006 04:21 PM
It is a shame that scientist is the various disciplines don't speak to one another. An animal geneticist would tell you that when crossing a similar species that in the F1 generation only one or both of the sexes may be fertile with only one or both of the forebears. If only the male offspring were fertile that would immediatly account for the lack of mitochondrial similarities, but of course so would sample size at this point. If the male offspring were only fertile with the homo sap. progenitor that would account for the either/or neandertal/homo-sap seen in the fossil record. More multi-disciplinary input please.
Posted by: David L Powell | November 2, 2006 07:03 PM
About the only manner in which H Sapiens and Neanderthals could not mate, were if Neanderthal did not have 23 chromosome pairs.
Would Neanderthal be human with 22 / 24 or another number of chromosome pairs?
Posted by: Doug | November 4, 2006 11:22 PM
From a Darwinian standpoint, shouldn't humans be considered a "hybrid" of Neanderthals? Mating with what, though?
Posted by: sohbet | April 24, 2007 01:44 AM
From a Darwinian standpoint, shouldn't humans be considered a "hybrid" of Neanderthals? Mating with what, though?
Posted by: ikinci el eşya | May 13, 2007 10:51 PM