grunabona246 wrote:i thought the facts beagle posted about modern caucasians, taken together, indicate interbreeding with neanderthals very clearly. after all, 40,000 years is not a long time in terms of evolution.
a significant change in the largest bone of the body without interbreeding seems very unlikely to me, given the time frame involved. that, plus all the other alleged evolutionary changes in skin, hair, etc., over such a short period of time, makes the politically incorrect idea of neanderthal dna in some of us more than just a possibility in my view. certainly, the mapping should be done to answer the obvious question, one way or the other.
Yes, Gruna, I said in another post also that if there is no trace of the HNS genome in modern Europeans I will have to rethink my understanding of evolution.
It's important to remember that Neandertal, who appeared around 250,000 ya was the end product of nearly a million years of evolution in Europe. He was completely adapted to a northern latitude. Modern Europeans are also in a relative sense - having many of HNS features - more than I mentioned in the earlier post.
There is no arguing with DNA evidence however. What has been studied so far is mitochondrial DNA. As we all know from high school biology, the mitochondria is an organelle that exists in the cytoplasm of the cell. It has it's own DNA that is only passed on through the mother.
The real action is in the nucleus of the cell. Here exists the DNA that form chromosomes and genes. This genetic blueprint is who we are. Both parents contribute this genetic material.
I don't know enough about these new gene splicing techniques that are being used to comment on them. But, using them, scientists are trying to reconstruct the HNS genome.
Like the Bosnian pyramid, there is nothing to do but wait.
