Archaeologica.org

Neanderthal women joined the hunt

While previous investigations concentrated on mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), that due to strictly matrilineal inheritance and subsequent vulnerability to genetic drift is of limited value to disprove interbreeding, more recent investigations have access to growing strings of deciphered nuclear DNA (nDNA).

In July 2006, the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology and 454 Life Sciences announced that they would be sequencing the Neanderthal genome over the next two years. At three-billion base pairs, the Neanderthal genome is roughly the size of the human genome and likely shares many identical genes. It is thought that a comparison of the Neanderthal genome and human genome will expand understanding of Neanderthals as well as the evolution of humans and human brains.[33]

DNA researcher Svante Pääbo has tested more than 70 Neanderthal specimens and found only one that had enough DNA to sample. Preliminary DNA sequencing from a 38,000-year-old bone fragment of a femur bone found at Vindija cave in Croatia in 1980 shows that Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens share about 99.5% of their DNA. From mtDNA analysis estimates, the two species shared a common ancestor about 500,000 years ago. An article appearing in the journal Nature has calculated the species diverged about 516,000 years ago, whereas fossil records show a time of about 400,000 years ago. From DNA records, scientists hope to falsify or confirm the theory that there was interbreeding between the species.[34]

Edward Rubin of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California states that recent genome testing of Neanderthals suggests human and Neanderthal DNA are some 99.5 percent to nearly 99.9 percent identical.[35][36]

On November 16, 2006, Science Daily published scientific test results demonstrating that Neanderthals and ancient humans probably did not interbreed. Scientists with the U.S. Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and the Joint Genome Institute (JGI) sequenced genomic nuclear DNA (nDNA) from a fossilized Neanderthal femur. Their results more precisely indicate a common ancestor about 706,000 years ago, and a complete separation of the ancestors of the species about 376,000 years ago. Their results show that the genomes of modern humans and Neanderthals are at least 99.5% identical, but despite this genetic similarity, and despite the two species having cohabitated the same geographic region for thousands of years, there is no evidence of any significant crossbreeding between the two. Edward Rubin, director of both JGI and Berkeley Lab’s Genomics Division: “While unable to definitively conclude that interbreeding between the two species of humans did not occur, analysis of the nuclear DNA from the Neanderthal suggests the low likelihood of it having occurred at any appreciable level.”

A new investigation suggests that at least 5% of the genetic material of modern Europeans and West Africans has an archaic origin, due to interbreeding with Neanderthal and a hitherto unknown archaic African population.[7] Plagnol and Wall arrived at this result by first calculating a "null model" of genetic characteristics that would fulfill the requirement of descendence from Homo sapiens sapiens in a straight line. Next they compared this model to the current distribution and characteristics of existing genetic polymorphisms, and concluded that this "null model" deviated considerably from what would be expected. Genetic simulations indicated this 5% of DNA not accounted for by the null model corresponds to a substantial contribution to the European gene pool of up to 25%. Future investigation - including a full scale Neanderthal genome project - is expected to cast more light on the subject of genetic polymorphisms to supply more details. Contrary to the investigation of mtDNA, the study of polymorph mutations has the potential to answer the question whether - and to what extent - Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens interbred.[37]

In November 2006, another paper was published in the U.S. journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, in which a team of European researchers report that Neanderthals and humans interbred. Co-author Erik Trinkaus from Washington University explains, "Closely related species of mammals freely interbreed, produce fertile viable offspring and blend populations." The study claims to settle the extinction controversy; according to researchers, the human and neanderthal populations blended together through sexual reproduction. Trinkaus states, "Extinction through absorption is a common phenomenon."[38] and "From my perspective, the replacement vs. continuity debate that raged through the 1990s is now dead".[39]

The most accurate molecular estimates currently available suggest that H. sapiens and H. neanderthalensis direct lineages (excluding genetic elements from interbreeding/absorption) diverged around 800,000 years ago.[40]

Beagle wrote:
There is no evidence of [moral and societal constraints] existing in the Paleolithic era.

Rokcet Scientist wrote:

Beagle wrote:
There is no evidence of [moral and societal constraints] existing in the Paleolithic era.

There is no evidence of those existing today either.

daybrown wrote:
I sent in my DNA and found out that my Y chromosome has been in France for 30,000 years.

who were they having sex with in the meantime?

who were they having sex with in the meantime?

Did modern humans interbreed with Neanderthals and, if so, did the mating result in a half-human, half-Neanderthal hybrid?

The answer is possibly 'yes' to the interbreeding but 'no' to the hybrid, according to the authors of a new study that is already making waves among anthropologists.

Minimalist wrote:No hybrid, say these two.

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/ ... pic=latest

Did modern humans interbreed with Neanderthals and, if so, did the mating result in a half-human, half-Neanderthal hybrid?

The answer is possibly 'yes' to the interbreeding but 'no' to the hybrid, according to the authors of a new study that is already making waves among anthropologists.