Neanderthals ‘had sex’ with modern man

Neanderthals ‘had sex’ with modern man

Something interesting from a project to compare the modern human genome with the Neanderthals genome:

Modern humans and Neanderthals had sex across the species barrier, according to a leading geneticist who is overseeing a project to compare their genomes...

...Modern humans arrived in Europe from Africa about 40,000 years ago to find Neanderthals already living there. The two species then co-existed for 10,000-12,000 years before Neanderthals died out — a fact that has caused endless academic speculation about whether they interbred.

“What I’m really interested in is, did we have children back then and did those children contribute to our variation today?” he said. “I’m sure that they had sex, but did it give offspring that contributed to us? We will be able to answer quite rigorously with the new [Neanderthal genome] sequence.”

So many ancient sites have artifacts, tools, and even cave paintings that predate modern man, it really is a mystery why these earlier species died out. I'm intrigued by the comment that some fossil remains show both modern human and Neanderthal features, yet Neanderthal DNA is "very different from those of modern man"

More on the "Neanderthal Genome Project"

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Highly doubtful. Two different species.

There would be no offspring from such a union.

Some modern humans have sex with sheep, but that is not the source of the modern phenomena of "sheeple".

reply to post by rnaa



but they breed zebras and horses. horses and donkeys...right?

i have no idea about how this sort of things work..but to the untrained eye it seems very plausible.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


Knowing "modern man" i would say that this has to be the other way around...

Modern man 'had sex' with Neanderthals....

Peace

reply to post by rnaa


Two different species in the same genus can produce offspring. Think mules and ligers, those are the most typical examples, but there are many others. Of course a human and a sheep can't produce offspring, but a sheep and a goat can and will. So could probably humans and neanderthals.

Most hybrids are however sterile, but who knows in the case of neanderthal/human hybrids.

reply to post by Wallachian


Erm, scratch what i said about goats and sheep, turns out they're not in the same genus and normally hybrids produced by them are usually stillborn... But that doesn't change the fact that there are many other hybrids out there.

hybrids

reply to post by rnaa


you're quite wrong. Species that are similar and not that distant on the evolutionary scale can successfully interbreed. Lions and tigers, donkeys and horses, dogs and wolves, all different species with very similar genetic material that can interbreed to create an offspring/hybrid. It is quite possible that early humans and neanderthal could have created an offspring, perhaps a sterile offspring but a hybrid nonetheless.

reply to post by Daedalus24


Dogs and wolfs are technically the same species.

Just sayin'.

The "Multiregional origin of modern humans" Multiregional hypothesis is an intriguing theory of human evolution, that (to my knowledge) would support interbreeding among the homo species, producing some hybrid offspring, although it's heavily contended by some scientists. See the Lapedo child, which allegedly bears both modern human and Neanderthal traits.

reply to post by rnaa

Well, if analysis of the Neanderthal genome and the genome of modern man shows Neanderthal genes... then obviously they interbred and had normal offspring.

I am not so sure the Neanderthal died out as much as they were assimilated.

Actually any two species can product an offspring with gene splicing.

How do we know that way in the past in which we call "time", there was no gene splicing technology?

Look at the state of the world we live in. It's all LIES, so don't underestimate the truth about many things that we haven't been told.

Originally posted by rnaa
reply to post by Blackmarketeer

 

Highly doubtful. Two different species.

There would be no offspring from such a union.

Some modern humans have sex with sheep, but that is not the source of the modern phenomena of "sheeple".

It's possible to breed humans with chimpanzees. Not a nice thought , but possible

I would imagine natural selection endowed modern humans with a genetic imperative that ensured they steered clear of any such liaisons. I doubt the Neanderthals personalities were so infectious that modern humans were able to look beyond the aesthetics and transcend those boundaries.

IRM

reply to post by Blackmarketeer

surely!The children from that relatioship we call : przygłópy, the blokers (sic) the chavs, rapers etc



[edit on 28-10-2009 by ZenOnKwalsky]

Originally posted by iamsupermanv2
reply to post by rnaa

 

but they breed zebras and horses. horses and donkeys...right?

i have no idea about how this sort of things work..but to the untrained eye it seems very plausible.

Yes, but the offspring of the donkey and the horse is the mule and is sterile and cannot be bred further. And horses and zebras are not that different, aren't they? I'm not sure about their offspring: are they sterile like the mules?

reply to post by WalterRatlos

I hope the above mentined sucultures are totally sterile as well );-)

reply to post by WalterRatlos


Yeah Mules are sterile! You might find this link interesting...

Tions and Ligers and Geeps: Oh, My!

IRM

Yet another so-called human sub species or missing link that was debunked years ago.
The reason why they were able to produce offspring with homo erectus is because they were one and the same also.
The bones from the natural history museum were removed after it was found that these poor people were the victims of childhood rickets bought on because of a combination of the ice age; the cloud cover reflected a lot of the light needed for the bodies production of vitamin D, coupled with having to stay in caves due to weather conditions. Poor diet because food was hard to come by, and what they did get was not nutrient rich. The same effect can be seen in fossils found in the tropics in varying degrees, this is due to the cloud cover reaching there also.

Neandathal=human with rickets

Originally posted by Wallachian
reply to post by rnaa

 

Two different species in the same genus can produce offspring. Think mules and ligers, those are the most typical examples, but there are many others. Of course a human and a sheep can't produce offspring, but a sheep and a goat can and will. So could probably humans and neanderthals.

Most hybrids are however sterile, but who knows in the case of neanderthal/human hybrids.

OK, ya got me. I don't know for sure how closely compatible moderns and neanderthals were. They might have produced an offspring for all I know. But, like mules and ligers, any offspring would almost certainly have been sterile.

Here is an article which gives a short answer why.

Originally posted by expat2368
reply to post by rnaa

 

Well, if analysis of the Neanderthal genome and the genome of modern man shows Neanderthal genes... then obviously they interbred and had normal offspring.

I am not so sure the Neanderthal died out as much as they were assimilated.

Yes, this is an interesting question; active speculation. I personally am on the "assimilation doubter" side of the controversy. But maybe.

Neanderthals and Moderns will undoubtedly have a lot of DNA in common. But so do Chimps and Moderns. It will take some convincing to show that a particular DNA sequence in Moderns could only have come from Neanderthals.