Neanderthals ‘had sex’ with modern man

Originally posted by Aeons

Originally posted by Soylent Green Is People

Originally posted by Aeons
it is a distinction without difference.

I think there is a difference. In the animal world, there is usually an "initiator" of a sexual act. In the human animal (like many other animals), that initiator is usually the male.
[edit on 11/3/2009 by Soylent Green Is People]

You are apparently a male.

Ha ha! Yes -- I admit that female humans can make us males THINK we are the ones initiating the sexual act.

reply to post by Pellevoisin


If you happen to come across it in the future I would love to read it. As I don't speak Portuguese it would probably need to be translated for me.

Originally posted by Pellevoisin
Twenty years ago when I was doing research in Portugal I remember speaking with Portuguese anthropologists about remains that had been found where the skeletal structure showed clear Neanderthal features mixed with those of homo sapiens sapiens. At least that is how I remember it. It was big news in the Lusophone world, but I don't recall it being translated into English or appearing in the English-language press. Perhaps that information is now available on the net.

I'm not sure about 20 years ago, but back around 2006-2007 I think National Geographic showed a special suggesting some scientists had confirmed interbreeding, but apparently it's still hotly debated.

The genome study should be more conclusive than the bone study.

Here is a link to the bone study article on Natgeo:
news.nationalgeographic.com...

Odd Skull Boosts Human, Neandertal Interbreeding Theory
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News
August 2, 2007

A human skull from a Romanian bear cave is shaking up ideas about ancient sex.

The Homo sapiens skull has a distinctive feature previously found only in Neanderthals, providing further evidence of interbreeding between the two species, according to a new study.

I was left with the impression that Neanderthals were assimilated into the human breeding population after watching that so I thought some of us certainly have some Neanderthal genes mixed in, but let's see what the genome study concludes and whether this is confirmed or not.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


can the dingo and artcic wolf have offspring?

reply to post by ohsnaptruth


A dingo and arctic wolf can, according to the encyclopedia, both are sub species of the gray wolf or Canis Lupis. I just saw an article stating that polar bears and grizzlies also mate and produce offspring: Photo in the News: Polar Bear-Grizzly Hybrid Discovered

Some discoveries have led some scientists to think they and modern humans did interbreed. See: Discovery Suggests Humans Are a Bit Neanderthal, N.Y. Times April 25, 1999 By John Noble Wilford (this article is about the same discovery discussed in Arbitrageur's link, but it elaborates a bit more).

Neanderthals and modern humans not only coexisted for thousands of years long ago, as anthropologists have established, but now their little secret is out: they also cohabited.

At least that is the interpretation being made by paleontologists who have examined the 24,500-year-old skeleton of a young boy discovered recently in a shallow grave in Portugal. Bred in the boy's bones seemed to be a genetic heritage part Neanderthal, part early modern Homo sapiens. He was a hybrid, they concluded, and the first strong physical evidence of interbreeding between the groups in Europe.

"This skeleton demonstrates that early modern humans and Neanderthals are not all that different," said Dr. Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis. "They intermixed, interbred and produced offspring."

Although some scientists disputed the interpretation, other scientists who study human origins said in interviews last week that the findings were intriguing, probably correct and certain to provoke debate and challenges to conventional thinking about the place of Neanderthals in human evolution.

The counterpoint to this study is here: Study Debunks Human-Neanderthal Hybrid Claim, Dec. 4, 2007

Also a more recent view is that the Cro-Magnon is not a separate species, but that remains previously identified as "cro-magnon" are in fact anatomically correct modern humans, albeit those samples were more robust, in all probability due to their strenuous activities. See "Why Don't We Call Them Cro-Magnon Anymore?"

Cro-Magnon is the informal word once used by scientists to refer to the people who were living alongside Neanderthals at the end of the last ice age (ca. 35,000-10,000 years ago). They were given the name 'Cro-Magnon' because in 1868, parts of five skeletons were discovered in the rockshelter of that name, located in the famous Dordogne Valley of France.

Scientists compared these skeletons to Neanderthal skeletons which had earlier been found in similarly dated sites such as Paviland, Wales; and a little later at Combe Capelle and Laugerie-Basse in France, and decided they were different enough from the Neanderthals, to give them a different name.

Recent research over the past 20 years or so, however, has led scholars to believe that the physical dimensions of so-called 'Cro-Magnon' are not sufficiently different enough from modern humans to warrant a separate designation. Scientists today use 'Anatomically Modern Human' (AMH) or 'Early Modern Human' (EMH) to designate the Upper Paleolithic human beings who looked a lot like us, but did not have the complete suite of modern human behaviors.

I would take all this with the proverbial grain of salt. Most of these debates are politically driven.
It is highly unlikely usurpers from Africa could go to the colder regions and replace a 200,000 year old established culture.
Neanderthals were huge folks compared to folks today. They could throw a line backer over the goal posts.They hunted Cave bears and Mammoths successfully. And yes there were big cats where Neanderthal lived too. No Archeology supports any human development in Africa more superior to that of the Neanderthals that already inhabited the rest of Europe, Asia and Australia 40,000 years ago.
If Cro Magnon came out of Africa then where the heck did Neanderthal come from 200.000 years earlier.
I wonder where they are getting all that Neanderthal DNA to study anyway. Most remains contain none. The jury is still out and DNA information is dished out very sparingly. It is used for agendas.

reply to post by Blackmarketeer


thank you!

reply to post by Donny 4 million

It is highly unlikely usurpers from Africa could go to the colder regions and replace a 200,000 year old established culture.

Hey Donny,

Here's something to consider - a number of recent DNA studies on modern human populations have shown that we aren't always descended from who we think we might be descended from. For instance, this article: Scandinavians Are Descended From Stone Age Immigrants, Ancient DNA Reveals, which states:

Today's Scandinavians are not descended from the people who came to Scandinavia at the conclusion of the last ice age but, apparently, from a population that arrived later, concurrently with the introduction of agriculture.

Also this article: Europe's First Farmers Were Immigrants: Replaced Their Stone Age Hunter-gatherer Forerunners, which states:

Analysis of ancient DNA from skeletons suggests that Europe's first farmers were not the descendants of the people who settled the area after the retreat of the ice sheets. Instead, the early farmers probably migrated into major areas of central and eastern Europe about 7,500 years ago, bringing domesticated plants and animals with them, says Barbara Bramanti from Mainz University in Germany and colleagues.

And finally this article: Earliest European Farmers Left Little Genetic Mark On Modern Europe

The farmers who brought agriculture to central Europe about 7,500 years ago did not contribute heavily to the genetic makeup of modern Europeans, according to the first detailed analysis of ancient DNA extracted from skeletons of early European farmers.

The point of all these studies is that even among modern humans, it's possible to displace an entrenched culture by waves of immigrants. Genetically, stone age humans mentioned in these studies were replaced by newer arrivals in Europe.

If this can happen among modern humans, it might also be an indicator as to what happened with the Neanderthal, when modern-thinking homo sapiens arrived and brought with them domestication of crops and animals.

The Neanderthals may have succumbed to the Ice age and changing environment of 35 - 28,000 years ago, forcing them into southern latitudes where they were forced into contact with modern man. I don't think they've taken nearly enough samples to state conclusively if modern man and Neanderthals interbred, but there are these rare and tantalizing finds that seem to indicate that at least in some isolated pockets of humanity, they did:
Early Modern Human Skull Includes Surprising Neanderthal Feature

In 1942, a human braincase was found in Romania during phosphate mining. The skull’s geological age has remained uncertain. Now, new radiocarbon analysis appearing in the August issue of Current Anthropology directly dates the skull to approximately 33,000 years ago, placing it in the Upper Paleolithic.

Though this braincase is in many ways similar to other known specimens from the period, the fossil also presents a distinctly Neanderthal feature, ubiquitous among Neanderthals, extremely rare among archaic humans, and unknown among prior modern humans.

Originally posted by Donny 4 million
I would take all this with the proverbial grain of salt. Most of these debates are politically driven.
It is highly unlikely usurpers from Africa could go to the colder regions and replace a 200,000 year old established culture.
Neanderthals were huge folks compared to folks today. They could throw a line backer over the goal posts.They hunted Cave bears and Mammoths successfully. And yes there were big cats where Neanderthal lived too. No Archeology supports any human development in Africa more superior to that of the Neanderthals that already inhabited the rest of Europe, Asia and Australia 40,000 years ago.
If Cro Magnon came out of Africa then where the heck did Neanderthal come from 200.000 years earlier.
I wonder where they are getting all that Neanderthal DNA to study anyway. Most remains contain none. The jury is still out and DNA information is dished out very sparingly. It is used for agendas.

Different groups came out of Africa at different times, and became isolated by the glaciation periods.

The large chimpanzees and the small chimpanzees are both groups that have done well. They live in different areas. They have significant divergence from each other.

But they can still interbreed.

Neanderthals ‘had sex’ with modern man...


...No wonder they died ot if they were all gay. Maybe a few shold have had sex with modern woman.

Originally posted by Blackmarketeer
I just saw an article stating that polar bears and grizzlies also mate and produce offspring: Photo in the News: Polar Bear-Grizzly Hybrid Discovered

read above...
see how fast a new sub-species goes extinct... way to go homo sapiens....
we probably hunted Neanderthals too

reply to post by Wallachian


Yep, it's about chromosomes. And even then, there have been instances of fertile mules and the like. They're definitely the exception, but they're there.

However, if humans and neanderthals did occasionally get it on, the resulting children would have had to have survived, been kept among the "modern" side of the family, and been plentiful, before they would make a dent on our genome.

That they would have had to survive is obvious, but there's a lot running against it. Firstly, they obviously would have looked different from either side of the family, probably different enough that neither species would find the child attractive. And ugly babies have a tough time. Next, there's a high possibility for disorders due to the mixing of the two, as some parts are incompatable with others. Lastly... the paleolithic was a really tough time to live. Survival to a decent age was no guarantee.

Next, they would have had to have been kept in "modern" society. This is simply so they could find mates among modern humans and add their neandertal genes to their tribe's gene pool. Of course a child stays with its mother, so this would almost certainly necessitate neanderthal men with human women (I couldn't blame them, our ladies are quite nice to look at, I think). Unfortunately, this kid would look quite different from the rest of his tribe, and so prospective mates would be few and far between, most likely.

Third, it would need to be a common occurrence, or else the lineage would simply get "bred out".

Even if humans and neanderthals put the bone to each other (which honestly, I doubt, but we'll never know) the odds are highly stacked against there being any mark of it in the modern human genome.