Neanderthal News

[DJ Droood]

"Current Events" seemed like the wrong forum for Neanderthal News, but I've noticed a couple of recent dramatic news stories re: our hominid cousins/grandparents and wanted to share.

Between 35,000 and 45,000 years ago, Neanderthals in Europe and Asia were replaced by the first modern humans. Why and how this transition occurred remains somewhat controversial. New research from the journal Science suggests that sheer numbers may have played a large role in modern humans’ eventual takeover; archeological data shows that early populations of modern humans may have outnumbered Neanderthals by more than 9 to 1.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/ ... -dynamics/

Humans, Neanderthals got it on
By Lily Boisson, CBC News

New genome shows Neanderthal trace in humans

A new study adds more evidence to the theory that humans and Neanderthals interbred thousands of years ago. The study found that many humans outside of Africa share DNA with the long-extinct species.

An international team of researchers has found that a small part of the human X chromosome, which originates from Neanderthals, is present in about nine per cent of individuals from outside of Africa.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/story ... eding.html

[Martina Silvercloud]

And I definetely know some for whom that genetic heritance is true - errm okay, I have learned about that news some time ago and I do live near the Neanderthal after which the homo neanderthalensis was named.....

It is interesting though - it looks that humans and neanderthalers had mixed and therefore the traces can be found in europeans and asians, but not in africans...

[Heddwen]

"Current Events" seemed like the wrong forum for Neanderthal News, but I've noticed a couple of recent dramatic news stories re: our hominid cousins/grandparents and wanted to share.

Between 35,000 and 45,000 years ago, Neanderthals in Europe and Asia were replaced by the first modern humans. Why and how this transition occurred remains somewhat controversial. New research from the journal Science suggests that sheer numbers may have played a large role in modern humans’ eventual takeover; archeological data shows that early populations of modern humans may have outnumbered Neanderthals by more than 9 to 1.

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2011/ ... -dynamics/

Does this also forward the theory that later these first modern humans were naturalised by the later Celtic shift from mid Europe? i.e. that (some of) our European ancestors may have been here anyway?

[Bart]

Didn't the neanderthals and the proto modern humans live side by side for a couple of thousand years. I don't think that when the modern human moved in the neanderthals moved out. Why should they: they were stronger and had bigger brains. I believe the genetic research.

[mark the compost elf]

fascinating and very plausible,

i know it has been suggested that one of the reasons that we overtook our Neanderthalic kin was thatwe shared ideas with other tribes, while they had a more insular societal structure and so technology took longer to move between areas. Perhaps we were merely more 'productive' in more ways than one.

[Huathe]

I believe Neanderthals are a subspecies of modern human. After all, genetic research shows that they interbred with anatomically modern humans in the period they co-existed with them and they had offspring that could reproduce, unlike true hybrids like mules that are sterile. That points at them not being a truly separate species but a race or subspecies different than any since that time.

Maybe we should be referred to as " Homo Sapiens Sapiens " and Neanderthals referred to as " Homo Sapiens Neanderthalis "


Maybe Adam and Eve were Neanderthals?

[Bart]

Hi James,

For them to be a sub species, they need to either exist seperately, or needed to be ofspring of ours. They came out of Africa first, the modern Eve followed later. BTW it was a tribe, with an "Eve" living among them.

[mark the compost elf]

Perhaps then modern humans are a subspecies of the neanderthal?

as such, both groups would be subspecies....

[Bart]

With a third species, towards the east.

[Huathe]

Which species is that?

[mark the compost elf]

i think Bart might be refering to the oriental races, if that is the correct term.

i have heard, and i am not too certain it is true, that in chinese schools it it taught that they are descended from Homo Erectus.

[Huathe]

We can interbreed with them too. Asians, that is. Asian women are quite pretty!

[DaRC]

Did you see the latest news about our romance with Neanderthals :
http://scopeblog.stanford.edu/2011/08/humans-owe-important-disease-fighting-genes-to-trysts-with-cavemen

[Heddwen]

With a third species, towards the east.

did you mean http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2007/sep/21/2?

[Bart]

Although Hobit might be romatic for the LOTR adepts. I thing the term Homo floresiensis is much better. It would fit with the slight differences in body

[DJ Droood]

Science, or TMI?

Sex with Neanderthals boosted human immunity

Some immune system genes carried by modern humans came from interbreeding with Neanderthals and other ancient hominins called Denisovans, a new study suggests.

"The cross breeding wasn't just a random event that happened," said Peter Parham, who co-authored the study published online in Science Express, in a statement. "It gave something useful to the gene pool of the modern human."

...

For one class of HLA genes, over half the variants in Europeans, 80 per cent in Asians and 95 per cent of variants in Papua New Guineans originally came from Neanderthals and Denisovans.

That suggests that these variants gave a survival advantage to humans who carried them, the researchers concluded.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/health/story/201 ... umans.html


and yes, I had to google "denisovans"...

The Denisova hominin (/dɨˈniːsəvə/) is the remains (a finger bone and tooth) of a member of the genus Homo that may belong to a previously unknown species based on an analysis of their mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). In March 2010, discovery was announced of a finger bone fragment of a juvenile that lived about 41,000 years ago found in Denisova Cave (Altai Krai, Russia), a region also inhabited at about the same time by Neanderthals and modern humans.[1][2] The mtDNA of the Denisova hominin is distinct from the mtDNAs of Neanderthals and modern humans.[3] In December 2010, an international team of scientists determined the sequence from the nuclear genome of this group (known as the Denisovans) from this finger bone. According to their analysis, this group shares a common origin with the Neanderthals and interbred with the ancestors of modern Melanesians.[4] In 2011 a toe bone was discovered which may belong to a Neanderthal-Denisovan hybrid.[5]