[The Peon]

Are Caucasoids slight hybrids of Homo Sapien and Homo Neanderthalis? Do the genes of Neanderthals still flourish in certain gene pools? These are shocking and taboo questions that most dont wish to face up to. In this thread, I will present one side of the scientific debate which tries to answer that question.

I will start simple. Lets take a look at Homo Sapien today, at war and in love. Written History, a good blueprint for our psychological makeup shows us that rarely would conquerers completely destroy the conquered. Instead, the individuals deemed able to assist the conquered in some way are spared and enslaved or assimilated into the dominating culture. This applies to almost all major cultures and to most minor ones. At the very least, females are spared to be used for sexual and other purposes by the conquerers. Now use your imagination..

Homo Sapien encounters Neaderthals, and clearly dominates the enviroment. More and more evidence shows why this occured, and a good part of it was enviroment and technology. Sapiens simply outcompeted them. But would Sapiens really remain totally xenophobic, or vice versa for over 10,000 yeas of living "side by side?" Surely, some love in addition to the war must have occured. By love I mean sex, and it could have occured from conquering, exchange, mutual attraction, or rape. "But the genes are pretty different after 200,000 years of being seperated" some might say. But the lack of evidence is not evidence. Just because we assume the genes to not be compatible does not mean a Hybrid couldnt have been produced.

In fact, I will quote on a skeleton found in Portugal fairly recently:

"Known as the Child of Lapedo, the skeleton shows traits of modern man,
including the jaw, teeth and spleen, and Neanderthal features like the
size of the femur and tibia, according to Zilhao.

Carbon dating shows the skeleton is about 25,000 years old, Zilhao said.

Other evidence has shown that the Neanderthals and modern man coexisted
in the area about 28,000 to 30,000 years ago.

Because the skeleton dates from 3,000 years later and displays strong
anatomical features of both origins, Zilhao concludes that hybridization
was very deep."

The Iberian peninsula is the last bastion the Neanderthals would have had against the approaching onslaught of Homo Sapien. Any sort of co-interaction would have had its last breath here, as the Neanderthals found they had there back against the "wall" so to speak, and that is why the location of the Hybrid is so important.

Now lets look at some genetic traits of the Caucasoids. Through Mitochondrial DNA we know the oldest Sapiens on Earth are in Africa, and by tracing genes and knowing climates of the past, its clear Mongoloids lived in colder enviroments long before Caucasoids came on the scene. They developed lighter skin, but retained many of the Negroid features they inherited from the past they shared with the Negroids. Flatter noses, brown eyes, and dark hair. None of the Caucasoid cold adaptations such as light colored eyes, a larger pointier nose, or light colored hair, even larger calf muscles appeared in the Mongoloid gene pool, yet the Caucasoids have them. Now using alittle logic, in the fact that Caucasoids lived in colder climates for a shorter period of time then the mongoloids, and given the fact that Neanderthals had 200,000 years to adapt to the cold, and suddenly caucasoids developed these traits, you can see what I am getting to.

Its clear most of the Sapien genetic traits are still dominant and in the forefront, especially given that the climate was warming rapidly and few of the more pronounced Neanderthal features would have been needed or were likely to persist over the more tropical adapted negroid descendants. And the evidence continues to mount:

"Red hair may be the genetic legacy of Neanderthals, according to a new study by British scientists.

Researchers at the John Radcliffe Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford were quoted by The Times as saying the so-called "ginger gene" which gives people red hair, fair skin and freckles could be up to 100 000 years old.

They claim that their discovery points to the gene having originated in Neanderthal man who lived in Europe for 200 000 years before Homo sapien settlers, the ancestors of modern man, arrived from Africa about 40 000 years ago.

Rosalind Harding, the research team leader, told The Times: "The gene is certainly older than 50 000 years and it could be as old as 100 000 years. "

To think Neanderthals left NONE of the legacy they forged in Europe in our genes in quite inane in my opinion. We must open up to the fact that in evolution, crazier things have happened and nothing is insulting or degrading about Caucasoids having Neaderthalic genes.

[insane_alien]

well if you go to the highschool i used to attend you will observe several hundered supposed homosapiens that have many traits of neanderthal man(small brain, slanted forehead, prominent brow, permenantly confused look) often the language is a series of grunts and mumbles of a low frequency. since we know from fossils that neanderthal mancould not speak then this is likely a remenant of that. i am absolutely sure that these people are prime examples of neanderthal/sapien interbreeding.

[The Peon]

insane_alien said:

well if you go to the highschool i used to attend you will observe several hundered supposed homosapiens that have many traits of neanderthal man(small brain, slanted forehead, prominent brow, permenantly confused look) often the language is a series of grunts and mumbles of a low frequency. since we know from fossils that neanderthal mancould not speak then this is likely a remenant of that. i am absolutely sure that these people are prime examples of neanderthal/sapien interbreeding.

Youre wrong on two accounts.

A> Neanderthals actually had larger on the average brains then Sapiens

B> The larynx tissue is not known, and was actually wider (IIRC) then Sapiens. This could produce complicated sounds like Sapiens, but at a higher pitch. Seeing that Neanderthals had weapons and culture, its hard to imagine they didnt have a complicated vocal system. (good joke though :P )

[Mart]

Stan Gooch wrote some interesting books on this. "The Neanderthal Question" was one, I think.

[The Peon]

Mart said:

Stan Gooch wrote some interesting books on this. "The Neanderthal Question" was one, I think.

Thanks for that, I will look into that book. :-)

[LucidDreamer]

I don't think Cro Magnum man would have been too keen on breeding with the Neadrathals. We are already biggoted towards people that have almost no genetic differences from us at all. I think when we saw a neandrathal man or woman we killed them if we could. We probably thought it disgusting to think of mating with them and shunned anyone who had a Neanderthal parent. Even still, some genes might have snuck in.

[The Peon]

LucidDreamer said:

... Even still, some genes might have snuck in.

Most likely from rape, hell I heard of people who rape animals if they are desperate enough (pr0n?). Why not a similar looking homonid?

[john5746]

Neanderthals

Neanderthals and mtDNA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finding out about our most recent common ancestor relies solely on inferences from the mtDNA of people living today. What if we could actually compare our mtDNA with mtDNA of a distant ancestor? This, in fact, has been done, with mtDNA from the bones of Neanderthals. Comparing mtDNA of these Neanderthals to mtDNA of living people from various continents, researchers have found that the Neanderthals' mtDNA is not more closely related to that of people from any one continent over another. This was an unwelcome finding for anthropologists who believe that there was some interbreeding between Neanderthals and early modern humans living in Europe (which might have helped to explain why modern Europeans possess some Neanderthal-like features); these particular anthropologists instead would have expected the Neanderthals' mtDNA to be more similar to that of modern Europeans than to that of other peoples. Moreover, the researchers determined that the common ancestor to Neanderthals and modern Homo sapiens lived as long as 500,000 years ago, well before the most recent common mtDNA ancestor of modern humans. This suggests (though it does not prove) that Neanderthals went extinct without contributing to the gene pool of any modern humans.

[The Peon]

Quote

Neanderthals

Neanderthals and mtDNA
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Finding out about our most recent common ancestor relies solely on inferences from the mtDNA of people living today. What if we could actually compare our mtDNA with mtDNA of a distant ancestor? This, in fact, has been done, with mtDNA from the bones of Neanderthals. Comparing mtDNA of these Neanderthals to mtDNA of living people from various continents, researchers have found that the Neanderthals' mtDNA is not more closely related to that of people from any one continent over another. This was an unwelcome finding for anthropologists who believe that there was some interbreeding between Neanderthals and early modern humans living in Europe (which might have helped to explain why modern Europeans possess some Neanderthal-like features); these particular anthropologists instead would have expected the Neanderthals' mtDNA to be more similar to that of modern Europeans than to that of other peoples. Moreover, the researchers determined that the common ancestor to Neanderthals and modern Homo sapiens lived as long as 500,000 years ago, well before the most recent common mtDNA ancestor of modern humans. This suggests (though it does not prove) that Neanderthals went extinct without contributing to the gene pool of any modern humans.

Some form of Hybrids can still contribute "untracable" genes into solely the european (caucasoid) gene pool, as the ginger gene shows. A lack of evidence as stated earlier is not evidence, and it seems more probobal this occured rather then basing all the credibility to mtDNA. Evidence is actually mounting to the contrary, I have heard as well that the human genome contains 8 major variations, some of which are solely caucasoid (note the last sentence has not been verified to me, so I may be wrong with that sentence), either way, just because science cannot currently explain something does not mean it did not occur.

[shenzhou]

Quote

"Known as the Child of Lapedo, the skeleton shows traits of modern man,
including the jaw, teeth and spleen, and Neanderthal features like the
size of the femur and tibia, according to Zilhao.

If you are interested in this find several papers on the discovery can be found here: "The Gravettian Human Skeleton from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho and its Archeological Context" http://www.ipa.min-c...s/TA/folder/22/

It certainly seems possible that there was interbreeding between Cro-magnons and neanderthals. Morphologically there is very little to distinguish between late neanderthals and the humans that lived at the same time. There are certainly no single feature that unambiguously distinguishes one from the other.

There is also growing evidence that many but not all human genes are recent out of africa:

Genomics refutes an exclusively African origin of humans. Vinayak Eswaran, Henry Harpending , Alan R. Rogers. Journal of Human Evolution 2005 Jul;49(1):1-18.

"Ten years ago, evidence from genetics gave strong support to the ‘‘recent Africa origin’’ view of the evolution of
modern humans, which posits that Homo sapiens arose as a new species in Africa and subsequently spread, leading to
the extinction of other archaic human species. Subsequent data from the nuclear genome not only fail to support this
model, they do not support any simple model of human demographic history. In this paper, we study a process in which
the modern human phenotype originates in Africa and then advances across the world by local demic diffusion,
hybridization, and natural selection. While the multiregional model of human origins posits a number of independent
single locus selective sweeps, and the ‘‘out of Africa’’ model posits a sweep of a new species, we study the intermediate
case of a phenotypic sweep. Numerical simulations of this process replicate many of the seemingly contradictory
features of the genetic data, and suggest that as much as 80% of nuclear loci have assimilated genetic material from
non-African archaic humans."

[Martin]

Quote

If you are interested in this find several papers on the discovery can be found here: "The Gravettian Human Skeleton from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho and its Archeological Context" http://www.ipa.min-c...s/TA/folder/22/

It certainly seems possible that there was interbreeding between Cro-magnons and neanderthals. Morphologically there is very little to distinguish between late neanderthals and the humans that lived at the same time. There are certainly no single feature that unambiguously distinguishes one from the other.

There is also growing evidence that many but not all human genes are recent out of africa:

Genomics refutes an exclusively African origin of humans. Vinayak Eswaran, Henry Harpending , Alan R. Rogers. Journal of Human Evolution 2005 Jul;49(1):1-18.

"Ten years ago, evidence from genetics gave strong support to the ‘‘recent Africa origin’’ view of the evolution of
modern humans, which posits that Homo sapiens arose as a new species in Africa and subsequently spread, leading to
the extinction of other archaic human species. Subsequent data from the nuclear genome not only fail to support this
model, they do not support any simple model of human demographic history. In this paper, we study a process in which
the modern human phenotype originates in Africa and then advances across the world by local demic diffusion,
hybridization, and natural selection. While the multiregional model of human origins posits a number of independent
single locus selective sweeps, and the ‘‘out of Africa’’ model posits a sweep of a new species, we study the intermediate
case of a phenotypic sweep. Numerical simulations of this process replicate many of the seemingly contradictory
features of the genetic data, and suggest that as much as 80% of nuclear loci have assimilated genetic material from
non-African archaic humans."

ShenZhou, I hope you will have a look at the human brain evolution thread, in case you might have any comments. so far I have got a bunch of links to the work at U. Chicago of Bruce Lahn and others. Here is a sample

http://www.sciencefo...6461#post206461

It includes some links to comment on a molecular genetics blog that seemed interesting. You probably know the work, which was published in Human Molecular Genetics and then recently in Science, and then hit the general public press.

deals with spread of variants of Microcephalin gene and of ASPD gene.

I find it exciting that human genetic history can be figured out.

[john5746]

Quote

Now lets look at some genetic traits of the Caucasoids. Through Mitochondrial DNA we know the oldest Sapiens on Earth are in Africa, and by tracing genes and knowing climates of the past, its clear Mongoloids lived in colder enviroments long before Caucasoids came on the scene. They developed lighter skin, but retained many of the Negroid features they inherited from the past they shared with the Negroids. Flatter noses, brown eyes, and dark hair. None of the Caucasoid cold adaptations such as light colored eyes, a larger pointier nose, or light colored hair, even larger calf muscles appeared in the Mongoloid gene pool, yet the Caucasoids have them. Now using alittle logic, in the fact that Caucasoids lived in colder climates for a shorter period of time then the mongoloids, and given the fact that Neanderthals had 200,000 years to adapt to the cold, and suddenly caucasoids developed these traits, you can see what I am getting to.

Did Neanderthal have pointed noses and a fair complexion? Also, evolution isn't guaranteed to happen the same way, even in the exact same environment is it? To say the Mongoloid and Caucasoid had to adapt in the same way is flawed.

Quote

To think Neanderthals left NONE of the legacy they forged in Europe in our genes in quite inane in my opinion. We must open up to the fact that in evolution, crazier things have happened and nothing is insulting or degrading about Caucasoids having Neaderthalic genes.

I agree that it isn't degrading and I think they did mix, but that doesn't mean any of their lineage survived. They may have been sterile for all we know.

[The Peon]

john5746 said:

Did Neanderthal have pointed noses and a fair complexion? Also, evolution isn't guaranteed to happen the same way, even in the exact same environment is it? To say the Mongoloid and Caucasoid had to adapt in the same way is flawed.

While these are good questions, the nasal cavity of Neanderthals was larger then any sapien, and a larger nose would assist it in the colder enviroment. I find it suspect only caucasoids or caucasoid mixes would produce the larger nose that they exhibit, and not the mongoloid. It may appear flawed, but I think its more flawed (is that possible? :confused: ) to disregard the evidence presented (especially the ginger gene) because of lack of more evidence.

[dandna]

hi!
i found this forum through a web search on neanderthal. there are some informative posts here, thanks.
A few threads back someone mentioned a psychologist called Stan Gooch, about his hybrid origin theory.
I have a Stan Gooch dedicated site at http://www.the-guardians.co.uk. There is also a good post on wikipedia about the hybrid origin theory proposed by Mr.Gooch on their site.

Although Gooch is not a genetics expert his work on psychology is truely groundbreaking. it lead a few academics to consider him a continuation of ideas of Freud and Jung, but his very early conclusion about mans dual nature -which many writers had observed, some societies as 'two hearts in one breast', others as yin/yang - convinced him the reasons must be deeply ingrained in the human psyche, so therefor genetically fixed, but opposing 'archetypes'.
it was this research which led him to the only possible solution, that man as we know him is the result of a crossing over of two widely divergent species(both physically and culturally) of early man - neanderthal and cromagnon - and the rest is history.
it would be interesting to see where this theory stands nearly 30 years after Stan first published it, a few pieces have been confirmed (Stans proposal neanderthal had red hair was confirmed in 2000 i think), but in terms of genetics and the fossil record there wasnt as much to go on back then as there is now.

note: when discussing Neanderthal we must be aware that European, or 'classic' Neanderthal was a grossly mutated version of the original Middle-Eastern, and therefor African Neanderthal. Classic Neanderthal was an ultimately deleterious adaption evolution made for cold weather when forced by rapid ice-age onset, even though they flourished for many more years than we have now.

[The Peon]

I cant help it... I love this topic so here is more info I dug up recently. It might all seem redundant but perhaps someone in the future who comes to these forums might be as interested in this topic as I am. This is, perhaps, one of the topics I am most fascinated in.


http://www.abc.net.a...ries/s23000.htm

Not sure the validity of this one and I have not read the whole page yet, but it seems to be a good source of speculation and information. It also talks about how certain mental and genetic disorders might have came about...

http://www.rdos.net/eng/asperger.htm

[Milken]

Neanderthal, at least many of the bones found were Africans. People with wide noses have wide nasal cavities which is a common feature among Africans (as Peon mentioned but thought it wasn't an African feature). Also, many of the bones are curved in Neanderthal man, why, vitamin D deficiency causing rickets. The samething happened to Africans living in England. This is actually very contradictory to the discussion and also the overall assumption. I don't think anyone wants to get outside of the compartmentalized way of thinking.

[The Peon]

Milken said:

Neanderthal, at least many of the bones found were Africans. People with wide noses have wide nasal cavities which is a common feature among Africans (as Peon mentioned but thought it wasn't an African feature). Also, many of the bones are curved in Neanderthal man, why, vitamin D deficiency causing rickets. The samething happened to Africans living in England. This is actually very contradictory to the discussion and also the overall assumption. I don't think anyone wants to get outside of the compartmentalized way of thinking.

Sorry to be so rude and blunt, but do some research before posting that parroted waste of text.

First off, Neanderthal bones were not found in Africa, they were found in the middle east and Europe. Secondly, the nasal cavity of neanderthals would be considerably larger than any african today or ever, due to the adaptation for the cold, allowing more air to be heated in the cavity before entering the lungs, the opposite is true of modern africans. Thirdly, what bones are you speaking of? None are "curved" they are the shape they are supposed to be. Vitamin D deficiency? What are you saying? That africans cant live in cold climates? What about whites who wish to live in the tropics? And I dont even understand your last two sentences, but than again i'm not too bright.

If I may point you in the direction of this article, you may enlighten yourself:

http://www.talkorigi...s/a_neands.html

Learn and enjoy, then comment.

[Bluenoise]

You do know that neanderthals have 48 chromosomes right?

[squishyspong]

Seeing that interbreeding within humans is fairly uncommon even in a modern society we live in today, with globalization, travel and immigration etc, I think, using modern day logic, that it is unlikely they mated. However their social development may be very minimal back then and probably wouldnt recognize things as class/status/weath/race/etc that we see today and plus the random possibilities, it may be possible that some mated. Since no fact is here to backup the claims, its all just philosophy.

I got a question for you. Would you feel more proud as a person of 'caucasian' heritage to know that you may have some neanderthal genes in you or would you feel ashamed?? Do you think having their genes is a superior quality?

Also what makes you think having bigger noses and blue eyes with blond hair is a favorable trait in colder climates? Can you suggest the mechanism through which this is beneficial such that it provides them selective advantages in terms of evolution?

[The Peon]

Bluenoise said:

You do know that neanderthals have 48 chromosomes right?

I have read this over twice, and it appears to answer your question with a statement ( though admittedly I am not a geneticist or a biologist so I am not 100% sure of the credibility of this article ):


""Whereas these modern human sequences differ among themselves by an average of 8.0+/- 4.1 (range 1-24) substitutions, the difference between the humans and the Neandertal sequence is 27.2+/-2.2 (range 22-36)" (Krings et al, 1997, p. 24)

They make a big error here by comparing the range of human mtDNA variation (1-24 differences from the standard sequence) with the experimental error in determining the Neanderthal variation (22-36). This is an equivocation.

If Neanderthal mtDNAis outside of the range of human variation, it is only slightly beyond that range and may be within it. The experimentally determined minimal distance between Neandertals and us is 22 substitutions. (Krings et al, 1997, p. 24-25) Modern humans can have as many as 24 substitutions among them, and they are still considered human.

In spite of the press reports, the authors themselves acknowledge that this does not rule out the inclusion of Neandertals in our ancestry. They write,

"These results do not rule out the possibility that Neandertals contributed other genes to modern humans." (Krings et al, 1997, p. 27)

This is because of a phenomenon called crossover. Genetically, the mitochondria only can determine whose mother left her mtDNA in the humans. But other women left their nuclear DNA to us but they didn't leave their mitochondria. There is a phenomenon called cross-over which occurs on all chromosomes except the X and Y. During the formation of the sperm or egg a chromosome makes two copies of each.

000000000000 Chromosome 1 from mother
111111111111 chromosome 1 from father

During meiosis, each doubles and you have this situation:

000000000000 Chromosome 1 from mother
000000000000 Chromosome 1 from mother
111111111111 chromosome 1 from father
111111111111 chromosome 1 from father

Then cross over occurs which scrambles the chromosome's lineage.

000000000000 Chromosome 1 from mother
000000001111 Chromosome 1 from mother and father
111111110000 chromosome 1 from father and mother
111111111111 chromosome 1 from father

This phenomenon occurs rapidly enough so that no one can follow a lineage of nuclear DNA.

The implications are that as long as no direct maternal lineages from Neanderthal exist, there still could be Neanderthal genes in our lineage.

The best evidence of that is from the H-O mandibular foramen. This is a weird type of hole in the jaw where the nerve goes through. There are two types of this foramen: normal and H-O. The H-O foramen is described by Wolpoff and Caspari,

" "The mandibular foramen, for example, is an opening on the inside of the vertical part of the mandible for the branch of the mandibular nerve that reaches the teeth. This is the uncomfortable spot a dentist tries to reach with a nerve block for the mandibular teeth. In the H-O form the rim of the opening has an oval shape with the long axis of the oval oriented horizontally. Alternatively, in the normal form the rim may be broken, along with its lower border, by an unbridged vertical groove. The broken rim is the usual form in living populations. "The horizontal-oval mandibular foramen is virtually unique to European fossils. It is found in almost no other remains, including Late Pleistocene Africans and the Skhul/Qafzeh sample, the putative alternate ancestors of the post-Neandertal Europeans. But the horizontal-oval foramen has a significant frequency in the subsequent post-Neandertal populations of Europe and only decreases to rarity in recent Europeans. The exact form of the foramen opening is an example of nonadaptive equivalents. It is important that the foramen be there (the nerve must enter the mandibular body), but it makes absolutely no difference which form its rim has."~Milford Wolpoff and Rachael Caspari, Race and Human Evolution, (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997), p. 296-297

In order to explain this without Neanderthal genes in the population of Europe, one must assume that the H-O form arose by mutation a second time, only in European fossils. This is not found in non-European populations!

It is also only found in Neanderthal fossils with one exception. Frayer notes "For example, australopithecines totally lack the trait, and the H-O foramen is exceptionally rare in the fossil record of Homo before the neanderthals. In pre-Mousterian Europe the H-O form is absent in specimens such as Mauer and Arago 2 and 13. Each of these have the normal, V-shaped morphology. From my survey of the literature and inspection of casts and original specimens, the only non-European fossil which possesses the H-O trait is an archaic Homo mandible from Olduvai Gorge (OH-22)."~David W. Frayer, "Evolution at the European Edge: Neanderthal and Upper Paleolithic Relationships," Prehistoire Europeenne, 2:9-69, p. 29

Here are the frequencies of the H-O foramen The African Eves are the anatomically modern humans:

European H-O Normal
Foramen Foramen
% %

Neanderthal 53 47
African Eves 0 100 (the invaders)
Skhul/Qafzeh 0 100 (the invaders)
Early U. Paleolithic 18 82 (supposedly genetically separate)
Late U. Paleolithic 7 93
Mesolithic 2 98
Medieval Europeans 1 99

David W. Frayer, "Evolution at the European Edge: Neanderthal and Upper Paleolithic Relationships," Prehistoire Europeenne, 2:9-69, Table 7, p. 31

As to claims of Neanderthal being a different species, this may be quite erroneous and unproven. Even if there has been 550-700,000 years of separation between anatomically modern men and Neanderthals, this does not mean that the Neanderthal were unable to interbreed with us. Consider the coyote and wolf,

"The coyote and wolf have a sequence divergence of 0.075 +/- 0.002 and diverged about one million years ago, as estimated from the fossil record. consequently, because the sequence divergence between the most different genotypes in clade 1 (the most diverse group of dog sequences) is no more than 0.010, this implies that dogs could have originated as much as 135,000 years ago. "~Carles Vila et al, "Multiple and Ancient Origins of the Domestic Dog," Science, 276(June 13, 1997):1687-1689, p. 1689

Why is this important? Because the coyote and wolf can mate and produce fertile offspring, some believe that they are really the same species and according to some definitions they would be. If coyote and wolf, which diverged more than a million years ago, and Neanderthal diverged only 600,000 years ago, why must we automatically feel that they are a different species? While I haven't seen the Cell article, I will bet that the divergence is less than .075 because Neanderthal and modern man diverged according to the report, 500-600,000 years ago.

Finally, there is a morphological intermediate between Neanderthal and archaic Homo sapiens in the Atapuerca people I mentioned on some posts about the earliest burial. They lived about 600kyr ago and are at the perfect time for the split between the lineages. If those people are the ancestors of Neanderthal, and they were human, with burial rites, then their descendants, the Neanderthals, also would have to be people.

I think the biggest disappointment was the authors' using out of date articles to date the origin date of modern men. They did not even reference Templeton's work which most authorities agree, destroyed the 120-150,000 year old Eve theory. There still was an Eve, but Eve was much older. As noted above, there are up to 24 differences in the mtDNA of modern humans. This requires some time for this amount of divergence to occur. They write:

"To estimate the time when the most recent ancestral sequence common to the Neandertal and modern human mtDNA sequences existed, we used an estimated divergence date between humans and chimpanzees of 4-5 million years ag and corrected the observed sequence differences for multiple substitutions at the same nucleotide site. This yielded a date of 550,000 to 690,000 years before present for the divergence of the Neandertal mtDNA and contemporary human mtDNAs. When the age of the modern human mtDNA ancestor is estimated using the same procedure, a date of 120,000 to 150,000 years is obtained, in agreement with previous estimates.(Cann et al., 1987 Vigilant et al. 1991)." Krings, Matthias, et al, 1997. "Neandertal DNA Sequences and the Origin of Modern Humans," Cell,90:19-30, p. 25

The authors are obviously using two different rates (or alternatively a different amount of divergence) to estimate the divergence of modern human mtDNA and that of Neandertal. The time it took for modern human populations to accumulate 24 differences among themselves, can not be significantly less time than it took for Neandertal to accumulate 27 differences. Yet the authors seem to indicate that it was. Mathematically, this is fallacious.

The Cann et al and Vigilant articles have been disproven by the work of Alan Templeton (Templeton, 1993). Trinkaus and Shipman write:

"Templeton also challenged the calibration of the molecular clock used by the mtDNA researchers. Instead of trying to pinpoint a specific date at which the mtDNA in all modern human groups separated evolutionarily, Templeton estimated the 95 percent confidence limits on that time. In other words, he defined a divergence period by picking the most recent likely date and the most ancient likely date, between which there was a period when the divergence actually occurred, with 95 percent certainty. Basing his work on conservative assumptions, Templeton showed that the mtDNA divergence lay not in the relatively narrow band of time between 166,000 and 249,000 years ago, as had previously been estimated, but in a broad swath sometime between 191,000 and 772,000 years ago. This time interval embraces the period in which Homo erectus was spreading out of Africa and across Eurasia--meaning that the divergence in mtDNA might well have occurred long before the appearance of modern humans." (Trinkaus and Shipman, 1993, p. 394-396)

This can be calculated easily. If modern humans have a divergence of 24 sequence differences, and Neanderthals have a divergence from modern humans of 27 sequence differences, then at the least, modern humans should have split apart from each other only 24/27ths of the time of the Neanderthal split. So if the Neandertal split 600,000 years ago, the rest of humanity should have split from themselves at 533,000 years ago. This is not a lot of difference. Templeton lists a variety of divergence times for Eve ranging from 280,000 to 844,000 years for the length of time it took for the observed variation in modern human mtDNA to arise. (Templeton, 1993, p. 59).

Finally, since the ability to reproduce fertile offspring is determined by nuclear DNA, not mtDNA, these differences shed no light on whether or not we are different species."

References:

Krings, Matthias, et al, 1997. "Neandertal DNA Sequences and the Origin of Modern Humans," Cell, 90:19-30.

Lindahl, Tomas, 1997. "Facts and Artifacts of Ancient DNA," Cell, 90:1-3.

Templeton, Alan R. 1995 "The 'Eve" Hypothesis: A Genetic Critique and Reanalysis," American Anthropologist 95(1): 51-72. p. 58

Trinkaus, Erik and Pat Shipman, 1993. The Neandertals, (New York: Alfred Knopf).

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Seeing that interbreeding within humans is fairly uncommon even in a modern society we live in today, with globalization, travel and immigration etc, I think, using modern day logic, that it is unlikely they mated. However their social development may be very minimal back then and probably wouldnt recognize things as class/status/weath/race/etc that we see today and plus the random possibilities, it may be possible that some mated. Since no fact is here to backup the claims, its all just philosophy.

I got a question for you. Would you feel more proud as a person of 'caucasian' heritage to know that you may have some neanderthal genes in you or would you feel ashamed?? Do you think having their genes is a superior quality?

Also what makes you think having bigger noses and blue eyes with blond hair is a favorable trait in colder climates? Can you suggest the mechanism through which this is beneficial such that it provides them selective advantages in terms of evolution?

You are full of assumptions and implications, which kind is kind of depressing as you seem to be trying to make me out to be a white supremacist.

I think the opposite of what you do. I think first of all, when early humans entered Europe, they found the neanderthals, and if we look at people today using your logic, they would have mated. Why? Well people have sex with goats, trees, and even leather boots. Why not a new type of hominid ? You speak of interracial mating as being rare, but in all honesty at least in this country (the USA), its actually quite common. Perhaps you are generalizing and thinking of a black and white couple. Interracial dating covers a much larger spectrum than what I am assuming you are meaning. I personally am a result of a white and spanish couple, which I consider a result of interracial mating. Not only that, but scientist see evidence that neanderthals and sapiens lived side by side for 6000-10000 years. Clearly enough time for some nookie to have occured, along with plenty of warfare and competition. We are creatures of love and war.

Your second assumption is that I am caucasion. Which is only partly true. I am also half spanish, Cuban to be precise. And superior in what sense? I am merely fascinated at the fact that another hominid not of late african descent could have contributed part of my genetic legacy. You sir, are providing the racial undertones to the whole discussion. And to answer part of your question, Yes, I would be proud to have these genes if I did but only for the reason of my fascination, not because I would feel superior in any way.

And lastly, I don't recall exactly what benefit lighter hair and eye color provide to a cold adapted species. If anything it might just be a side effect and not a beneficial adaptation, but skin color is crucial for a certain process incured with sunlight. Im sure any resident biologists could clear up these issues for you. For your information, blue eyes and blonde hair is not the most extreme cold adaptation, green eyes and orange hair is. Also, a large nose and nasal cavity would allow air to be heated more before entering the lungs. Other cold adapted features were a shorter height and a wider build.

I hope that clears up your assumptions and removes the implications I am a Nazi. :-(

I apologize if my debate style is a bit aggressive, I have always been the type to lean on the sword and not the pen.

Oh and one last thing for the record... I prefer a nice thick black woman over a petite fair haired white lady any day of the week. Just my preference. ;)