Are Neanderthals Connected With Humans?

[Gold Barz]

Or they are not related?

 

[Ouabache]

You may want to ask this over in Anthopology
---> https://www.physicsforums.com/forumdisplay.php?f=85

In the meantime you might enjoy checking out this ref: ----> http://www.thedarwinpapers.com/oldsite/number10/Darwin10.htm

 

[spicerack]

Redheads 'are neanderthal'

Culture/Society News
Source: Times UK

BY A CORRESPONDENT

RED hair may be the genetic legacy of Neanderthals, scientists believe.

Researchers at the John Radcliffe Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford say that 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, said: �The gene is certainly older than 50,000 years and it could be as old as 100,000 years.

�An explanation is that it comes from Neanderthals.� It is estimated that at least 10 per cent of Scots have red hair and a further 40 per cent carry the gene responsible, which could account for their once fearsome reputation as fighters.

Neanderthals have been characterised as migrant hunters and violent cannibals who probably ate most of their meat raw. They were taller and stockier than Homo sapiens, but with shorter limbs, bigger faces and noses, receding chins and low foreheads.

The two species overlapped for a period of time and the Oxford research appears to suggests that they must have successfully interbred for the �ginger gene� to survive. Neanderthals became extinct about 28,000 years ago, the last dying out in suthern Spain and southwest France.

it seems a logical choice for the sudden appearance of the whiteman and his nature since the last ice age as ther is no other logical reason why blacks out of africa could naturally mutate to white. By nature i mean due to cultural evolutionary processe in much the same way as culture acts as an operator to behaviour in any ethnic grouping

and this

What we know about Neanderthals is that they didn't have perfect use of fire and didn't have the faculty of speech but they had tools that, though extremely primitive, made them Hominians. The skull was as big or even bigger than today's humans and the part where the intelligence nests was small while the part devoted to the memory was huge. So, the Neanderthal must have possessed a capacity for uncanny memory, unthinkable for us, which could have been his tool for empirical knowledge. In his more than 100,000 years of existence, the Neanderthal could have stocked a fantastic amount of knowledge about the nature that surrounded him. He must have known everything about medicinal plants, etc. If your reasoning capacity isn't very developed but you can put two and two together thanks to memory, you are somewhere at the ante-chamber to intelligence.

We can suppose that some individual Neanderthal could have possessed intelligence superior to the Neanderthal average, comparable to Homo Sapiens.

so what happens when you breed the two ?

You get a lighter skinned more intelligent and thus better equipped to survive species of man with a somewhat lesser than civilised behaviour.

 

[hitssquad]

Link for spicerack's first quote:
http://www.google.com/search?q="RED...c+legacy+of+Neanderthals,+scientists+believe"



Link for spicerack's second quote:
http://www.vagabondpages.com/august96/evolution.html

 

[Phobos]

Neandertals are at least close cousins on the evolutionary tree (i.e., same genus, very recent common ancestor).

It's an ongoing debate as to whether H. neanderthalensis and H. sapiens interbred. In 1999, there were news reports of a potential hybrid fossil found. In 2000, there were news reports of DNA evidence saying there was no interbreeding. In 2004, there were news reports of computer studies of fossil morphology that indicated there was no interbreeding.

But the research & debate rages on. Stay tuned.

 

[Phobos]

FWIW, neandertals were "human"...just a different species of human than we are.

 

[spicerack]

oh yeah, sorry bout the linkage thing.

I'm still getting used to the way things are done round here

cheers hitssquad

 

[Gold Barz]

FWIW, neandertals were "human"...just a different species of human than we are.

Aha, I see...just like different breeds of dogs?

 

[Phobos]

Aha, I see...just like different breeds of dogs?

Sort of, but a bit more separation than that. If they were a “subspecies” (kind of like a breeding group within a species), they would be Homo sapiens neandertalensis (and we would be Homo sapiens sapiens). But they are usually classified as a whole separate species (Homo neandertalensis and we’re Homo sapiens), which makes them more distinct than just a breed/subspecies.

But maybe someone else here is more familiar with where the lines are drawn and can explain it better.

Perhaps if more evidence is found to indicate that Neandertals and Cro-Magnons (early H. sapiens) actually interbred, then perhaps the subspecies/breed label would be more appropriate.

 

[hitssquad]

and we would be Homo sapiens sapiens [...] But [...] we’re Homo sapiens

90,000 hits, Phobos:
http://www.google.com/search?q="Homo+sapiens+sapiens"

 

[Gold Barz]

Perhaps if more evidence is found to indicate that Neandertals and Cro-Magnons (early H. sapiens) actually interbred, then perhaps the subspecies/breed label would be more appropriate.

I think the evidence is going the opposite way.

 

[Phobos]

90,000 hits, Phobos:
http://www.google.com/search?q="Homo+sapiens+sapiens"

Hitssquad - the master of tact.

From reading those 90,000 hits, I see that we are classified as Homo sapiens sapiens (all of us alive today, since all other subspecies are gone...so I assume Homo sapiens is a convenient enough shorthand for practical purposes).

excerpt from one of those hits that is relevant to the discussion at hand...

...Neanderthals and modern humans (Homo sapiens) are very similar anatomically -- so similar, in fact, that in 1964, it was proposed that Neanderthals are not even a separate species from modern humans, but that the two forms represent two subspecies: Homo sapiens neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens sapiens. This classification was popular through the 1970's and 80's, although many authors today have returned to the previous two-species hypothesis. Either way, Neanderthals represent a very close evolutionary relative of modern humans.

 

[hitssquad]

Hss as shorthand for humans

I assume Homo sapiens is a convenient enough shorthand for practical purposes).

I frequently see Hss.
http://google.com/search?q=hss+sapiens

By the way, the first sapiens is a specific epithet and the second sapiens is a varietal epithet:


--
1 c : the part of a scientific name identifying the species, variety, or other subunit within a genus <in the scientific name Rosa chinensis longifolia, chinensis is the specific epithet and longifolia is the varietal epithet>
--
(M-W Unabridged 3.0)

 

[Phobos]

thanks for the clarifications

 

[Almeisan]

Before homo sapiens sapiens there have been very many different kinds of humans. So at each stage we have several humans either competing or interbreeding, all the way from ape-like creatures to homo sapiens sapiens.

So its really a complex puzzle. Of course the fossel record gives a very fragmented image. We found fossels and we now call those different species. But the evolution might very well have been very smooth and talking about species might be a distorted way to talk about the evolutionary process.

So in general there have been a lot of brances and all were dead ends except for us(I consider this a reasonable assumption). Of course we also share a comman ancestor with apes like chimps, bonobo's, gorilla's etc.

About Neanderthals. They lived together with homo sapiens in europe. Its not really clear if they are a subspecies of homo sapiens, or a branch off of the species of humans just before homo sapiens. But the debate rages on, like said before.

People think they had less complex language and died out because they failed to pass on their inventions. Where homo sapiens would pass on inventions and the next generations would improve on it, homo neanderthals would have to reinvent something every generation.

On wikipedia you can find a lot of info: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_evolution

 

[spicerack]

I don't think the fossil record is going to help as from my understanding it requires catastrophism on a large scale for animals to be buried and compressed in mud before becoming fossilised.

A carcass left in the open won't fossilise just descompose.

 

[rygar]

this is all pretty interesting, i don't really know anything about the evolution of different homonidae species. i was always under the impression that they did interbreed... it seems logical to me, even if it wasn't the "norm".

The skull was as big or even bigger than today's humans and the part where the intelligence nests was small while the part devoted to the memory was huge. So, the Neanderthal must have possessed a capacity for uncanny memory, unthinkable for us, which could have been his tool for empirical knowledge. In his more than 100,000 years of existence, the Neanderthal could have stocked a fantastic amount of knowledge about the nature that surrounded him. He must have known everything about medicinal plants, etc. If your reasoning capacity isn't very developed but you can put two and two together thanks to memory, you are somewhere at the ante-chamber to intelligence.

can anyone provide more sources/verification about this? I've never heard anything about neanderthals having a higher memory capacity... on what basis did they determine this, and is it presented as more of a possible theory or a more like a fact?

 

[spicerack]

Have you read "clan of the cave bear" - Jean Auel

Don't get the movie out, it's crap ! The book though is excellent

and if not the capacity for memory then what other function would a large neandertahl cranial capacity have ?...psychokinesis, telepathy ?

 

[rygar]

Have you read "clan of the cave bear" - Jean Auel

nope, what's it about? i'll look into it

and if not the capacity for memory then what other function would a large neandertahl cranial capacity have ?...psychokinesis, telepathy ?

well i could speculate many things, i suppose. a lot of animals have bigger brains than we do, like elphants. of course, elephants have larger brains because of their somatosensory and motor cortex--they have a larger surface area that needs to be mapped onto the brain. do they have larger occipital regions too?

well, i don't really know much about elephant brains. but the point is that a larger brain doesn't correlate to higher brain functions. i always assumed that the neanderthal's extra brain cortex was not devoted to higher functions, because they are known for being more of a primitive, brute species.

it's not that i disbelieve the quote in question; i really don't know anything about the brains of neanderthals! but i would like to see more sources and the evidence used to attain such facts, just to satisfy my curiosity.

 

[misskitty]

Redheads 'are neanderthal'

Culture/Society News
Source: Times UK

BY A CORRESPONDENT

RED hair may be the genetic legacy of Neanderthals, scientists believe.

Researchers at the John Radcliffe Institute of Molecular Medicine in Oxford say that 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, said: �The gene is certainly older than 50,000 years and it could be as old as 100,000 years.

�An explanation is that it comes from Neanderthals.� It is estimated that at least 10 per cent of Scots have red hair and a further 40 per cent carry the gene responsible, which could account for their once fearsome reputation as fighters.

Neanderthals have been characterised as migrant hunters and violent cannibals who probably ate most of their meat raw. They were taller and stockier than Homo sapiens, but with shorter limbs, bigger faces and noses, receding chins and low foreheads.

The two species overlapped for a period of time and the Oxford research appears to suggests that they must have successfully interbred for the �ginger gene� to survive. Neanderthals became extinct about 28,000 years ago, the last dying out in suthern Spain and southwest France.

it seems a logical choice for the sudden appearance of the whiteman and his nature since the last ice age as ther is no other logical reason why blacks out of africa could naturally mutate to white. By nature i mean due to cultural evolutionary processe in much the same way as culture acts as an operator to behaviour in any ethnic grouping

and this

What we know about Neanderthals is that they didn't have perfect use of fire and didn't have the faculty of speech but they had tools that, though extremely primitive, made them Hominians. The skull was as big or even bigger than today's humans and the part where the intelligence nests was small while the part devoted to the memory was huge. So, the Neanderthal must have possessed a capacity for uncanny memory, unthinkable for us, which could have been his tool for empirical knowledge. In his more than 100,000 years of existence, the Neanderthal could have stocked a fantastic amount of knowledge about the nature that surrounded him. He must have known everything about medicinal plants, etc. If your reasoning capacity isn't very developed but you can put two and two together thanks to memory, you are somewhere at the ante-chamber to intelligence.

We can suppose that some individual Neanderthal could have possessed intelligence superior to the Neanderthal average, comparable to Homo Sapiens.

so what happens when you breed the two ?

You get a lighter skinned more intelligent and thus better equipped to survive species of man with a somewhat lesser than civilised behaviour.

Whoa, that's pretty weird. And cool at the same time.

 

[spicerack]

you think that's weird miskitty ?

you should google "yakub theory" and see what Nation of Islam believe about how caucasians came into existence only 6000 yrs ago...

...now that is weird

 

[Phobos]

I don't think the fossil record is going to help as from my understanding it requires catastrophism on a large scale for animals to be buried and compressed in mud before becoming fossilised.

A carcass left in the open won't fossilise just descompose.

Fossilization doesn't require a large scale catastrophe. A small scale event can quickly bury an individual (or even some individuals dig & become entrapped...and there is some evidence that Neandertals buried their dead or at least had a specific disposal area).

Granted, a large scale event has the potential to capture more specimens at one time.

 

[hypatia]

There is also some thought that the Neanderthals didn't have a well developed immune system, and perhaps were wiped out by disease.

 

[Ouabache]

yes, I agree that the Neanderthal's lack of effective speech and smaller http://www.csuchico.edu/~pmccaff/syllabi/CMSD%20320/362unit4.html(leading to diminished reasoning and judgement), compared with Homo sapiens sapiens, was a strong factor in their demise. They lost their competitive advantage.

 

[zoobyshoe]

This "ginger gene" thing is very interesting. I wonder how they determine that gene, or any gene, goes back 100,000 years?

 

[arildno]

This "ginger gene" thing is very interesting. I wonder how they determine that gene, or any gene, goes back 100,000 years?

From what I know, one of those factors involved in gene-dating is to look at the distribution of the gene in different human populations.
If a given gene is only present in "native" Americans, then it is most likely to have come into place after the segregation of their ancestors by their migration to the Americas.

However, I'm sure there are lot of factors to be considered in this context..

 

[zoobyshoe]

Here's another interesting twist to the whole issue:

American Neanderthal?
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/fr/612553/posts

Some believe there were people in North America as much as 30,000 years ago.

 

[hypatia]

reconstructed face of a childhttp://www.rdos.net/neanderthal.jpg"

 

[zoobyshoe]

reconstructed face of a childhttp://www.rdos.net/neanderthal.jpg"

This is an example of a trend I've seen a lot of recently which is to make Neanderthal reconstructions as "human" looking as possible. Earlier ones played up "ape" characteristics.

There is really no way of knowing things like skin pigmentation or how hairy they were. Human skin is covered with hair, but it is so fine we think of ourselves as non-hairy. Without adding any more hair to their bodies than we have, but making it all much courser, Neanderthal could have been quite hairy compared to us, perhaps like Chimps are, and there is just no telling if they were dark skinned like modern Africans or very pale.

The nose openings in their skulls allegedly require that they have very, very large noses. I wonder if we have the shape of their noses correct at all, though. I wonder if they couldn't have been more ape like.

 

[hypatia]

http://www.evolutionnyc.com/id-843/ImgUpload/N_118089_961769.jpg"If you notice from this photo apes have a different shape to the supporting bone of the nose. I want to say its almost heart shaped.
And yes your correct, we can only guess at hair/skin/eye coloring of any human species. But we do get some clues from our own development. Humans who live in colder areas have less body hair{sweat can freeze on hair} and large noses warm the air befor it reaches the lungs.

 

[Moonbear]

Humans who live in colder areas have less body hair{sweat can freeze on hair}

Can I ask where you got that information from? It seems counter-intuitive to me since arctic mammals have very thick fur as part of their "insulation" to protect them against the cold. And non-human mammals in temperate climates have thin fur coats in the summer and thick fur coats (more of an "under" layer of downy fur) in the winter. So, while a thin coat of hair would provide some protection against the sun, it would seem to me a thicker coat would help provide warmth (you wouldn't be sweating if you're cold, so sweat freezing shouldn't be an issue). But, I'm just basing this on other mammalian species. Did you base your statement on some evidence for humans that's different from other mammals?

 

[zoobyshoe]

If you notice from this photo apes have a different shape to the supporting bone of the nose. I want to say its almost heart shaped.

The images wouldn't show up for me at that site you linked to. That's OK because I googled chimp, gorila, and orangutan skull images. I see what you mean: unlike Neanderthal the ape noses are just apertures that don't even project up off the face. Neanderthal clearly has sides and a bridge to the skeletal nose like we do.

 

[hypatia]

Moonbear, that's correct, its only humans this applies to because we sweat. And yes, human sweat all the time, even while we sleep, even if we are cold. We also sweat more more reasons then just temp control. Stress, ever see someone with sweaty palms? sweat out a tuff exam? or break out in sweat from eating big meals? If you also notice, people in really warm areas like Italy are really hairy all over. Sweat trapped in hair helps cool you.
Its just a general rule of thumb for humans, more so before the 1900's when populations didn't move/intermix as much.

 

[zoobyshoe]

Moonbear, that's correct, its only humans this applies to because we sweat. And yes, human sweat all the time, even while we sleep, even if we are cold. We also sweat more more reasons then just temp control.

This makes me wonder, then, if gorillas, chimps, and orangutans sweat. They must get pretty warm in the jungles.

I know that Orangutans like to play in water, and that there is a kind of Gorilla deep in the Congo that actually spends a lot of the day up to its neck in rivers, which they figure is a way to stay cool.

 

[Psi 5]

Good question. I have a couple of observations on the subject.

First, I seem to be the only person who has noticed that people have 2 kinds of feet. Some people, like me, have toes that evenly recede in length from the big toe. Other people have a much longer second toe than the big toe. Naturally, this seems to me to be the more primitive form, while mine is obviously the higher evolved form of the foot. My theory is that people who have Neanderthal blood can be easily identified by which set of toes they have.

Second, as we all know, men will have intercourse with anything that walks, if it doesn't walk they will help it along and then have intercourse with it. We would have intercourse with a woodpile if we thought there was a knothole in there somewhere. In short, of COURSE we interbred, have you seen what some people marry?