Are Neanderthals Connected With Humans?

[RufusDawes]

That wouldn't breed them out, that would breed them in. If breeding was ever possible between the two, I bet their genes are still out there mixed in with our population.

Or really, really, old people that survived in conditions we don't have today therefore they look different.

There have been a lot of points in history where we have classified humans living today as being a different species. So I'm not rushing to believe that we couldn't interbreed.

 

[Peter Hiatt]

Rufus, DNA shows that we don't carry Neanderthal genetic code. Of course that does not mean we did not breed, just that we did not successfully breed.

 

[Peter Hiatt]

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute have successfully sequenced the complete Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA. What they found falls outside the variations found in humans today. While not definitive, it suggests there was no cross breeding. More information will be upcoming from the next research which is the sequencing of the complete Neanderthal nuclear genome...which is underway.

 

[epenguin]

My info to hand is memory and a bit outdated, however I think it is 10 or more years geneticists are convinced we are not to any extent descendants of Neanderthals.

Before that info on the nuclear Neanderthal genome comes along, sequences of the Neanderthal mitochondrial genome (which is more abundant number of copies in remains) were sequenced and found to be distinctly different from any present humans, as Peter Hiatt says.

But even before that they were convinced anyway. N. has clearly evolved separately over a period to be so distinct. If their different genome had later become re-mixed with H.sap and left modern descendants, then there would be clearly more heterogeneity in modern mit genome sequences than there is, and it should show up in the geographical distributions too.

Like genetics usually, this does not say that mating between the two subspecies never happened or that there was not offspring, only that no one alive today is descended from them. And strictly it shows that no one is descended from N. females. But it seems to me a model in which there was much male input without any female is fairly hard to imagine. (At first sight maybe but then think about it some more.)

Then as to whether N. had speech, we can probably get an idea fro the sorts of evidence mentioned. But our sureness of it depends on the completeness of our understanding of the genetic determination of speech. Without having studied it specifically I'd guess any answer is quite subject to revision at the moment.

 

[Peter Hiatt]

Some of the Homo Erectus fossils from Java are only 30,000 years old. I'd love to see what DNA we can get from these and Homo Heidelgergensis fossils.