This is interesting

[Dan the Man]

The burly Ice Age hunters known as Neanderthals, a long-extinct species, survive today in the genes of almost everyone outside Africa, according to an international research team who offer the first molecular evidence that early humans mated and produced children in liaisons with Neanderthals.
In a significant advance, the researchers mapped most of the Neanderthal genome—the first time that the heredity of such an ancient human species has been reliably reconstructed. The researchers, able for the first time to compare the relatively complete genetic coding of modern and prehistoric human species, found the Neanderthal legacy accounts for up to 4% of the human genome among people in much of the world today.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...S=neanderthals

[cpdwane]

Despite its recent advances, the field of molecular anthropology is treacherous terrain. Bones are easily sullied as they decompose. Microbes so thoroughly infiltrated the Neanderthal bones that almost 99% of the DNA the researchers found actually belonged to bacteria and had to be painstakingly excluded. They also can be easily contaminated by modern human DNA when they are excavated and handled in the laboratory.
"By touching the bone, you leave more DNA on its surface than actually is in the bone itself," said geneticist Johannes Krause at the Max Planck Institute, who worked on the Neanderthal specimens. "That is one of the biggest risks we have."
Indeed, Dr. Pääbo and his colleagues were publicly embarrassed when an earlier analysis of Neanderthal DNA turned out to be thoroughly contaminated by modern human genes from lab workers. To avoid such errors in the new study, they tagged each Neanderthal DNA strand with a unique molecular bar-code, to distinguish it biochemically from any extraneous genetic material.

Intrigueing, but the test to be repeated a few times to make sure it's completely accurate. As it's mentioned at the bottom of the article, the scientists had carried out a similar experiment in the past, and found that the genes had been contaminated. I'm not saying that the findings are bogus, just saying that they need further verification. DNA from another Neanderthal from a different area and/or era would be a real clincher.

[MrMofo]

Yeah, hadn't they finished the genome a few years ago and concluded the exact opposite, that they hadn't interbred at all?

[John I Tzimisces]

Yeah, hadn't they finished the genome a few years ago and concluded the exact opposite, that they hadn't interbred at all?

That was based on mitochondrial DNA, iirc.

Anyhow, I suppose this calls into question the rejection that the lagar velho kid is a neanderthal-human hybrid as opposed to a chunky gravettian homo sapiens.

Intrigueing, but the test to be repeated a few times to make sure it's completely accurate. As it's mentioned at the bottom of the article, the scientists had carried out a similar experiment in the past, and found that the genes had been contaminated. I'm not saying that the findings are bogus, just saying that they need further verification. DNA from another Neanderthal from a different area and/or era would be a real clincher.

Not necessarily (that they'd need a neanderthal from another area.) Neanderthals found in siberia and belgium have found to be remarkably genetically similar, and this is thought to be due to the idea that their populations grew and contracted dramatically depending on environmental stress (food availability, etc) periodically (being, you know, hunter-gatherers and all)

Contamination on the other hand is a very serious issue and could be very easily caused.
A big problem, however, is that there isn't a huge pool of Neanderthals with DNA that is intact enough to be analyzed for these purposes.

[webMaster412160]

hmmm that was a nice short read, but what is 4% of the total 100% ? Nothing.

[Manco]

in genes that's actually a lot

[Ozzmosis]

Ewww, humans bred with Neanderthals?
actually, I know a girl who looks like a neanderthal...

[John I Tzimisces]

Ewww, humans bred with Neanderthals?
actually, I know a girl who looks like a neanderthal...

She has a football shaped head ("en bombe" if you're a frenchie), and no forehead or chin? as well as having 24% more muscle mass than all the other girls?? And midfacial prognathism???

also, a quick conclusion that can be drawn from what we've found so far is that since there is no evidence of interbreeding from mitochondrial DNA (THUS FAR) it could be inferred that it was male neanderthals doing the nasty with early homo sapiens.

Admittedly I have my reservations since there is really little doubt in my mind that although humans and neanderthals would have recognized each other as not too too dissimilar from each other, neanderthals might have been quite terrifying to behold for our relatively gracile ancestors, since Neanderthals are notable for being the most massive members of the genus Homo (their males are estimated to have weighed on average around 200 pounds, and judging by their skeletons/muscle attachment sites that was mostly muscle).

edit: having asked an archaeology professor of mine who has special interest in neanderthals about this paper, he's pretty excited and says it makes a lot of sense, and, well, if it's good enough for him it's good enough for me. Presuming it's true I suppose it says a lot about human evolution after H. Erectus left africa.

[cpdwane]

Admittedly I have my reservations since there is really little doubt in my mind that although humans and neanderthals would have recognized each other as not too too dissimilar from each other, neanderthals might have been quite terrifying to behold for our relatively gracile ancestors, since Neanderthals are notable for being the most massive members of the genus Homo (their males are estimated to have weighed on average around 200 pounds, and judging by their skeletons/muscle attachment sites that was mostly muscle).

Also, the social structure of Neanderthals and Humans was completely different. It would seem that the humans of the time were already trading and sharing ideas with each other over very large distances, wheras Neanderthals probably lived in more isolated (but possibly quite large) groups that stayed in the same places for many hundreds of years. This is supported by the fact that Neanderthal culture stayed the same over a very long period of time, with their tools and religions changing little, possibly in isolated areas, but never across the whole population. On the other hand, human culture at this time progressed quite rapidly in the tools it used, and it is most likely to be down to them interacting alot more with their neighbours then the neanderthals, who despite having larger brains, could not share their ideas and culture with other communities over a wide area because of their isolationist lifestyles. I can easily imagine the Neanderthals trying to stay away from human outsiders. Indeed, it is believed that the last Neanderthal community in Europe to survive was on the Rock of Gibralter, which shows that they clearly benefitted from being away from Homo Sapiens.


And that's not even starting on the language barrier that there must have been.

[Ace_General]

Admittedly I have my reservations since there is really little doubt in my mind that although humans and neanderthals would have recognized each other as not too too dissimilar from each other, neanderthals might have been quite terrifying to behold for our relatively gracile ancestors, since Neanderthals are notable for being the most massive members of the genus Homo (their males are estimated to have weighed on average around 200 pounds, and judging by their skeletons/muscle attachment sites that was mostly muscle).

Not exactly true, I remeber reading that most cro-magonons had an average height of somewhere in the neighborhood of 6'1-6'3 and that if they lived to adult-hood they were quite well feed and healthy due to the varied diet and lack of major infectious diseases

Actually, Modern Scandinavians are partially at least the descendants of Cro-Magons
http://www.eupedia.com/europe/origin...europe.shtml#I

Though when I think about it, the neanderthals would of made awsome defensive linemen on my schools football team.

Also, I found this recently
http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...974903,00.html

I think that their was alot more homo-sapian speicies right before and during the time of early modern humans and our ancestors either interbred with them or massacred them

Also, this whole discovery might give me a logical reason to tell my buddies why I find black girls some of the most ugliest creatures on the planet

[Dan the Man]

Actually, Modern Scandinavians are partially at least the descendants of Cro-Magons

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we all Cro-Magnons, the human race as a whole that is? I was told that they were the first example of modern man.

[cpdwane]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we all Cro-Magnons, the human race as a whole that is? I was told that they were the first example of modern man.

Apparently we have changed a little genetically, mostly in the shape of our skull cavity and facial features. It would also seem that certain branches of humanity have developed more then others, for example I remember reading somewhere that Europeans have changed from "Cro- Magnon" times more then Africans, who have stayed more or less the same. Which loops back around to the subject of this thread rather nicely...

[Nimthill]

Hmm, I wonder what exactly they mean with 4% overlap... since we overlap a lot more. The genome differences between species are a lot smaller than we think, we share 98% of our DNA with dolphins.

I'm guessing that 4% of the the genes that a common ancestor of both Neanderthals and Sapiens did not have?
But if this is the first genome of a humanoid ancestor that has been mapped, how do we know for sure?

'Questions, questions. Questions that need answering.' - Gandalf the gray.

[cpdwane]

Hmm, I wonder what exactly they mean with 4% overlap... since we overlap a lot more. The genome differences between species are a lot smaller than we think, we share 98% of our DNA with dolphins.

I'm guessing that 4% of the the genes that a common ancestor of both Neanderthals and Sapiens did not have?
But if this is the first genome of a humanoid ancestor that has been mapped, how do we know for sure?

'Questions, questions. Questions that need answering.' - Gandalf the gray.

Yeah, I was wondering that as well. But they did say that African humans did not possess this gene, so maybe it was 4% that they did not have.

Still, it doesn't seem to make that much sense.

[Dan the Man]

Well that is to be expected with migration and geographic isolation and the like. The gene pool changes.

[cpdwane]

Well that is to be expected with migration and geographic isolation and the like. The gene pool changes.

Of course.