littlek
 
Reply Thu 6 May, 2010 03:42 pm
Turns out early modern man DID get down with their bulkier neighbors after all.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126553081&sc=fb&cc=fp

Quote:
To find out whether the two human species interbred, scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, launched an audacious effort to sequence all 3 billion letters of Neanderthal DNA. As hard as it may be to believe, fragments of DNA can survive in bones that are more than 30,000 years old. New techniques can sequence those fragments, and new software can line the fragments up.

The main strategy for finding whether modern humans and Neanderthals exchanged genes was to compare the Neanderthal DNA with DNA from modern humans " some whose ancestors had remained in Africa, and others who had migrated to Europe, Asia and the New World. If the Neanderthal DNA was more similar to the non-African DNA, it would indicate that Neanderthals contributed their genes after the first modern humans migrated out of Africa.

Reich says that's what they found.

"The non-African is more closely related to the Neanderthal," Reich says. "Quite definitely. Highly statistically significantly overwhelming evidence that they're more closely related on average to Neanderthals."

In other words, Reich and his Leipzig co-authors are totally sure that Neanderthal genes found their way into modern humans when the two species intersected. They report their findings in the journal Science.

"The simplest possible explanation is that it occurred once," Reich says. "But it very easily could have occurred on multiple occasions. Perhaps it's likely that it occurred on multiple occasions."
 
talk72000
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2010 03:50 pm
Neanderthals and homo sapiens covered large areas and also had large interfacing areas. If there are people who commit beastality I think with Neanderthals being closer biologically gene exchange is even more likely. Horny people would just about do anything. There were other hominids too.
littlek
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2010 03:50 pm
@talk72000,
I have always thought the same thing (mostly). I could never quite figure out why people were so certain there was no inbreeding.
talk72000
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2010 03:53 pm
@littlek,
The great variability of facial features could account of gene exchanges. Of course, diet and environment do contribute a lot to our external features.
coluber2001
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2010 04:24 pm
@talk72000,
Case in point!

http://img.allposters.com/6/LRG/10/1058/Z8LL000Z.jpg
0 Replies
 
plainoldme
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2010 05:07 pm
I have to agree with you, littlek, on the possibility of interbreeding. Both Neanderthals and Modern Humans had to have crossed paths. And although there were probably times when only men went out, sat on a hunt, or only women went out, say to bathe or whatever, I would think that most of the time, people went out in mixed sex groups and that there had to have been some cross species sex.
0 Replies
 
farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2010 07:35 pm
@littlek,
Its an interesting bit, but I think that, by now, I need to state unequivocally that these hurried publishings often derive their entire results from some damn computer code of the gene sequences that they havd "Xeroxed" using a PCR. When a 3 10^9 genome, iscompared using perhaps, less than 1000 alleles, it often "creatyes" sequences where none exist.
Im notsaying that this ios what happened but I hope they have the data available for others to check so they dont wind up with the T rex/chicken fiasco again.

0 Replies
 
littlek
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2010 07:41 pm
POM, I am more interested in knowing that the two humanoids were close enough, genetically, to produce viable offspring.

Fman - I know.... but this is fun speculation!
farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2010 07:46 pm
@littlek,
Im too old to have space in my mind for something I may have to use and then toss out when its found to be bullshit. Id rather wait until its published and argued over several times. It reminds me of the science about how peoiple who sleep less than six houirs have a15 % greater chance of dyiung young than those who sleep more than 6 hours. That was followd up by some wag who published that people who sleep MORE than 10 hours have a 35% greater chance of dying young.
plainoldme
 
  1  
Reply Thu 6 May, 2010 09:41 pm
Supposedly the only reason we can not reproduce with a Neanderthal is the separation of the present with their life span.
0 Replies
 
Ionus
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 May, 2010 03:42 am
Quote:
Hey, Neanderthal!
Yes ?? What ???
0 Replies
 
laughoutlood
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 May, 2010 03:48 am
@littlek,
Quote:
intersected


Eyebrow raising romance.
0 Replies
 
jespah
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 May, 2010 04:34 am
Well, I suppose this proves that early Home Sapiens sapiens chicks dug the brow ridge.
farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 May, 2010 04:40 am
@jespah,
Or maybe early Homosapiens dudes would pick up any Neander chick when it was last call.
jespah
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 May, 2010 05:02 am
@farmerman,
So it was fermented berry goggles?
0 Replies
 
Ionus
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 May, 2010 06:50 am
@littlek,
http://media.npr.org/assets/news/2010/05/06/neanderthal1.jpg?t=1273176776&s=2

Lets have a look at the assumptions in this reconstruction, assuming it is not a real neanderthal.
The soft tissue on the nose and lips - he could have a flat ape-like nose and lips on the inside of his mouth like all other primates.
The hair - why does he have to have long hair like humans ? He could have had fur like other primates.
The ears - could be any shape.
The main assumption driving this image is that we evolved gradually, but this has turned out to be false for even a major characteristic of walking upright. We walked upright even before we came out of the trees fully.
Modern humans still have as much hair as we ever did, but most is depressed into being fine and minute. The nose, the lips, the depressed hair, the long hair on the head AND SWEAT GLANDS all over our body are characteristic of modern humans but when did these things evolve ?
Until we know these things it is pointless to say neanderthals look like us.
0 Replies
 
farmerman
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 May, 2010 08:26 am
@littlek,
Remember , the Neanderthal sequences that Paabo and the Planck Institutes team were working on were the same ones that , a few years ago, Paabo said proved that "Homo sapiens and Neanderthals" qwere NOT hooking up.

H Heidelbergensis overlapped the Neanderthals and maybe this is just a tempest of nomenclature and not fact.
I can see Heidelbergensis and Neanderthalensis getting it on. They hung out at the same biker bars.
0 Replies
 
Ionus
 
  1  
Reply Fri 7 May, 2010 07:22 pm
One major assumption in all this is that the chances of finding a fossil that is not typical is extremely remote. But suppose in the future they found a fossil of the elephant man and thought radiation had deformed all of us. To add to this, fossils are only found where the relevant aged rock is exposed. Migration patterns and what our ancestors soft tissue looked like has a lot of conjecture. The same can be said for DNA. Comparing neanderthal DNA with sapiens DNA assumes that what was found is typical. They might be comparing the furtherest extremes, or the closest possible. Too much guesswork for my liking.
laughoutlood
 
  1  
Reply Sat 8 May, 2010 12:36 am
@Ionus,
Some of those atavistic guys will do anything forehead.
Ionus
 
  1  
Reply Sat 8 May, 2010 02:46 am
@laughoutlood,
Most people knowledgable about pre-sapiens anatomy can walk down the average street and see examples of specific features of our ancestors. Incidentally, black people have the most human features of all. Their lips are full and more protruding, an apes lips are inside the mouth....the tip of their nose is larger whereas apes have a nose considerably higher on the face and with far less soft tissue. The white supremacists have it exactly backwards, but they have never got it wrong before have they ? Very Happy
 

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