No doubt about it. I've seen the proof.
Question for geneticists lurking out there...
Supposing this is true, doesn’t this have significant ramifications for mitochondrial Eve?
If we were interbreeding with other hominids, wouldn’t that have the effect of pushing mitochondrial Eve further back than the first human ancestor actually was? (Because there is “foreign”, non-homo sapiens material in the mtDNA now.)
Just thinkin out loud here...
No.
One doesn’t need to be a geneticist to see the possibilities that the article implies. A man, seeing “Eve” swinging around a branch, might have entertained the thought of monkeying around with some truly strange.
We haven’t found yet any Neandertal mitochondrial lines in the modern population. Which may mean the genetics was mostly one way - with their males, knowing the territory and thus having an advantage in hunting and tracking newcomers and perhaps attracted to the neoteny in the human females. The females who did bear young didn’t keep foreign males but in a small, closely related group, they kept the females for future breeding stock. Neandertal DNA, but no Y chromosomes at all or Neandertal matrinileal signatures.
No doubt about it. I've seen the proof.