Genetic Studies of Modern Populations Show Varying Neandertal Ancestry

Popular Archaeology ^ | 3-12-2012

[Matchett-PI]

"Maybe someday science will be able to tell us if this has anything to do with the differences in social developments...farming...cities...armies etc. All these things began to emerge as Neanderthal was disappearing

SOMETHING DID. :)

bttt

[blam]

we are neanderthals.

[muawiyah]

That's going to be argued by many here to be a KOINKYDINK.

On the other hand it's a very well made observation.

The cold hard facts are the Neanderthals were working on becoming MODERN HUMANS as in Sapiens Sapiens more than 300,000 years ago. The current crowd who imagine themselves to be MODERN HUMANS started only 180,000 years ago.

That's a full Glacial Cycle ~ the kind of experience that imbeds itself in the genes. The more recent ability to outbreed our range does not really make us advanced ~ just more like bunny rabbits.

[muawiyah]

The article suggests there are simply LESS Neanderthal genes in blacks than in whites and East Asians.

However, to be PC the writers didn't say any blacks at all had any Neanderthal genes ~ but you are clever to have noticed the difference. Remember, if the writer had said "blacks have Neanderthal genes" the NAACP and their running dog lackeys would be bouncing off the walls screaming "He used the N-word".

[Vanders9]

Ah, not so. Neanderthals brains might have been larger, but that does NOT neccesarily mean they were smarter. People with large brains now may be either smart or stupid. Size of brain does not seem to equate with intelligence. The extra brain capacity of Homo Neanderthalis was mostly in the rear lobes i.e. those bits concerned with memory, not reasoning.

And objectively, if Neanderthals were smarter than modern Homo Sapiens, then why did they die out? Surely if they were smarter, they would have been able to outcompete us?

[muawiyah]

BTW, this is all new stuff. Recent advances in obtaining good DNA from old bones are making this possible.

[bunkerhill7]

One very busy neanderthal guy fertilized millions of homo sapien women.

[muawiyah]

Having more and better memory is always good.

However, brain size does matter even today. Let's say you are born without a brain ~ your life expectancy is going to be pretty short. Or, you could be like Joe Biden and have brain surgery 3 times, and you'll pay for even the slightest disturbances ~ and we can see that almost every day recently. Guy is deteriorating before our eyes.

The point of this article is that Neanderthals did not die out ~ they were absorbed into our current genome.

[varmintman]

we are neanderthals.

This stuff has been posted recently.

Once again, this is what Neanderthals looked like:

Image courtesy of www.themandus.org

There has never been any mixing of human stock and THAT and the people making such claims are suffering from a breakdown in basic logic.

There is terribly little genetic variation in the human race compared to all but one or two other mammals and that is due to some fairly recent genetic bottleneck which reduced the human population to a very small number of individuals, possibly less than fifty or a hundred.

If there ever had been any human/Neanderthal crossbreeding, it would have happened either before or after the bottleneck. I think even the logically impaired/challenged would have to agree to that...

If human/Neanderthal crossbreeding happened before the bottleneck, you'd not read these claims of whites and East Asians having Neanderthal genes but Africans not having it; we'd all have them. If any human group had mixed with Neanderthals AFTER that bottleneck, the variation between that group and all others (humans) would be gigantic.

The only conclusion which is tenable is that there has never been any mixing of humans and Neanderthals, and that any similar genes anybody finds are just artifacts of same or similar low-level components being used by an original designer or designers.

There is zero possibility of humans and apes interbreeding. Joseph Stalin's scientists tried to create a race of super workers by crossing apes and humans in the 1930s and none of the subjects even survived. Even the idiot commies recognized the project as a failure.

[varmintman]

In other words, there are distinct genetic differences between African and non-African populations, and these differences include genes that affect IQ.

Maybe you could tell us why the greatest poet ever to write in any IndoEuropean language (Pushkin) was a man of color or how his great grandfather, a pure African kid given to Tsar Peter by the sultan of Turkey became a major minister in Tsar Peter's court, or how Scott Joplin became the greatest American composer of piano music, or how.....

Science and bullshit don't really mix well.

[varmintman]

You might want to look at post 29 as well. The Neanderthal was a bipedal and 100% carniverous ice-age ape with an 8” fur coat and huge eyes for nocturnal hunting. The sum total of genetic content from Neanderthals in modern humans is zero.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

"Genesis 19:30"

A strange and disturbing reading.

[FroggyTheGremlim]

"The sum total of genetic content from Neanderthals in modern humans is zero."

Oh yeah?

[Vanders9]

Memory is great, but it is reasoning that sets us apart from the beasts. Sure brain size must be of some importance, but the link to intelligence is not a straightforward progression. As to Neanderthals being absorbed into our genome - well yes, it's a logical possibility, but saying it did happen is pure supposition on their part. 1% t 3% is hardly statistically significant, especially on a sample of exactly 8 people, two of whom didnt register anything.

[PapaBear3625]

Maybe you could tell us why the greatest poet ever to write in any IndoEuropean language (Pushkin) was a man of color

There is a thing called a Distribution Curve. In any subgroup there are people at the right end of the curve, people in the middle, and people at the left end. The highest-IQ people of subgroup A are going to be smarter than the average person in subgroup B, even if the median IQ of subgroup B is more than the median for A.

[PapaBear3625]

May be coincidence, but those with Neanderthal heritage are advanced technological societies.

The common assumption is that Neanderthals were stupid. Stupid people don't survive in cold climates. Mistakes are more likely to result in your death.

[PapaBear3625]

I believe they were talking about mitochondrial DNA, and found no evidence of interbreeding, Studies of other parts of the DNA show substantial evidence of interbreeding. I think mitochondrial has some unique properties with respect to ancestry that should be considered when analyzing ancestral interbreeding.

Mitochondrial DNA is passed directly from mother to child, with no contribution from the father's DNA. The DNA in the nucleus is half from the father, half from the mother. If no Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA is found, that indicates that any inter-racial mating involved Neanderthal men mating CroMag women (or at least, mating which resulted in surviving progeny).

[PapaBear3625]

Once again, this is what Neanderthals looked like:

So says Danny Vendramini, a writer with whose credentials are hard for me to find after a a bit of searching. A bio pages says "Australian born, Danny Vendramini had successful careers as a theater and film director and scriptwriter before turning to evolutionary biology".

Reconstructions by people with actual science backgrounds have Neanderthals looking not too different from us. Give one a shave, shower, and modern clothes and you would probably walk pass him on the street without thinking him that unusual.

[varmintman]

Vendramini's reconstructions are consistent with the DNA evidence: none of the others are.

The claim that they had the usual ice-age fur coats is consistent with the total lack of Neanderthal needles; creatures with fur coats don't need clothing or needles.

Vendramini's depiction of the huge nocturnal predator eyes is consistent with the huge Neanderthal eye sockets and the same is true of the Neanderthal nasal area. Attempts to draw a more human-like Neanderthal with eyes and noses the sizes they'd have to be look outlandish:

The basic reality is that the images you're used to seeing are artefacts of fiction.

[varmintman]

Stupid people don't survive in cold climates.

If you have an 8" fur coat it's easier...