A Neandertal with an excellent tool.
And redheads?
A Neandertal with an excellent tool.
Red hair a legacy of Neanderthal man (The Sunday Mail - p.22. 22/04/2001)
Red hair may be the legacy of Neanderthal man. Oxford University scientists think the ginger gene, which is responsible for red hair, fair skin and freckles, could be up to 100,000 years old. They say their discovery points to the gene having originated in Neanderthal man, who lived in Europe for 260,000 years before the ancestors of modern man arrived from Africa about 40,000 years ago.
Research leader Dr. Rosalind Harding said: "It is certainly possible that red hair comes from the Neanderthals." The Neanderthals are generally thought to have been a less intelligent species than modern man, Homo sapiens. They were taller and stockier, but with shorter limbs, bigger faces and noses, receding chins and low foreheads. They had a basic, guttural vocabulary of about 70 words, probably at the level of today's two-year-old, and they never developed a full language, art or culture.
They settled in Europe about 300,000 years ago, but 40,000 years ago, a wave of immigrants - our forefathers, Cro-Magnon Man - emerged from Africa and the two species co-existed for 10,000 years. Dr Harding's research - presented at a London conference of the Human Genome Organization during the week - suggests the two species interbred for the ginger gene to survive. Dr Harding said redheads should not be offended by being to the primitive Neanderthals. "If it's possible that we had ancestry from Neanderthals, then it says that Neanderthals were more similar to us than we previously thought," she said.
Scientists at the Weatherall Institute of Molecular Medicine, at Oxford University, compared the human ginger gene with the equivalent in chimpanzees. They found 16 differences, or mutations, between the two genes. Since an early version of the gene developed in chimps roughly 10 million years ago, the scientists estimated there has been one mutation every 625,000 years. They used a computer to calculate how long it must have taken for the mutation responsible for the ginger hair to have passed down through the generations and become so common among Western people.
They concluded the mutation was older than 50,000 years and could be as old as 100,000 years. Some scientists believe Neanderthals were ultra-humans - able to adapt to extremes of climate and surviving for 272,000 years. But they became extinct about 28,000 years ago, outwitted for territory and food by the more socially advanced Cro-Magnons.
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