[WRhine]

There are regions of the world, like the Middle East and Portugal, where some fossils look as if they could have been some kind of mix between archaic and modern people," said Rebecca Cann, a geneticist at the University of Hawaii.

I doubt this is the case. Not to say that a certain level of perversion didn't exist then as it does today. Nature seems to put up some strong walls to gene exchanges between species. Look at the Feline family. They are all cats but there are no known crosses between leopards and lions or tigers.

In my opinion the human race staved out and killed all other competing hominoids for the simple reason of survival and that we were better.

[blam]

Links to articles about the Hybrid Neanderthal Child

[Bernard Marx]

They are all cats but there are no known crosses between leopards and lions or tigers.

Not true. Ligers (lion/tiger mixes) exist. Years ago there was one named Shasta I used to visit with my kids at Hogle Zoo in Salt Lake City. They're not abundant but definitely exist.

I just reread your statement and maybe I misunderstood it. Are you saying leopards can't mate with either lions or tigers? Maybe so. But lions and tigers get it on productively.

[VietVet]

"They are all cats but there are no known crosses between leopards and lions or tigers."

I myself have cross breeds between tigers and lions. They were, of course, bred in captivity (wild lions today are all almost exclusively from Africa, while tigers are from Asia), but the first ones occured by accident: a male and a female of different species penned together because it was thought nothing could happen. Later crosses were done deliberately.

And of course, there is the well known cross between the horse and the donkey, the mule, and lesser known cross-breeding between horses and zebras.

Not to mention the crosses between dogs and wolves. I've seen and touched one of those, too.

But what this latest evidence means to me is that for all their apparent differences, the division of the family of Man into separate species, Erectus, Neadertalis, Sapiens, is artificial, and we should rather consider them as one species, which has changed morphologically through time, but not that much genetically.

[VietVet]

"They are all cats but there are no known crosses between leopards and lions or tigers."

I myself have seen cross breeds between tigers and lions. They were, of course, bred in captivity (wild lions today are all almost exclusively from Africa, while tigers are from Asia), but the first ones occured by accident: a male and a female of different species penned together because it was thought nothing could happen. Later crosses were done deliberately.

And of course, there is the well known cross between the horse and the donkey, the mule, and lesser known cross-breeding between horses and zebras.

Not to mention the crosses between dogs and wolves. I've seen and touched one of those, too.

But what this latest evidence means to me is that for all their apparent differences, the division of the family of Man into separate species, Erectus, Neadertalis, Sapiens, is artificial, and we should rather consider them as one species, which has changed morphologically through time, but not that much genetically.