Posted on 07/19/2011 8:40:48 AM PDT by Red Badger
Some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals and is found exclusively in people outside Africa, according to an international team of researchers led by Damian Labuda of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Montreal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center. The research was published in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution.
"This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred," says Dr. Labuda. His team places the timing of such intimate contacts and/or family ties early on, probably at the crossroads of the Middle East.
Neanderthals, whose ancestors left Africa about 400,000 to 800,000 years ago, evolved in what is now mainly France, Spain, Germany and Russia, and are thought to have lived until about 30,000 years ago. Meanwhile, early modern humans left Africa about 80,000 to 50,000 years ago. The question on everyone's mind has always been whether the physically stronger Neanderthals, who possessed the gene for language and may have played the flute, were a separate species or could have interbred with modern humans. The answer is yes, the two lived in close association.
"In addition, because our methods were totally independent of Neanderthal material, we can also conclude that previous results were not influenced by contaminating artifacts," adds Dr. Labuda.
Dr. Labuda and his team almost a decade ago had identified a piece of DNA (called a haplotype) in the human X chromosome that seemed different and whose origins they questioned. When the Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010, they quickly compared 6000 chromosomes from all parts of the world to the Neanderthal haplotype. The Neanderthal sequence was present in peoples across all continents, except for sub-Saharan Africa, and including Australia.
"There is little doubt that this haplotype is present because of mating with our ancestors and Neanderthals. This is a very nice result, and further analysis may help determine more details," says Dr. Nick Patterson, of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, a major researcher in human ancestry who was not involved in this study.
"Dr. Labuda and his colleagues were the first to identify a genetic variation in non-Africans that was likely to have come from an archaic population. This was done entirely without the Neanderthal genome sequence, but in light of the Neanderthal sequence, it is now clear that they were absolutely right!" adds Dr. David Reich, a Harvard Medical School geneticist, one of the principal researchers in the Neanderthal genome project.
So, speculates Dr. Labuda, did these exchanges contribute to our success across the world? "Variability is very important for long-term survival of a species," says Dr. Labuda. "Every addition to the genome can be enriching." An interesting match, indeed.
Neanderthal child.
I'll have the curried homo sapiens tongue, with mango salsa, please.
And black Americans are interbred with whites, so they will in all probability have this haplotype as well.
That is the modern pronunciation. A century ago the th had the other pronunciation in German.
I vote for the non-Neanderthal guys. They must have been the inventor of beer goggles so they would mate with those Neanderthal gals.
No real scientist is going to say humans aren't primates.
When a kid we had a perverted dog that raped our tomcat.
Noah was described as a man 'perfect in his generations', but no such mention for his kin.
If you can make the case to the right people in the right places that giving your “group” special privileges will somehow give communists more power in America,
you might have a shot at it.
I hadn't heard that. A cursory search turns up no reference. Do you have a pointer you could share?
Didn’t Homo Sapiens originate in what is now modern-day Iraq?
Damn knuckledraggers....
“...non-Africans are part Neanderthal...”
My wife has been saying that about me for years.
Had any anthropologist used the name Neanderthal, as an African characteristic they would have been ostracized and demonized. One is not supposed to attribute anything but a sort of Harry Belafonte, Sydney Portier Hollywood image of the black people. I should include the lovely Halle Berry.
The isolation of the Haplo Group or Haplotype only recently, enables entrepeneurs to trace one's nomadic ancestors. They get a swab from inside the cheek and then purport by a series of coloured dots trace one's long line of wandering.
Somehow Wikipedia does not tell me of the eminent anthopologist who was hooted and jeered at by college students in the 1960's. I do not want to be paranoid, but it seems to have vanished, that information. After thirty years of research, he just happened to think that the four groups of homo sapiens evolved in four different areas of the universe,
All he had to have said, was that the four groups that he had so carefully studied, all came from our old girl friend Lucy in Africa. Still, lots of interest here. We have learnt that Neanderthal looked after the aged and infirm (so it is said). One up for that species!
some members of my large Irish family look a whole lot like that Neanderthal child.
How does that concept fit with science documented in Charles Darwin's work "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." published in 1859??
The first such fossil was discovered in 1856 in the Neander Thal, or "Neander Valley" in German, and became known as "Neanderthal Man". In 1904, German spelling was regularized to be more consistent with pronunciation, and "thal" became "tal". In 1952 Henri Vallois proposed that it should be spelt as the Germans spell it, and the "-tal" spelling has become widely used since then. The "-thal" spelling persists most strongly in England.http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/spelling.html'Neanderthal' can be pronounced with either a 't' or a 'th' sound - both are acceptable and widely used in English. The German pronunciation, however, has always been 't' (German has no 'th' sound).
I don’t think it’s safe to comment on this thread, so I shall refrain.
Mmhmm...
“Every addition to the genome can be enriching.”
Or not.
If he suggests that there are races within homo sapiens sapiens, then I guess what I’m saying won’t fit.
And if so, I couldn’t care less.
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