Neanderthal Genome to be Sequenced

Aneurysm writes "A project launched by the Max-Planck Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology will sequence the genome of Neanderthal man. The sequencing project may find out important information, such as whether they cross-bred with modern humans. Previous DNA tests have tested this theory, and found it unlikely. Could this be the start of a Pleistocene park?"

Comments

I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[nizo]

From wikipedia: Also, while they [Neanderthals] had weapons, they were not used as projectile weapons. They had spears in the sense of a long wooden shaft with an arrow head firmly attached to it, but spears were first used as projectiles by Homo sapiens.

Three guesses why they are gone and we aren't? It would be truely ironic if we did indeed clone a Neanderthal and thus bring back a sentient species that most likely was wiped out in large part because of us.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[meringuoid]

It would be truely ironic if we did indeed clone a Neanderthal and thus bring back a sentient species that most likely was wiped out in large part because of us.

They're extinct because of us, but probably not because our ancestors murdered them all, in character for H. Sapiens though that would certainly be. At the Skhul cave in Israel there's pretty good evidence for moderns and Neanderthals living alongside each other for thousands of years in the same cave system.

More likely the Neanderthals were just outcompeted for resources by our ancestors, as the ice ages came and went, and gradually went extinct. Not that I'd be surprised if someone found a mass grave of Neanderthals with distinctly modern-looking arrowheads in their skulls... after all, our species does enjoy killing.

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[cheesybagel]

That is one theory for the extinction, that homo sapiens killed them. Here is another theory which I think may have some merit:

One of prehistory's big questions is: Why did the Neanderthals become extinct at roughly the same moment that Homo sapiens arrived from Africa? At Sopena we may learn if there were significant differences in behaviors that gave an edge to modern humans. Could it have been diet or the way they processed food?

Yes. We look for remains like bones, charcoals from their fires and tools. From this we can learn how their diet changed over time. It's like we're digging through prehistoric domestic waste. Isotopic analysis of Neanderthal bones shows that they were almost entirely carnivores.

They mostly ate meat. And you need carbohydrates. We're finding that modern humans, coming from Africa, had a diet much more variable than Neanderthals. It's always been thought about the Neanderthal extinction that Homo sapiens appeared in Europe and outcompeted Neanderthals. But it's not so easy. Forty thousand years ago was the last ice age. In that time, many animals became extinct. If Neanderthals survived on mammal meat, and those animals were nowhere to be found, they were in trouble. And then you had modern man coming in from Africa, where there weren't seasons. They were eating seafood and vegetables and grasses, even fat extracted from bones by boiling them. It is possible this gave them an edge. We may find out.

In short, we survived because we had a more varied diet than they had. It may also explain why Neanderthals were taller than we are (they ate more meat), and why people have been getting taller from the XXth century onwards contrary to what was expected (inexpensive meat is more commonly available).

Re:I hope they clone a Neanderthal

[BerntB]

Check out the author William Calvin.

He is a brain researchers that write about (amongs other things) the evolution of human intelligence. (He even wrote a book about Neanderthals.) One of his theses is that throwing might have been a driver for human intelligence.

If I remember correctly...
To hit something you have to send more or less a symphony of nerve signals down the arm without waiting for feedback. Because the exact time of release is shorter than the average time random wait for nerve signals, they even have to go parallell and be averaged in the muscles.

Then there is distance measurements that needs to be done well in the visual system. Etc.

In short, it is a complex problem that needs lots of evolved specialized circuitry.

(I always wondered about fast running animals, here. The way they set their feet down while running should be as complex a problem as throwing? But those that run fast on the planet don't have hands.)

I think I can safely say that Calvin thinks the Neanderthals would have been hard pressed to learn to throw.

What's left of them?

[Jafafa Hots]

Some scientists believe that homo sapiens replaced Neaderthals, with the Neanderthals dying off completely.
Some believe we interbred with them and "absorbed" them.

This may be able to tell us which is true. I wonder though, if we do find out that we absorbed them through interbreeding, will this eventually lead to discrimination against those of us who still harbor "caveman genes?"

ahhh

[ImaLamer]

There is a big difference between knowing how to do something and doing it well. Monkeys (APES!!!) can throw stuff, but they don't really hit their targets often. For apes, it is more of a bluffing technique - "look, I'm thowing this towards you".

There has been a lot of research into the theory that one reason we made it out of our ancient roots is because we threw so well. Not only could we throw rocks and later spears, but we could actually hit our targets. Of course we weren't always that great, and those who weren't died... you know the rest.

Basically, one author put it like this 'Is pitching an evolved skill?'

Wrist Structure

[richyoung]

I read somewhere (Sci. Am.?) about someone trying to teach primates flint-knapping and throwing skills. Turns out that they understand the usefulness of the blade fine and try to create them when they need one, but they're hampered by the skeletal structure of the wrist, which is much stouter because of the need to support body weight while walking. They can't get the little wrist flick that we can that ads so much to throwing. The best an ape can hope for is chucking a rock hard against another one, and looking for sharp edges in the resulting random fragments.

So our ability to walk upright gave us the ability to use projectile weapons (i.e., hunt things faster than we are) AND create edged tools/weapons AND spark fires. Not a bad deal, IMO.