Scientists Map Neanderthal Genome

goran72 writes "In a development which could reveal the links between modern humans and their prehistoric cousins, scientists said they have mapped a first draft of the Neanderthal genome. Researchers used DNA fragments extracted from three Croatian fossils to map out more than 60 percent of the entire Neanderthal genome by sequencing three billion bases of DNA."

Comments

Wonder where the stories about trolls come from?

[viking80]

Wonder where the stories about trolls come from?

what if

[mateomiguel]

what if it turns out that the genome is the same as the human genome? Talk about wasted effort...

Re:what if

[arogier]

Hey, maybe the zoo can take care of my student loans if I have enough neanderthal markers in my personal genome.

Re:what if

[BadAnalogyGuy]

You should not be in the zoo. No, you should not be in the zoo. With all the things that you can do, the circus is the place for you.

Re:what if

[Forty Two Tenfold]

Not wasted, because you still learn something.

Re:what if

[BadAnalogyGuy]

Interesting. What would we learn? That the fossil record which we believe shows a divergence in the primate family tree (and subsequently label "evolution") may not actually be showing divergence of species at all? That the claims of speciation among primates doesn't happen?

That *gasp* evolution doesn't happen?

No, you'd better hope that there is a difference between the human genome and the Neanderthal genome.

Re:what if

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey, maybe the zoo can take care of my student loans if I have enough neanderthal markers in my personal genome.

You will lose your "Human" Rights. And therea ano No "Neanderthal" Rights in the Constitution.

Re:what if

[mrxak]

Anyone who's seen a neanderthal skull knows that something different was going on there. Humans just don't look like that. The bone structures are all quite different. Now, obviously it's going to be close, closer than us and the chimpanzees, but there will be some differences there. If there weren't, it wouldn't disprove evolution, it would disprove genetics.

Re:what if

[mrxak]

That said, assuming you don't bite somebody or have some kind of crazy infectious disease, you'd probably be better off not being classified as human. Sure, you could be considered property like a slave, but you wouldn't have to pay taxes or be responsible for a whole variety of crimes. Heck, PETA would probably make sure you had more rights than humans.

Re:what if

[peragrin]

Where do you think bearded ladies come from.

Other than slashdot basement dwellers.

Re:what if

[jw3]

We already know that this is not the case.

Re:what if

[StuckInSyrup]

Well, it would mean that the whole science of genetics and molecular biology is completely wrong. It would be the same as if someone would discover that electricity doesn't exist.

Re:what if

[OeLeWaPpErKe]

Since humans are not descendant from neanderthals that would be staggeringly unlikely. It would be like 2 nieces having genetically identical offspring : unlikely in the extreme. Only a human and a neanderthal aren't disconnected by 2 generations, but by a few thousand.

Actually during the time neanderthals lived alongside the real human ancestors, they were the smarter species of the two, so recreating a live neanderthal would be an interesting experience indeed ... Just how smart are they ? Would they talk (most monkeys have at least a limited language, so probably they would talk). What sort of languages could they learn ? We've seen their bones, but do they look like gorilla's in real life (e.g. it's known most dinosaurs had feathers, so by looking only at bones you can make some pretty staggering mistakes) ? Would they be strong ?

Would they be dumber ? Smarter perhaps ? Especially smarter would be interesting. And if they turn against us ? Well we fought(/starved*) them to extinction already once before, didn't we ?

* starved being the "peaceful alternative" way for evolution to work. It appears that little actual fighting was done to kill neanderthals, we (or someone else ? perhaps some animal ?) just stole so much of their food they died out.

Re:what if

[smooth wombat]

No, you'd better hope that there is a difference between the human genome and the Neanderthal genome.

According to what was said on NPR this morning, there is less than a 1% difference between the human genome and the neanderthal genome.

The fact that there is a difference at all shows we and they were two distinct species. This doesn't even take into consideration the 2-3% difference between humans and chimpanzees.

Re:what if

[Raffaello]

By definition, two species are distinct if they cannot breed and produce fertile offspring. The whole point of this research is to determine whether this is true or not. So this:

The fact that there is a difference at all shows we and they were two distinct species.

misses the point entirely. You and I have different dna. Does the fact that there is a difference at all make us separate species? I very much doubt it.

The whole question being researched is precisely this: how much difference was there between neanderthals and modern humans, and was it enough of a difference that they could not have interbred. It is the inability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring, not the presence of any difference at all, that determines separate species status.

Re:what if

[Raffaello]

Actually during the time neanderthals lived alongside the real human ancestors, they were the smarter species of the two

Not so. During the time when both Modern Humans and Neanderthals coexisted, Modern Humans, by and large, showed evidence of the more sophisticated material culture (tools, art,etc.). Maybe you're thinking of the fact that, on average, Neanderthals had larger brains? Larger brain size does not = more intelligent. It's quite likely that Neanderthals had larger brains for the same reason that they had short, thick limbs: an evolved adaptation to the extreme cold of glacial eurasia. Neanderthal body proportions were most likely an example of Allen's Rule.

Re:what if

[smooth wombat]

how much difference was there between neanderthals and modern humans, and was it enough of a difference that they could not have interbred.

According to the researcher they had on NPR this morning, that question has not been answered. Here is the NPR link. The third paragraph talks about the divergence between humans and neanderthals. The next to last paragraph mentions the question of interbreeding. You of course can listen to the entire broadcast by following the link at the top of the article.

You and I have different dna.

That is true as individuals, but as we are both humans, we have the same overall genome and so could breed (assuming male-female of course). With neanderthals having a slightly different genome than humans, there could be enough of a difference to not have allowed that to happen, especially since we and they diverged to two different branches just as we and the great apes diverged even earlier. Obviously, those in the know will have to make that determination.

Re:what if

[MightyYar]

Plus, "species" is sort of a fuzzy and debated term with lots of funny edge cases - much to the consternation of people who need to label everything :)

Re:what if

[Krondor]

The fact that there is a difference at all shows we and they were two distinct species.

I'm no geneticist, but it seems that couldn't be true. Wouldn't every evolutionary change signify a change in the genome?

At what point do you define a new species.. now 1% is probably enough to classify as that, but what about 0.01%?

Re:what if

[pnewhook]

Anyone who's seen a neanderthal skull knows that something different was going on there. Humans just don't look like that. The bone structures are all quite different.

Of course if you looked at a Chihuahua and a Great Dane you would think something was going on there too.

Re:what if

[MightyMartian]

But, of course, we don't see the differences in the genome that we do between humans and Neandertals. The lack of any "African" genes in Neandertals (and by African, I mean from the migrations of modern H. sapiens out of Africa), despite Neandertals and modern humans living in the same areas for thousands of years suggests very heavily that if there was any mating between the two groups, it did not produce fertile offspring. That would very heavily suggest that Neandertals and modern humans are different species.

Re:what if

[smooth wombat]

At what point do you define a new species.. now 1% is probably enough to classify as that, but what about 0.01%?

Your guess is as good as mine. I'm not a geneticist, or any -ist for that matter, so I have no answer. However, since the chimpanzees 2-3% discrepancy is enough to differentiate it from us, it would stand to reason that a 1% difference would also be sufficient. It's when you get to fractions of a percent that things get muddled.

However, here is something to ponder. Since we know evolution is an ongoing process, at some point in the future will humans diverge into two or more different branches? Will genetic drift/mutation/whatever, occur to such an extent that like the one episode of Enterprise where there were two groups of humanoids living on the same planet but one was suffering from a disease while the other wasn't, will there come a time when there will be two distinct groups of humans?

Re:what if

[Scrameustache]

No, you'd better hope that there is a difference between the human genome and the Neanderthal genome.

According to what was said on NPR this morning, there is less than a 1% difference between the human genome and the neanderthal genome.

The fact that there is a difference at all shows we and they were two distinct species.

The genetic difference between human individuals is 1%.
I guess you're not in the same species as me, monkey-boy.

Re:what if

[Hal_Porter]

I once worked at a software company that was very concerned about binary compatibility breaks between different APIs.

Normally as you develop, you make changes and binary compatibility breaks all the time - e.g. add a parameter to a function and you have a situation where both the caller and the callee must both use the new scheme or the old one. Mixing is in general a bad idea, though you can get away with it in a limited set of circumstances. Of course if you want to produce a platform which third parties can use, you want to make sure that you can keep developing and make sure that old interfaces are preserved unchanged while new ones are added.

The thing is, this break in binary compatibility must be analogous to what happens when species separate. At that point individuals from species A can't breed with individuals from species B and have fertile offspring (which is the modern definition of species) because their DNA is essentially incompatible.

Re:what if

[Forty Two Tenfold]

I think the crucial difference that would render the cross-breed infertile is not the content of the genome but rather the organization thereof. Namely - the number and structure of chromosomes.

Re:what if

[Forty Two Tenfold]

And not only chromosomes but orientation of the genetic "script" in the DNA thread. The "script" is not only transcribable/translatable/expressed content, which itself can be quite dispersed but also regulatory fragments (which affect the gene expression).

Re:what if

[nusuth]

will there come a time when there will be two distinct groups of humans?

It is almost impossible now, because there is very little genetic isolation. You can't have different species when idividuals mix genes much faster than mutations accumulate. It may happen it current conditions change drasticaly. Eg. if humans colonize other starts without finding FTL or humans cannot recover from a major, planet-wide disaster.

Re:what if

[Web Goddess]

From the NY Times article An early inference that can be drawn from the new findings, which were announced Thursday in Leipzig, Germany, is that there is no significant trace of Neanderthal genes in modern humans. This confounds the speculation that modern humans could have interbred with Neanderthals, thus benefiting from the genes that adapted the Neanderthals to the cold climate that prevailed in Europe in last ice age, which ended 10,000 years ago. Researchers have not ascertained if human genes entered the Neanderthal population.

Interbreeding between humans and neanderthal? No.

Re:what if

[MightyMartian]

Differing chromosome numbers do not automatically mean infertility. Domestic horses have 64 chromosomes while Przewalski's horse has 66, and they can successfully interbreed.

Re:what if

[MightyMartian]

However, here is something to ponder. Since we know evolution is an ongoing process, at some point in the future will humans diverge into two or more different branches? Will genetic drift/mutation/whatever, occur to such an extent that like the one episode of Enterprise where there were two groups of humanoids living on the same planet but one was suffering from a disease while the other wasn't, will there come a time when there will be two distinct groups of humans?

This would require reproductive isolation, and no population of modern humans has been completely isolated for more than about 10,000 years (the big example are the Tasmanian Aborigines, who were cut off from Australia by the Bass Strait at the end of the last Ice Age). As long as there is some transfer of genes, various populations will remain interfertile. We will continue to evolve, but the genetic differences will never become so substantial as to create a reproductively isolated group of humans.

This is precisely what has happened with C. lupus. Despite the careful breeding of several thousand years of domestic dogs, there has been enough interbreeding between wolves and other wild dogs and domestic dogs to assure that, for all the morphological changes, they remain the same species.

Re:what if

[Anonymous Coward]

Differing chromosome numbers do not automatically mean infertility. Domestic horses have 64 chromosomes while Przewalski's horse has 66, and they can successfully interbreed.

Agreed. That's why I also mentioned the structure. It might be that domestic horse's chromosome split into an equivalent pair in Przewalski's genome. Or it might be simple duplication of a whole chromosome. But again - since I lack data, this is just my hypothesis.

Re:what if

[gtall]

Well, being a student of human nature, I can assure you there was interspecies mating going on.

Re:what if

[wastedlife]

Can brain density vary, and if so could it have an effect? They may have had a larger brain cavity, but could the actual brain have been less dense? I watched a documentary a while back (I think it was on the History Channel), where they explained that the intelligence of Modern Humans was likely improved because they added fish to their diets, compared to the Neanderthal branch that had migrated north already. Since they were more advanced with their tools, weaponry, and behavior, they easily out-competed (or killed off) the Neanderthals.

Re:what if

[MightyMartian]

I would imagine, all in all, that human and Neandertal brains were the same density. Let's remember, here, that the arrival of modern-looking humans (that is, humans that are morphologically the same as us) predates by tens of thousands of years the arrival of humans that behaved in a modern fashion. Prior to that, modern-looking humans didn't behave all that differently from their forebearers; the toolkits remained static for thousands of years, little evidence of symbolic thinking; behaviors key to how we classify modern humans. In fact, we didn't really behave all that differently from Neandertals, despite being morphologically distinct.

Somewhere around 50,000 to 60,000 years ago there was some sort of neurological watershed moment where we suddenly modern-behaving humans; the rise of art, of symbolism, of ritual, rapid cultural advancement, technological breakthroughs at ever-increasing speeds. With prior hominids, tool kits could stay static for hundreds of thousands of years, but the rise of modern humans, we see the rise of agriculture within about 40,000 years of the rise of the first fully modern (physiologically and behaviorally) humans.

As is often pointed out, the issue isn't necessarily brain size, but rather the wiring. The difference between pre-modern and modern humans, even where, morphologically, there's little different, is probably some very subtle neurological changes. Sadly, those are the kinds of changes that don't get fossilized, and there may not be an obvious genetic component, perhaps a slight mutation in some regulatory function, we just don't know. That may be the one value of mapping the genomes of extinct hominids where we can.

Re:what if

[Anonymous Coward]

Plus, "species" is sort of a fuzzy and debated term with lots of funny edge cases - much to the consternation of people who need to label everything :)

The labelers just make up a new label, like ring species, and move on.

Re:what if

[wastedlife]

I wonder if there is some way to mathematically measure human intelligence at certain points of time and graph this data. I think it would be pretty amazing if this showed an non-linear growth that could explain the explosion of advancements beginning then.

Re:what if

[Guido von Guido]

By definition, two species are distinct if they cannot breed and produce fertile offspring. The whole point of this research is to determine whether this is true or not. So this:

The fact that there is a difference at all shows we and they were two distinct species.

misses the point entirely. You and I have different dna. Does the fact that there is a difference at all make us separate species? I very much doubt it.

The whole question being researched is precisely this: how much difference was there between neanderthals and modern humans, and was it enough of a difference that they could not have interbred. It is the inability to interbreed and produce fertile offspring, not the presence of any difference at all, that determines separate species status.

The inability to breed and produce fertile offspring can also come about because of non-genetic incompatibilities. For instance, lions and tigers can interbreed and produce fertile offspring. However, it doesn't happen in the wild (I don't think their habitats overlap, although I could be wrong). I'm sure there are other possible mechanisms depending on the species.

Presumably over time they'll presumably lose the ability to interbreed over time due to genetic drift and other changes in the genome. According to the Wikipedia article on ligers, anyway, ligers and tigons are not terribly fertile now as it is.

Re:what if

[MightyMartian]

I don't know what the graph would show that we don't already know. The best theory, from my limited understanding, is fully-formed modern language. Full language would allow for the passing on of complex cultural and technical information in much more detail than would be possible for some more simplistic proto-language http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-language_(glottogony) . It's the capacity of being able to create a complex culture that could itself be transmitted that, in my opinion, made the difference. Prior to that, we see some glimmers among Neandertals and other later members of Homo that suggest some basic capacity, but even the best of these could not produce the magnificent cave paintings ascribed to Cro Magnons, or other art we see in Africa, Asia and Oceania from that period. Fully-formed languages with full-blown syntaxes, verbal tenses and those other facets that permit founding concepts in time and space, allowing easy communication and planning in individuals and among the members of the larger society gave H. sapiens an incredible survival edge, and one that Neandertals simply could not compete against it.

Re:what if

[Beezlebub33]

Citation needed.

Consider, for example:
http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih1/Genetic/guide/activity2-1.htm

It says 0.1% between individuals.

And so does http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_variation

Re:what if

[mrsquid0]

I recently heard a theory that humans may have had small-scale agriculture long before the neolithic revolution, but that it occurred on such a small scale that it did not significantly affect human culture. The idea is that agriculture did not catch on before about 8000 BC because the world's climate was not suitable for sustained agriculture. Year to year variations were much larger than they are now, which could have made it impossible to sustain communities based on agriculture.

I am not sure what to make of this. It's a radical hypothesis, and very hard to prove or disprove. One strike against it is that there is no archaeological evidence. However, if mesolithic agriculture was small-scale enough, and intermittent enough, there may be no evidence of it left.

Re:what if

[MightyMartian]

I haven't heard this one. I do know that there's some evidence that Neolithic groups may have been practicing semi-agricultural techniques, like controlled burns, to foster the growth of valuable grain crops. It wouldn't surprise me that there may have been some more involved agriculture further back, but I think the chief divide would be the amount of selective breeding that went on with various grain crops and major livestock animals (cows, sheep, goats, chickens and so forth). I doubt very much that small populations experimenting with agriculture would have had as much success at this as the first major agricultural experiments at the end of the last ice age.

At any rate, one thing we can be pretty certain of; Neandertals did not practice agriculture, nor would the first anatomically modern humans, who were still basically nomadic hunter-gatherers, just like earlier hominids and Neandertals.

Re:what if

[mrsquid0]

I suspect that the first attempts at agriculture were probably ad hoc gardens of medicinal plants. It would not surprise me if this was happening 20,000 or more years. I would also not be surprised if Neanderthals were doing it too. However, I agree that it is very unlikely that either species were practicing anything even vaguely resembling modern agriculture during the Ice Age.

Re:what if

[holmstar]

No, they could have interbred with the result being infertile offspring.

Re:what if

[Arterion]

Here is a strange question that crosses my mind. Assuming there were other homo genus species still around, and we couldn't actually product offspring with them, do you think there would still be sexual activity between them? Or was there back when there were multiple species from the homo genus?

If they were still around, would be be a taboo? How different would it be from something like bestiality?

A strange question, but I can't help but wonder about it. I mean, in fantasy literature, elves and human often have sexual relations, though in most fantasy literature they can produce offspring, even if it's rare. On the other hand, dwarves usually can't, but then again, most authors don't explore elf/dwarf or human/dwarf affairs (with a few notable exceptions, which are somewhat taboo.)

Re:what if

[ultranova]

During the time when both Modern Humans and Neanderthals coexisted, Modern Humans, by and large, showed evidence of the more sophisticated material culture (tools, art,etc.). Maybe you're thinking of the fact that, on average, Neanderthals had larger brains? Larger brain size does not = more intelligent.

You have more sophisticated material culture than any generation before you. Does this mean that you are smarter than all of your ancestors? Of course not. It simply means that you've inherited the intellectual output of who knows how many human generations. So, for all we know, the average Neanderthal could be smarter than the average modern-day human, just less likely to copy ideas from around it.

In any case, we seem to be unable to measure the intelligence of currently living humans in any but the most arbitrary way, or even come up with a workable definition for what intelligence actually is, so I kinda doubt we can say anything about that of humanlike beings long dead.

Re:what if

[rts008]

This is not my area of expertise, so YMMV...

As far as I know, the surface area to mass ratio has more to do with it than density per se.

Someone with more knowledge can step in here at any time....

 

Re:what if

[Anonymous Coward]

What do you get if you cross a mastiff male with a chihuahua bitch, can they breed? and if those animals could question it, would they consider themselves as different species? after all physically they look very different

Re:what if

[Scrameustache]

It says 0.1% between individuals.

And so does http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_genetic_variation

When copy number variation is included, human to human genetic variation is estimated to be at least 0.5% (99.5% similarity).[7][8][9][10][11]

# ^ Genetic Structure, Self-Identified Race/Ethnicity, and Confounding in Case-Control Association Studies by Hua Tang, Tom Quertermous, Beatriz Rodriguez, Sharon L. R. Kardia, Xiaofeng Zhu, Andrew Brown, James S. Pankow, Michael A. Province, Steven C. Hunt, Eric Boerwinkle, Nicholas J. Schork, and Neil J. Risch Am J Hum Genet. 2005 February; 76(2): 268â"275.
# ^ Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race and disease by Neil Risch, Esteban Burchard, Elad Ziv and Hua Tang] Genome Biology 2002, 3:comment
# ^ Noah A. Rosenberg, Jonathan K. Pritchard, James L. Weber, Howard M. Cann, Kenneth K. Kidd, Lev A. Zhivotovsky, Marcus W. Feldman. Genetic Structure of Human Populations. Science (2002) 298:2381-5
# ^ Risch, N., Burchard, E., Ziv, E. & Tang, H. Categorization of humans in biomedical research: genes, race, and disease. Genome Biol. 3, 1â'12 (2003)
# ^ Noah A. Rosenberg, Jonathan K. Pritchard, James L. Weber, Howard M. Cann, Kenneth K. Kidd, Lev A. Zhivotovsky, Marcus W. Feldman. Genetic Structure of Human Populations. Science (2002) 298:2381-5

Re:what if

[Chris Burke]

Plus, "species" is sort of a fuzzy and debated term with lots of funny edge cases - much to the consternation of people who need to label everything :)

That's true, but using the definition of "cannot crossbreed and produce viable offspring" is useful for drawing a hard line around "not the same species" among all sexually reproducing animals since genetic crossover is essentially impossible. There's lots of gray area in, say, classifying certain birds. On the other hand horses and donkeys can breed, but produce mules which cannot reproduce themselves, ergo donkeys and horses are definitely different species.

Re:what if

[riverat1]

"What do you get if you cross a mastiff male with a chihuahua bitch, can they breed?"

One dead chihuahua bitch.

Re:what if

[Anonymous Coward]

That's not so simple, as the grandparent hinted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species

Re:what if

[TheoMurpse]

Some ligers (lion-tiger crosses) are fertile, though.

Re:what if

[dryeo]

Actually just to make things less clear, mules are occasionally fertile. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mule#Fertility

Re:what if

[mcvos]

That said, assuming you don't bite somebody or have some kind of crazy infectious disease, you'd probably be better off not being classified as human. Sure, you could be considered property like a slave, but you wouldn't have to pay taxes or be responsible for a whole variety of crimes. Heck, PETA would probably make sure you had more rights than humans.

You mean you want to get shot if you misbehave without even the faintest semblance of a trial?

Also, you won't pay taxes because you can't own stuff.

Re:what if

[mcvos]

You will lose your "Human" Rights. And therea ano No "Neanderthal" Rights in the Constitution.

Neanderthals are humans. Just not modern ones.

Re:what if

[mcvos]

Anyone who's seen a neanderthal skull knows that something different was going on there. Humans just don't look like that. The bone structures are all quite different.

Parts of Neanderthal bone structure do show up in modern humans. Heavy brow ridges, low forehead, stocky build, receding chin, it's all present in modern humans. Just usually not in one person.

Now, obviously it's going to be close, closer than us and the chimpanzees, but there will be some differences there. If there weren't, it wouldn't disprove evolution, it would disprove genetics.

It's going to be a lot closer than chimp DNA. I hear our DNA differs 3% from that of chimps, from whom we separated 5-8 million years ago. We separated from Neanderthal 300,000 years ago, so expect a difference of about 0.1%. But it's going to be a very interesting 0.1%.

Re:what if

[mcvos]

Assuming there were other homo genus species still around, and we couldn't actually product offspring with them, do you think there would still be sexual activity between them? Or was there back when there were multiple species from the homo genus?

My guess is there would be sexual contact. It may be futile from an evolutionary perspective, but that has never stopped humans from trying.

If they were still around, would be be a taboo? How different would it be from something like bestiality?

It'd be different in that they're human. The taboo wouldn't be much bigger than sex between people of different ethnic backgrounds, which means it could be considerable or completely absent.

FOXP2

[Chrisq]

The interesting thing is that Neanderthals has the same version of FOXP2 as modern humans. This makes it more likely that they had proper speech rather than just "grunting" sounds.

Re:FOXP2

[LucidBeast]

So in the remakes of cave man movies the inhabitants will speak eloquently?

Re:FOXP2

[BikeHelmet]

Yeah, just like the Flintstones!

Re:FOXP2

[cosmocain]

Nah.

FOXP2 is responsible for "language development" with songbirds and other animals(*), too. If your logic would be correct, birds would talk like humans - which they obviously don't. (*)

The FOXP2 protein sequence is highly conserved. Similar FOXP2 proteins can be found in songbirds, fish, and reptiles such as alligators.

see here

Re:FOXP2

[VShael]

Didn't we just get over discussing the other day how wikipedia is not a valid reference?

Re:FOXP2

[jw3]

Yes, it is fascinating, but you have to take into account that FOXP2 is a transcription factor that acts when "collaborating" (dimerising) with other transcription factors (or itself) to regulate a whole range of different genes, which in turn can affect a whole range of physical (phenotypical) features (like speech development). True, people who have a mutation in FOXP2 are normal, but are not able to coordinate the movements required to speak, and this is a quite specific effect. But FOXP2 has definitely other "applications" as well - it is required for correct brain development in general, for example.

This makes any changes (or lack of them) very hard to trace back to specific effects. The fact that neanderthals had the same "version" (allele) of this gene might be an indicator, but then -- it might just be a coincidence. Chimps are just two mutations away.

What complicates the picture even more is the fact that not only the actual sequence of the protein matters -- also the regulatory sites around it (where other transciption factors bind and promote / inhibit the activation of FOXP2). And these tend to be variable even when they work very similarily.

j.

Re:FOXP2

[jw3]

Having or not having FOXP2 is not the point. The point is that neanderthals had exactly the same allele, the same sequence of FOXP2 that we humans have. And that small changes to this sequence render humans speechless.

In other words: having a gene for eye pigmentation does not make you blue-eyed. But having a particular version of this gene can. Some people think that this particular version of FOXP2 is necessary for correct speech development.

j.

Re:FOXP2

[Anonymous Coward]

No you got that wrong. If Wikipedia says fishes can talk, they will self-reference and start talking right away.

Re:FOXP2

[Muros]

Not really all that surprising. Neandethals are known to have had clothing, jewellery, buried their dead in a respectful fashion (sometimes, yes there is also evidence of cannibalism, something modern humans of course have never done...), some evidence of trade, and highly organised hunts. I'd kind of expect them to be able to talk.

Re:FOXP2

[vrmlguy]

Didn't we just get over discussing the other day how wikipedia is not a valid reference?

Sorry, your post doesn't count, because you didn't provide any supporting references.

Re:FOXP2

[jellomizer]

Hmmm... Umm... heh... Cool...
So they don't make grunting sounds like humans... Hum.

Re:FOXP2

[OS2toMAC]

This makes it more likely that they had proper speech rather than just "grunting" sounds.

Wasn't this already proven with the GEICO commercials?

Re:FOXP2

[Anonymous Coward]

Yabadabadooooo!

Re:FOXP2

[V14D]

Having or not having FOXP2 is not the point. The point is that neanderthals had exactly the same allele, the same sequence of FOXP2 that we humans have. And that small changes to this sequence render humans speechless.

Maybe they got it from us?

Krause et al. (2007) recently examined patterns of genetic variation at FOXP2 in two Neandertals. This gene is of particular interest because it is involved in speech and language and was previously shown to harbor the signature of recent positive selection. The authors found the same two amino-acid substitutions in Neandertals as in modern humans. Assuming that these sites were the targets of selection and no interbreeding between the two groups, they concluded that selection at FOXP2 occurred before the populations split, over 300Kya. Here, we show that the data are unlikely under this scenario but may instead be consistent with low rates of gene flow between modern humans and Neandertals. We also collect additional data and introduce a modeling framework to estimate levels of modern human contamination of the Neandertal samples. We find that, depending on the assumptions, additional control experiments may be needed to rule out contamination at FOXP2.

Re:FOXP2

[5of0]

Thanks for clarifying - I was going to if you hadn't. From Wikipedia:

Aside from a polyglutamine tract, human FOXP2 differs from chimp FOXP2 by only two amino acids, mouse FOXP2 by only 3 amino acids, and zebra finch FOXP2 by only 7 amino acids. A recent extraction of DNA from Neanderthal bones indicates that Neanderthals had the same version (allele) of the FOXP2 gene as modern humans. Some researchers have speculated that the two amino acid differences between chimps and humans led to the evolution of language in humans.

Re:FOXP2

[Goalie_Ca]

Well we are not considered decendants from neanderthals but doesnt sharing a common gene imply that our common ancestor shared that gene as well. Parallel evolution is possible but it would be interesting to see that homo erectus might have that gene as well.

Re:FOXP2

[Arterion]

Maybe they got it from alien visitors coming through the Stargate.

Re:FOXP2

[Anonymous Coward]

They had larger brains than we. Maybe they were smarter, already developed beyond and put us in their zoo?

Re:FOXP2

[Anonymous Coward]

Haha, science begins to catch up...

You see, a neanderthal is nothing more than a human-being who lived before the world-wide flood. Now, that said, I know I've just lost 95% of you, but that's ok ;P After all, it's about what's actually true and not what someone wants to believe, right? Isn't that how science works?

So, a prediction of the Neanderthal genetic code from a Christian point of view is that we'll find it more advanced than the current degraded and irradiated human DNA. This is also why they had larger brain-cases than us, etc. They are us, just much older versions. For reference, here's Jack Cuozzo's book 'Buried Alive' with actual scientifically-gathered evidence taken from the actual fossils (not the casts, Cuozzo was able to obtain access to the original fossils in various european museums).
http://www.amazon.com/Buried-Alive-Startling-Truth-Neanderthal/dp/0890512388

Ethics and cloning

[BadAnalogyGuy]

This would be a perfect test for cloning, as it would be incredibly interesting to clone these creatures and study them. We could discover their intelligence, learning capability, physical appearance, and other things that can only be guessed at through the fossil record. In the name of science, it behooves us to do such cloning (along with cloning of wooly mammoths and dingos).

The problem would be that, like monkeys, Neanderthals are primates and would probably be the focus of animal rights groups seeking ways to stall the progress of science. Should appearance endow rights? Just because they may look structurally similar to humans, they aren't human.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[MichaelSmith]

What would you do? Keep them in a lab? How would you justify that?

Re:Ethics and cloning

[BadAnalogyGuy]

What would you do? Keep them in a lab? How would you justify that?

Public safety.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Chrisq]

Just because they may look structurally similar to humans, they aren't human.

I really, really hope this is a troll; the same has been said of Jews, Black people, Irish, Native Americans and many more.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[loufoque]

Humans are animals just like any other. For what reason do we not allow experimenting on humans while we allow it on other animals? Because humans are supposedly much more sentient, superior, a higher life form or whatever crap.
Neanderthals are probably not any different in that way (it is probable, though, they disappeared because we humans killed them off), so why should we allow experimenting on the basis that they're a different species (which means they can still interbreed with humans and produce fertile offspring)?

I'm not against experimenting per-se, even on humans, but the whole "if it's not a homo sapiens, it's alright to do anything with it" is just stupid.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Anonymous Coward]

how is that this makes me think of King Kong ? ...

Re:Ethics and cloning

[darinfp]

"What would you do? Keep them in a lab? How would you justify that?"

"Pubic safety"

There, fixed that for you. You sick greedy bastard....

Re:Ethics and cloning

[hengist]

What would you do? Keep them in a lab? How would you justify that?

Put them in parliament. They'd fit right in.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Weedlekin]

"Neanderthals are probably not any different in that way (it is probable, though, they disappeared because we humans killed them off)"

One _theory_ is that they disappeared because we (or rather, Cro-Magnon Man, who also disappeared around 8,000 BCE) killed them off, but there are plenty of other theories which are equally probable in that none of them have much in the way of supporting evidence. The only real answer to the question of why they died out is therefore the same as the one for so many other extinct lifeforms, i.e. we do not as yet know why they disappeared.

"they're a different species (which means they can still interbreed with humans and produce fertile offspring)"

Nobody as yet knows whether they could interbreed with Cro-Magnon man, or for that matter, other early human ancestor species that existed at the same time (e.g. late period Homo Erectus). It should also be noted that even if we could interbreed, there's a distinct possibility that any offspring would have been sterile, so Neanderthal genes from cross-breeds might not have been passed on to subsequent generations.

A good example to consider here is chimpanzees and their close relatives the bonobos, both of whom are very, very similar to humans at a genetic level. There is however no scientific evidence to suggest that we could successfully interbreed with them using purely natural means (i.e. without some form of genetic engineering), even though some other closely related species such as polar bears and brown bears not only can, but sometimes do interbreed, even in the wild.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Anonymous Coward]

One _theory_ is that they disappeared because we (or rather, Cro-Magnon Man, who also disappeared around 8,000 BCE) killed them off, but there are plenty of other theories which are equally probable in that none of them have much in the way of supporting evidence.

The real reason of the disapparition of the Neanderthals is that they had the penis too big to reproduce. Or the females weren't enough horny.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Anonymous Coward]

I think we should test these hypotheses. A lot.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[osgeek]

Depends upon how smart they are. If they're smart enough to move about in society and take care of themselves, then I guess that you have to let them go.

Don't assume the bad guy movie scenario if you don't have to.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[meringuoid]

The problem would be that, like monkeys, Neanderthals are primates and would probably be the focus of animal rights groups seeking ways to stall the progress of science. Should appearance endow rights? Just because they may look structurally similar to humans, they aren't human.

This is why it probably won't be done. Cloning a Neanderthal opens up an enormous can of worms. We're able to declare that it's wrong to do certain things to humans, but fine to do the same to animals, because there's a substantial gap between H. Sapiens and the nearest relatives, the chimpanzees. Even so there is serious disquiet over treating the great apes in such a manner, and even experimentation on more distant relatives attracts protest, especially if the animals in question happen to be cute.

That gap between us and the chimpanzee - and hence the rest of the animal kingdom - exists only because all the intermediates are dead and buried. We draw a line in a conveniently empty space. Now we propose to clone a Neanderthal, and ask on which side of the line he falls. If you say he is a man, then what if we now clone H. erectus? H. heidelbergensis? A. Afarensis? Suddenly we don't have a clear-cut boundary between human and nonhuman, but a continuum of clones. Where is the line drawn, and on what grounds? You might end up defining all the hominids as human, Homo, Pan, Gorilla and Pongo together, and rule out experimentation on them all. Then what of other human rights? Votes for Neanderthals - yes? Votes for Chimps - no? A sliding scale of rights based on intellectual capability? Who administers the test?

Our whole society is built on the unspoken, unexamined assumption that we know what is human and what is not. Cloning our ancestors in this way undermines that. Which is why I doubt it will be done any time soon.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[osgeek]

i.e. we do not as yet know why they disappeared.

Once we clone one, we can just teach him how to talk and ask him what happened.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[guruevi]

Maybe Geico wants to fund it?

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Tekfactory]

Dude, you aren't thinking big enough.

Reality Show

Send him or her to school, for all we know your neanderclone could come up with a cure for cancer.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[JoshuaZ]

Just because they may look structurally similar to humans, they aren't human.

I really, really hope this is a troll; the same has been said of Jews, Black people, Irish, Native Americans and many more.

Yes, and the same has been said about chimpanzees and gorillas. In those cases the statement is correct. Comparing this to a comment about racism really isn't helpful. We don't really know how bright neanderthals were and we don't really know if they could reproduce with homo sapiens. If they were about as bright as us and are cross-fertile then you'd have a point. Certainly if we could not interbreed then it isn't at all unreasonable to label them a separate species.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Anonymous Coward]

or that their understanhood of language wasn't enough good.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[LUH 3418]

It's likely that if you cloned one, you'd need to implant his/her DNA into a human egg cell, and also possibly fill some small gaps with human DNA... Considering the neanderthal would be born out of a human woman, have intelligence perhaps not that far from our own, and possibly speech capability...

I say, why not raise it like any human child. Don't lock it in a lab like some scary creature. Just give it an adoptive family, try to raise it like a normal human, and observe its development very closely. There is no way we'd be able to replicate its "natural environment" anyways, so we might as well treat it decently, and learn everything we can that way.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we can shave them and send them to homo sapiens schools. Eerily reminds me of Next by Michael Crichton.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Anonymous Coward]

It's hardly unspoken or unexamined. Just ask Teri Schiavo's family (butchered the name, I'm sure). Her right to life hinged on whether or not her sack of meat was as human as my sack of meat. The deciding factor, it turns out, was brain activity.
Is a continuum of humanity really a problem? Such a continuum exists today, though you don't often think about it. If I threw a living head of lettuce into a meat grinder, nobody would bat an eye. If I did the same to a live kitten, I'd be in jail pretty quickly. Why? Because a kitten is 'more human' than a vegetable. It moves, eats, sleeps, feels, and can even recognize us and follow basic commands.
So it really hinges on how intelligent these neanderthals are. If they are able to use tools to the extent I read earlier on this page, and can communicate with us, then I see no reason they shouldn't be endowed with full, human rights. But if they somehow turn out savage even after being raised in a modern environment, then I doubt they'll be given many rights at all beyond those that our animals get today. I also doubt this will be much of a problem as they'd only be good for either pets or simple slave labor, and people probably won't want a weird, human-like pet and such slavery will (hopefully) be illegal. We just won't be cloning them much unless they're interesting to talk to.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Anonymous Coward]

why would you need to justify that?

Re:Ethics and cloning

[kalirion]

If they are only slightly less bright then us, then it wouldn't matter if they are a different species - they'd still deserve the same basic rights as any human, elf, or Klingon.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Locke2005]

It would be cruel to bring into being an individual with no relatives or culture, who would be viewed as a freak by everyone else. He would be certainly be saddened by the knowledge that his species has long since gone extinct, and further saddened by the reality that the best he can aspire to career-wise is to appear in Geico commercials -- putting him on the same social level as an animated talking Gecko.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Locke2005]

Cloning a Neanderthal opens up an enormous can of worms. Darn straight! Imagine what an embarrassment it would be when scientists manage to prove that a Neanderthal actually could have done a better job as president than G. W. Bush!

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Scrameustache]

"Neanderthals are probably not any different in that way (it is probable, though, they disappeared because we humans killed them off)"

One _theory_ is that they disappeared because we (or rather, Cro-Magnon Man, who also disappeared around 8,000 BCE) killed them off, but there are plenty of other theories which are equally probable

I'm always amazed that people don't think that genocide is the most probable answer.
How many situations involving different human cultures meeting have resulted in something else than total war and massacres?
None? Less than zero? Wiping off other humans who are slightly different than us is one of the few universal human traits (trait may also apply to ants).

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Anonymous Coward]

What would you do? Keep them in a lab? How would you justify that?

Put them in parliament. They'd fit right in.

Or have them join Microsoft's board of directors.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[NIckGorton]

What would you do? Keep them in a lab? How would you justify that?

Public safety.

Because humans never kill, maim, or torture other humans. We'd um.... you know.... legitimately worry that H. neanderthalensis would... um, definitely be, um, more dangerous than H. sapiens.

Sure.

No. Really. I'm serious.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[NIckGorton]

For what reason do we not allow experimenting on humans while we allow it on other animals?

We do allow human experimentation. Both human and animal experimentation are regulated based on certain ethical principles. However the rules are different with regard to what one may do in each type of research. The fundamental difference though is the concept of consent. Humans (or their surrogates) must give consent to being subject to experimentation while animals do not. I think the biggest question would be whether H. neanderthalensis would be intelligent enough to consent to such experimentation. Given what we know about then I think the answer would likely be yes and thus experimentation on H. neanderthalensis would be governed by the same legal and ethical principles as biomedical research on H. sapiens

Given that I also believe the same ethical principles that prevent us from cloning H. sapiens should keep us from cloning H. neanderthalensis.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Beezlebub33]

We already have to justify experiments on chimpanzees, gorillas, and other (non-human) animals. And we have to go through all sorts of hoops to do experiments on humans. The question would be which of the justification procedures we would need to go through.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Anonymous Coward]

Think about an NFL football team composed of Neanderthals. But what could you call such a team?

Re:Ethics and cloning

[sumdumass]

There are some interesting ideas that the Neanderthal didn't die out, they just interbred with itself out of dominance. I was watching something on PBS
(nova or something) a few months/year back that claimed contrary to previously held opinions, the Neanderthal genes are present in some Anglo Saxons.

Anyways, I'm no a paleontologist so I don't know or care to know the correct terms. But the gist was that instead of dieing out, they just took mates and we are largely the result of them. The movie also indicated that they had speech skills and could make tools and were in fact the same species, just a different ethnicity. It's probably more then likely that if one was cloned, we could interbreed with them.

I would think we would want to be really careful when labeling them a subspecies or a different species. We went though a pretty long history of Science claiming that different races were only "part human" and whites where pure human. Our views have completely changed now and looking back seems like we allowed some horrific things to happen because of it.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Arterion]

Not really. It's the exact opposite. You are switching the premises.

Your claim:

Blacks, jews, and native americans are non/subhuman because they look different, but are genetically similar.

GP's claim:

Neanderthals are non/subhuman because they look the same, but are genetically dissimilar.

You can't really compare the two because we have really only understood genetics for a handful of decades. What happened before that doesn't relate at all.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[ultranova]

The problem would be that, like monkeys, Neanderthals are primates and would probably be the focus of animal rights groups seeking ways to stall the progress of science. Should appearance endow rights? Just because they may look structurally similar to humans, they aren't human.

Actually, yes they are/were. Neanderthals are a subspecies of humans, "Neanderthal Man" as opposed to "Wise Wise Man", that being us. That's the whole reason why any experimentation on them would be interesting, and also why it would be quite immoral.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[MichaelSmith]

Depends upon how smart they are. If they're smart enough to move about in society and take care of themselves, then I guess that you have to let them go.

Don't assume the bad guy movie scenario if you don't have to.

Possibly but then the individual you create would be the only member of their species, at least initially. It seems unlikely that the H. Sapiens population would want to allow Neanderthals to breed and develop their own population so they would experience discrimination and (possibly) violent attack.

Neanderthals are likely to be different from us in some ways. Consider the differences in temperament which create social problems within our own species.

I think it would be irresponsible to recreate Neanderthals without some idea of where they are going to fit in.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Anonymous Coward]

I am Irish, and find Irish women attractive, so I may not be Human, but I have a lot of fun looking at Irish women anyway.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[rts008]

I think it would be irresponsible to recreate Neanderthals without some idea of where they are going to fit in.

Pr0n!

How else do you explain Ron 'the Hedgehog' Jeremy?

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Ardipithecus]

here is one vote for Ardipithecus Ramidus

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Weedlekin]

"I'm always amazed that people don't think that genocide is the most probable answer."

Some don't think it's the most probably answer for the following reasons:

1) fossil evidence from Israel and elsewhere indicates that Neanderthals and early humans peacefully coexisted for at least 50,000 years in close proximity to one another.

2) The population densities of both species were so low in any areas where evidence of them coexisting is found for it to be extremely unlikely that they'd have had any reason for sustained conflict with one another.

3) Human groups were as a rule no larger than those of the Neanderthals at the time when they became extinct, and their weapons technologies were similar, so it's unlikely that the dozen or so humans living near a dozen Neanderthals would have found the idea of getting into a fight with a species that was both significantly physically stronger and more durable than them at all attractive.

4) There is a growing body of evidence to indicate that human and Neanderthals traded with one another in ways that both species obviously thought were advantageous.

"How many situations involving different human cultures meeting have resulted in something else than total war and massacres?"

The key here is the term "cultures", which didn't exist in the small and mostly isolated human hunter-gatherer groups that were around 30,000 years ago. Both species lived in what were essentially extended families of at most 20 individuals who survived by hunting and gathering, so they spent the majority of their time in the major pursuit of all animals, i.e. finding enough to eat.

I suggest that you read about some of the anthropological studies that have been done into the few surviving hunter-gatherer human groups and the generosity, openness, and gentle curiosity that they display towards strangers to see why one cannot just assume that all humans are prone to behave in the same way as civilised humans do.

"None? Less than zero? Wiping off other humans who are slightly different than us is one of the few universal human traits"

It's one of the traits of very large groups of humans, not small, isolated ones. The total human population of Europe and the Middle East when the Neanderthals died out was in the low tens of thousands, and the fact that there's a growing body of evidence to indicate that even this small number of individuals was declining sharply at the transition point between the middle and late palaeolithic periods means that the likelihood of conflict between them was even more remote than would have been the case previously.

And it is IMO this sharp decline in humans at the time when Neanderthals disappeared that provides the best clue to the reason for it, because fossil evidence indicates that the populations of large game animals also declined significantly. It's here we find that one of the major differences between humans and Neanderthals could be the reason for our survival and their disappearance, because there's evidence that humans during this period fished and hunted small game, whereas Neanderthals appear to have been much more dependent on large game for both food and clothing. This greater flexibility in diet and clothes sources may well have made the difference between a sharp but survivable population decline for our species, and a more severe one among the Neanderthals that reduced their population to unsustainable levels.

"trait may also apply to ants"

Ants and termites build cities that can have populations of anything from thousands to millions of individuals, so it's not surprising to find that they act in ways that are sometimes uncannily similar to human groups of similar sizes and levels of organisation.

NB: the fact that we almost became extinct several times over the last 100,000 years is a good indicator of how easily a single event or set of events over a few years can push a species with a low population (and low populations are the only sustainable ones for large predators such as human and Neanderthal hunter-gatherers) into a terminal decline from which it's unable to recover.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because they may look structurally similar to humans, they aren't human.

I think I'm confusing two different books here, but they are both worth a read in this discussion.

I can't remember the title of the first, but it involved finding a race of small, monkey-like beings. They were able to communicate in English, were hard working and satisfied with simple gifts, of which the most notable was "shoulder bags", which they pronounced "shouddabags". Since such articles were not known in their society, they were prized for allowing the beings to carry stuff they needed from place to place.

The gist of the book was the tension between people who wanted the little guys respected as people and corporations who had a vested interest in having them designated as less than human -- and therefore available as a cheap, willing labor force.

The second book is "You Shall Know Them", by Vercors (once a leader of the French Communist Party). In this novel, a biologist (in the days before cloning techniques were available) decides to force the courts to settle the question of when a being qualifies as human. So he arranges to have a female ape of some kind artificially inseminated with his sperm. When the offspring is produced, he kills it in the presence of a witness. This gives rise to a court case whose resolution turns on whether the offspring is or is not to be considered a human being.

Both good reads.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Anonymous Coward]

Neanderthals *are* homo sapiens.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Scrameustache]

Human groups were as a rule no larger than those of the Neanderthals at the time when they became extinct, and their weapons technologies were similar

I believe it is not a meaningless coincidence that the neanderthals disappeared not long after "modern humans" acquired the technology of the spear launcher.

The atlatl is believed to have been in use since the Upper Paleolithic (c. 30,000 BC). Most stratified European finds come from the Magdalenian (late upper Palaeolithic). In this period, elaborate pieces, often in the form of animals, are common. The earliest known example is a 27,000 year-old atlatl made of reindeer antler and found in France.

Which was new technology allowing the possessor to throw deadly projectiles much farther and faster than those without.

The youngest Neanderthal finds include Hyaena Den (UK), considered older than 30,000 years ago, while the Vindija (Croatia) Neanderthals have been re-dated to between 32,000 and 33,000 years ago. No definite specimens younger than 30,000 years ago have been found.

And wouldn't you know it, as soon as we were able to kill them when we are out of range as their spears, coexistence abruptly stops.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Weedlekin]

I believe it is not a meaningless coincidence that the neanderthals disappeared not long after "modern humans" acquired the technology of the spear launcher."

The problem here is that while there's a fair reason to believe that spear throwers appeared about 30,000 years ago, the oldest specimens are found in Africa, where there never were any Neanderthals. We have no evidence that they were used in Europe prior to 15,000 years ago, so it's rather unlikely that they'd have been a factor in the disappearance of Neanderthals.

"No definite specimens younger than 30,000 years ago have been found [wikipedia.org]."

This highlights how trusting what Wikipedia says about anything can lead one to misplaced conclusions, because as this quote from Archaeology, published by the Archaological Institute of America notes, some Vindija remains have been recently and definitively dated to 28,500 years ago, which puts them at the same age as ones that have also been definitively dated at 28,500 years from the Zafaraya cave in Southern Spain:

http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/neandernews.html
(look in the section titled "You Look So Young", although there's plenty of other interesting stuff in there that you might like to look at).

"And wouldn't you know it, as soon as we were able to kill them when we are out of range as their spears, coexistence abruptly stops."

It would I think have been rather difficult for Africans to build spear throwers with enough range to reach Neanderthals who were living in Europe.

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Scrameustache]

The earliest known example is a 27,000 year-old atlatl made of reindeer antler and found in France.

The problem here is that while there's a fair reason to believe that spear throwers appeared about 30,000 years ago, the oldest specimens are found in Africa, where there never were any Neanderthals. We have no evidence that they were used in Europe prior to 15,000 years ago, so it's rather unlikely that they'd have been a factor in the disappearance of Neanderthals.

Whats wrong with the 27000 year old one from France?

Re:Ethics and cloning

[Weedlekin]

"Whats wrong with the 27000 year old one from France?"

Nothing apart from the fact that few archaeologists think it was actually a spear thrower, with the prevailing opinion being that it was a baton. The oldest items that are indisputably spear throwers found in Europe are from between 15000-16000 BCE, which is only about 4000-5000 years before the first known bow.

Note that this doesn't prove spear throwers (and indeed bows) weren't used in Europe at an earlier date because unlike stone tools, they're made of biodegradable materials that can easily disappear or be rendered unrecognisable by the passage of time, but It would be pure speculation to say that they _were_ present in Europe when the Neanderthals were around, and one could equally easily speculate that Neanderthals also knew about and used them. The most recent finds do after all indicate that their general tool and weapon technology was better than ours in a number of ways, so it's not at all unreasonable to think that they may have also had the edge here, especially given the fact that there's evidence they used adhesives at a time when Cro-Magnon people don't appear to have known about them.

As we learn more about both Neanderthals and the AMH peoples that lived alongside them in various parts of the world, we're finding that their eventual extinction is much more complex than we thought, and took place over a significantly longer period of time. Evidence from Gibraltar for example suggests that there were still some isolated communities of Neanderthals living in the kinder climate of the Southern Mediterranean 24,000 years ago, a full 11,000 years after they'd disappeared from the more severe Northerly areas.

60 percent

[Shrike82]

Doesn't the significance depend hugely on what genes were included in the 60% that have been mapped? We're supposed to share 50% of our DNA with fruit, 60% with fruit flies and 98% with chimps, so this incomplete map might tell us absolutely nothing, except that Neanderthal man is closely related to bananas and chimps, and that they were actually overgrown fruit flies.

Re:60 percent

[daniorerio]

Actually we share 60% of our genes, not DNA with fruitflies, same for chimps. Which means that for 60% of the genes in our genome you can find a similar gene in fruitflies, although the structure of that particular gene has changed in fruitflies and humans independently over time.

Since neanderthals are much more related to humans one would expect the number of gene orthologs between humans and neanderthals to be between 98% and 100%. All the genes they mapped will probably genes that humans also have, the interesting bits may come from differences in those genes between the two species. And of course the genes that humans have and naederthals not (or vice versa) but my guess is they haven't mapped those yet. It's easier to map a gene if you know what you're looking for (human ortholog).

Re:60 percent

[jw3]

The term "share XX % DNA" is largely incorrect and misleading. In short, if you have mapped 60% of the genome, you can hardly underestimate the significance of this information. I will try to explain why you are on the wrong track.

1) what is usually meant by that is that "XX % of the sequence is identical". This is not always informative, as during evolution, much of the sequence can mutate neutrally without major changes in the phenotype. Two almost identically looking worms (and also quite similar on molecular level), C. elegans and C. briggsae, have a history of 100 million years. Hey, they had more time to accumulate neutral differences than mouse and humans!

Moreover, if one compares these parts of the DNA that code for a protein (and believe me, they are scattered very thin in our genome), this percentage will be very high compared to everything else. The difference between one region of the genome (say, the one they mapped) and another one (say, the one that is still to be sequenced) is very small when compared with the difference between a coding and non-coding region. So whatever you find out about the genetic distance between species based on 60% of the genome is extremely likely to hold also in the case of the whole genome. More! Usually it is sufficient to sequence a few very well known genes (which Paabo and his group did already a decade ago).

Bottom line: we can extrapolate this "XX% DNA in common" from the part that is already sequence, but anyway this is not what one is really after -- because we know it more or less already.

2) when comparing genomes that are far away, one often looks at the genetic composition -- which genes are present in both genomes? Which are absent in one of them? In case of humans and chimps and neanderthals these sets are / will be strikingly similar, but the differences will be enormously informative.

3) Sometimes the phrase "XX % of the genes in common" refers to alleles, that is, slightly different variants of the same gene (think "blue eyes / brown eyes"). This is why we say that we share 50% genes with our mother and 50% of genes with our father. This is also the type of information that one is after.

What I'm saying is that your reasoning is meaningless because founded on a misunderstanding. The website that you were referring to has a subsection titled "Other DNA facts you don't need to know". I couldn't phrase it better, except by adding that the information is potentially harmful.

j.

Re:60 percent

[Shrike82]

I was as surprised as you that my comment was modded Insightful. I thought my assertion that Neanderthals were overgrown fruit flies, closely related to both chimps and their favourite food would have been considered Funny, or at worst ignored. Thanks for the interesting information regarding genes though, biology was never my strong point.

And yes, I know chimps don't actually like bananas as much as we think they do.

Re:60 percent

[Anonymous Coward]

60 percent of the time, works every time...

Still with us...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why use fossils? Neanderthals are still with us, as Blackburn Rovers manager Sam Allardyce shows!

Re:Wonder where the stories about trolls come from

[MichaelSmith]

Wonder where the stories about trolls come from?

Here?

photo of neanderthal

[commodoresloat]

available here

Re:photo of neanderthal

[Alain Williams]

Awww - I was expecting a picture of George Bush!

Re:photo of neanderthal

[jd]

That is a deep insult to all Neanderthal-kind. They, at least, made things that people could use (and wanted to).

Re:photo of neanderthal

[Anonymous Coward]

And I was expecting Obama - but that opens up that ape/human thing again.

Great picture

[BadAnalogyGuy]

I can hear the "wazzzzzuppp" with my speakers off.

That is not what you think :-)

[jw3]

Please, don't. Don't make the jokes on cloning / restoring the Neanderthal. We all know it'd turn out that some of them actually are among us, possibly taking up even prominent positions in our society. Who'd be surprised if the cloned guy looked exactly like the governor of one of US states?

On a serious note, there are a few scientific issues at stake here.

First let me explain this "positive selection" stuff from the article. When a mutation within a coding region of a gene takes place, it can either be a silent mutation (no change in the resulting proteins) due to the redundancy of the genetic code, or it can change the amino acid sequence of the protein and thereby possibly its function.

Now, mutations happen at random. But depending on what kind of an effect the changes have, they might be wiped out by natural selection. For example, mutations in the "core system", the "kernel" of any living cell -- replication machinery usually are wiped out, because the machinery is so finely tuned that most mutations seriously screw it up. If the changes are largely neutral, the ratio of the mutations that have an effect divided by mutations that are silent (so called dN/dS ratio) is roughly equal to what we would expect based on random model, and we speak of neutral evolution.

On the other hand, environmental pressure, change of times, parasite pressure or many other things can lead to an accelerated rate of evolution -- measured by the fraction nonsynonymous mutations / silent mutations. Thus, one can detect whether a species, gene or genome was subjected to a specific pressure. And if we look at the whole genome, we can tell a lot about what this pressure was. And of course, it works both ways -- we can tell a lot about what the pressure was that shaped us, humans.

* of course, learn more about neanderthals -- who were they, did they mix with humans (current analyses say no, but who knows what one can find in the whole genome). Were they human at all? Did they really talk? What kind of culture did they have?

* by learning about divergence between neanderthals and homo sapiens, answer the fundamental questions of biology -- who are we? what makes us different from animals? What made us spread and neanderthals disappear?

* analysis of genome instead of single genes takes the whole thing up one level.

* tracing back evolution (in general, it is not only about human evolution) -- not by comparing sequences of organisms that live nowadays, but really going back in time. Among others, this will let us test the tools that we routinely use for phylogenetic analysis (that is, tracing back the evolution).

Regards,

j. (who currently works on genome evolution in bacteria)

Re:That is not what you think :-)

[dargaud]

In this discourse of tracing back evolution and the cladistic theory, there's one thing I find missing: what about hybrids ? When you have two species that mix to form a new one as an hybrid, like is likely to have happened to many arthropods with larval stages, how do you trace anything back ? An unknown amount of genes got dropped in one single generation. You can't even place the result on a clade... Why is this issue ignored?

Re:That is not what you think :-)

[jw3]

Of course it isn't ignored. It's a whole field of research. And yes, there are plenty of tools, some of them quite old (and most of them requiring maths).

Question whether there was some degree of genetic exchange between Neanderthals and humans have been already asked decades ago -- and most probably, already answered. The answer is based on the sequences that have already been obtained and it is a "no".

j.

Re:That is not what you think :-)

[Pictish Prince]

Of course it isn't ignored. It's a whole field of research. And yes, there are plenty of tools, some of them quite old (and most of them requiring maths).

Question whether there was some degree of genetic exchange between Neanderthals and humans have been already asked decades ago -- and most probably, already answered. The answer is based on the sequences that have already been obtained and it is a "no".

j.

It's not nearly as clear-cut as that. That result was obtained by examining the mitochondrial DNA, which is only inherited from the mother. All it shows is that all modern humans have a common female ancestor but Neanderthals were not descended from her.

It says nothing about the nuclear DNA, of which half comes from the father.

Re:That is not what you think :-)

[elrous0]

If the movie Encino Man taught me nothing else, it was that bringing back a cavemen can only result in hilarity. And the guys who brought him back would finally get respect from the popular kids too.

Re:That is not what you think :-)

[hawkfish]

It's not nearly as clear-cut as that. That result was obtained by examining the mitochondrial DNA, which is only inherited from the mother. All it shows is that all modern humans have a common female ancestor but Neanderthals were not descended from her.

It says nothing about the nuclear DNA, of which half comes from the father.

Similar things can be done with Y chromosomes. Anyone know if this has been done yet?

Re:That is not what you think :-)

[kabocox]

* of course, learn more about neanderthals -- who were they, did they mix with humans (current analyses say no, but who knows what one can find in the whole genome). Were they human at all? Did they really talk? What kind of culture did they have?

* by learning about divergence between neanderthals and homo sapiens, answer the fundamental questions of biology -- who are we? what makes us different from animals? What made us spread and neanderthals disappear?

* analysis of genome instead of single genes takes the whole thing up one level.

* tracing back evolution (in general, it is not only about human evolution) -- not by comparing sequences of organisms that live nowadays, but really going back in time. Among others, this will let us test the tools that we routinely use for phylogenetic analysis (that is, tracing back the evolution).

I can't wait for them to either clone one or map it all out find out opps there wasn't any real neanderthal thing at all. It was just one family of humans that could easily interbreed with the rest. Wouldn't the creationists love that. See there wasn't any evolution going on. We've always been human. You've just been racist in calling that branch names to mark their differences with the rest of humanity. Oh, the arguments that could stir up.

Re:That is not what you think :-)

[Raffaello]

Some of the world's leading authorities on Neanderthals disagree with your "no."

In particular, they point to the Lagar Velho skeleton.

"the analysis has revealed that the child exhibits distinctive characteristics of both contemporaneous European early modern humans and preceding Neandertals. It therefore provides evidence of previous admixture between Neandertals and early modern humans in southwestern Europe."

Re:That is not what you think :-)

[Pictish Prince]

Speaking of chromosomes, how many did the Neanderthal have, 23 or 24? They should have been able to determine that.

Re:That is not what you think :-)

[Anonymous Coward]

What of cytochrome C? It's one of the most abundant proteins out there and yet has so many different functional sequences!

Re:That is not what you think :-)

[MightyMartian]

At best (and I mean at best) it demonstrates the potential for limited interfertility. Since there is no evidence that this hybrid (if that's what it was) was itself fertile, and the growing evidence of a distinct lack of Neandertal genes in modern humans, even if it does demonstrate some potential for hybridization, does not mean that such offspring would not essentially be sterile mules.

Re:That is not what you think :-)

[bussdriver]

I thought Neanderthals had bigger brains?

Perhaps they were non violent and ugly so we killed them off. We tend to wipe out things quite well by our nature...

How did they convince Mr Ballmer to give a sample?

[syousef]

Neanderthals Neanderthals Neanderthals Neanderthals Neanderthals Neanderthals

Dance Monkey Boy!

Re:They'd never do it

[Anonymous Coward]

It would be embarrassing to you if one day you woke up and realized what a jerk you were. But carry on trying to feel superior by making racist remarks suitable for 2nd grade. You probably carry a genetic marker for incurable idiocy. Please don't drool on the way out.

Moron.

Scientists Map Neanderthal Genome

[R.D.Olivaw]

Nice, when will it be available for TomTom?

That's not a neanderthal

[Moraelin]

If you mean Dubya, I think the word you're looking for is "troglodyte" not "neanderthal". Neanderthals are about 6 million years more advanced on the evolution chain, smarter, and a whole other body shape. Think: literally pear shaped. As in, the rib cage actually flares at the lower end.

Obligatory ID angle

[olman]

I wonder what IDers claim neanderthals are supposed to be. Beta versions?

Re:Obligatory ID angle

[Joce640k]

They found out that Piltdown Man was a fake so therefore all the others must be fake too.

No, seriously...

Re:Obligatory ID angle

[meringuoid]

I wonder what IDers claim neanderthals are supposed to be. Beta versions?

All hominid fossils are either humans, or apes. Never anything intermediate between the two. Which is which, well... that depends who you ask.

Re:Obligatory ID angle

[Jason Levine]

When dealing with Creationists (which IDers are really), remember that there are two groups:

1. Young Earth Creationists. These folks think that the world is about 6,000 years old. Any fossils found, they claim, don't come from creatures but were placed there by God to test us. If you don't believe the evidence in front of you, then you've passed the test. Personally, I would hope that, any God there might be wouldn't be so messed up as to give us intelligence, and then place evidence in front of us that "leads us astray" if we use our intelligence on it.

2. "Old Earth" Creationists. These creationists will admit that the Earth is far older than 6,000 years old. They'll admit that fossils are the remains of ancient creatures. However, they won't admit that one creature can turn into another one. To them, Neanderthal man was created by God as Neanderthal man and killed off as Neanderthal man. He didn't evolve from anything nor did he evolve into anything. To them, all species are set in stone. They can pop into being or fade away, but they can't change into something else. Of course, this ignores all evidence like whale transition fossils or the moths of Europe during the Industrial era. Still, these creationists are experts at ignoring evidence. They're not as overt about it as the Young Earthers. They don't make claims of a Trickster God. Instead, they simply claim that the evidence doesn't exist. They repeat it over and over no matter how many times their arguments are shot down.

Re:Obligatory ID angle

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Young Earth Creationists. These folks think that the world is about 6,000 years old. Any fossils found, they claim, don't come from creatures but were placed there by God to test us. If you don't believe the evidence in front of you, then you've passed the test. Personally, I would hope that, any God there might be wouldn't be so messed up as to give us intelligence, and then place evidence in front of us that "leads us astray" if we use our intelligence on it.

Most Young Earth Creationists don't believe that fossils are placed to test us any more. They argue that a worldwide flood created the fossil record. They play games with Carbon dating and other forms of dating to make everything work out with their theory.

As for the Old Earth Creationists, they hold that species can't become other species. It's to say that genetic diversity can come through mutations, but those mutations never result in a new different creature. Thus God could create a large cat and mutations result in both lions and tigers. Afterall lions and tigers can produce the magical liger.

ID is not simply one form of creationism, though many creationists like and support ID. I know plenty of people from both the Young Earth and Old Earth camps that HATE ID.

Re:Obligatory ID angle

[Scrameustache]

I wonder what IDers claim neanderthals are supposed to be.

Sick humans.
"That's not a different species, it's an old man with a bone disease."

That's what they were saying about homo florensis.

Re:Obligatory ID angle

[ultranova]

I wonder what IDers claim neanderthals are supposed to be. Beta versions?

Actually, in creationism, you would be the beta version, with some bugs (sin, disease, old age...) still not worked out. Neanderthals would be alpha versions.

I kinda doubt it

[Moraelin]

I kinda doubt it. Neanderthals went extinct so long ago, that I doubt that any stories or myths from that age would have survived as long.

We're talking long before humanity invented writing, so the only way it could have survived is if the shaman of a tribe taught his apprentice about it, and so on. For some tens of thousands of years straight. I'd think that's rather unlikely. They had more pressing concerns in the here and now than "those guys our ancestors lived in the same cave with."

Basically, how many folk stories do we have about woolly mammoths? Why would Neanderthals be remembered more?

Re:I kinda doubt it

[oodaloop]

In Australia, the aborigines still have myths about creatures which actually lived there...40,000 years ago. Yes, myths can live on that long.

Re:I kinda doubt it

[mrsquid0]

Myths can live a long time. We have stories in our culture whose origins date back five thousand years, and perhaps more. It is possible that the European stories of trolls and ogres came from the days when humans and Neanderthals both use to live in Europe. We will never know if this is the case, but the possibility can not be completely ruled out.

Re:I kinda doubt it

[ChrisA90278]

The biblical flood may be a story about a real flood that happened when the Black sea formed

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea#Deluge_Hypothesis

Re:I kinda doubt it

[Anonymous Coward]

The biblical flood may be a story about a real flood that happened when the Black sea formed

No, the Biblical flood story was taken from the Epic of Gilgamesh. It might be possible that that flood story descended from the Black Sea flood, but that's not at all the same thing.

Re:I kinda doubt it

[t0rkm3]

That's a pretty definitive statement for an academic supposition.

Re:I kinda doubt it

[CODiNE]

Beowulf

Re:I kinda doubt it

[Ceriel Nosforit]

For comparison, GÃbekli Tepe, the oldest known constructions, are 11,500 years old.

And please do remember that Neanderthal genes are far from extinct. There were intermixing of the 'races', to the extent that IM[notsohumble]O we're better considered different breeds of human rather than different races.

Quoth Wikipedia:
"Genetic statistical calculation (2006 results) suggests at least 5% of the modern human gene pool can be attributed to ancient admixture, with the European contribution being from the Neanderthal."

They used tools, buried their dead, and probably had a proper language. Considering the bell-curve of intelligence, we can assume that a significant number of Neanderthal individuals were in possession of more IQ than contemporary humans. How's that for primitive?

Re:I kinda doubt it

[kmcarr]

It looks like that Wikipedia page may need to be updated. From TFA:

"The analysis showed it is highly unlikely that much interbreeding occurred as there was "very little, if any" Neanderthal contribution to the human gene pool, said lead researcher Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute."

Re:I kinda doubt it

[TheoMurpse]

There's nothing that special about Beowulf from a myth-that-is-very-old standpoint (aside from the fact that it preserves information about Scandinavia and Old English). Beowulf is at best based on a man 1300 years ago. The Bible preserves purported history older than that. Hell, Homer's Iliad preserves story about a possible conflict over 3000 years ago.

Re:I kinda doubt it

[Petrushka]

Myths can live a long time. We have stories in our culture whose origins date back five thousand years, and perhaps more. It is possible that the European stories of trolls and ogres came from ...

That's kind of weak grounds for the supposition if you take into account certain other relevant facts. In particular, there's the wee point that the oldest surviving myths (from ca. 3000 BCE onwards) happen to coincide with the development of a technology that is very useful for preserving those myths in the cultures from which the myths come -- namely, writing.

There is a reasonable presumption that relatively little information is likely to be preserved for more than two or three centuries without the aid of writing, and practically nothing for more than five centuries; and then only in a form that bears next to no resemblance to historical actualities on which the information is allegedly based (as in the case of the so-called Trojan War, or the Kosovo epics). There's not much in the way of independently verifiable oral traditions that challenge this presumption. And there are 25,000 years to fill in from the last Neandertal remains to the development of writing -- five times the length of time that myths have survived with the assistance of writing. Taking a plausible model of 5000 years and then multiplying the number by six goes beyond speculation; it's more like wishful thinking.

Serious question?

[BadAnalogyGuy]

The serious answer is that they believe that the bone fragments are either human in origin or mocked up from bones of existing apes.

There is no Neanderthal species for ID proponents. The answer is either they are human or they never really existed and the evolutionists are involved in a vast conspiracy to validate their own beliefs by creating these "pre-human" humanoids.

Re:Serious question?

[olman]

Not really a serious question, but since we're at it; I do not really see a problem for anyone supposing deity-of-your-preference created universe and life and so on: Exactly like it is, evolving, perfecting (to it's niche) .. After all the big book says something about free will and such. What are fundies to presume how omnipotent entity sees "free will"? Quite possibly for universe-as-a-reference-frame consciousness would see biosphere as an entity and so forth. Or, even more likely, galaxies would form a singular entity from such viewpoint..

Never mind, I'm not an expert, being atheist and all. However vatican of all places just dealt a serious blow to ID!

Re:Serious question?

[kalirion]

Oh, I'm sure Neanderthal's are just descendants of Lilith.

Re:Serious question?

[MightyMartian]

Well, the most serious blow to ID is that no one actually uses it. Believe me, having some algorithmic method of identifying designed objects would be a boon to archaeology, cryptography and SETI. But ID is just pseudo-mathematic mumbo-jumbo mixed in with all the standard arguments from incredulity and other fallacies, but simply trying to obfuscate the nature of the alleged Designer in an attempt to make an end-run around the First Amendment.

Re:Serious question?

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with ANY supernatural theory is that given that we have no clue what the supernatural entity is or the nature of it, all our current results could potentially be influenced by it. (Let alone the fact that we can't test the entity itself)

ID is just a dumb detour from evolution that can only lead to a dead end. Anyone who takes it seriously is a complete moron and should be best avoided or donated to science to perform medical tests on.

While we're at it, somebody should beat up the pope. Seriously, that fucking fraud, lets see if baby Jesus comes running to help him.

It's not about appearances

[Moraelin]

It's not just about appearances. The Neanderthals:

- used tools to make other tools. Apes do make improvised tools like sharpening sticks, but only Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens would build a stone axe to use to build a stone spear, and then keep both.

- skinned animals and tanned the skins

- built elaborate shelters out of wood and skins

- used clothes (e.g., made from those skins)

- built (crude) musical instruments. And not just as in "something that makes noise", but as in, for example, a flute which can play more than one note. So they probably had music too.

- had a bit of work specialization, which would also mean a bit more complex a social structure, and possibly even some kind of commerce (at least as in, "I'll make you a strong spear if you give me a leg of antelope.")

- decorated themselves with primitive jewellery and paints (basically early cosmetics)

- had ritual burial, which would indicate some concept of afterlife or at least remorse. (You don't bother burying someone in the same position, and with his weapon, and stuff, unless you expect it to matter somehow.)

Etc.

And according to this research, they probably were as capable of speech as the humans, because they have the same gene.

Oh, and another bit of trivia: they actually had a higher average brain size than Homo Sapiens. And in a smaller body, too. So if we go by the popular brain-mass/body-mass metric, they should actually be a little smarter on the average.

So we're not talking just as in "looks like a human", but something that was definitely just as sentient and self-aware as a human. It could probably not just understand that you're experimenting on it, but understand the experiment if you bother explaining the science behind it.

And if you think that it still makes it ok, because it's still a different species... well, then I'd say your empathy is too broken to be the same as 99% of the humans. You're different. When can we start experimenting on _you_ then?

Re:It's not about appearances

[BadAnalogyGuy]

another bit of trivia: they actually had a higher average brain size than Homo Sapiens. And in a smaller body, too. So if we go by the popular brain-mass/body-mass metric, they should actually be a little smarter on the average.

Tell the court, Bright Eyes, what is the second article of faith?

Re:It's not about appearances

[Tekfactory]

I'd say your empathy is too broken to be the same as 99% of the humans. You're different. When can we start experimenting on _you_ then?

Well obviously it meets all of HIS ethical standards.

Re:It's not about appearances

[CarpetShark]

they should actually be a little smarter on the average.

I imagine that was probably reason enough for us to wipe them out. Particularly if they suffered from the same social ineptitude that seems to come with additional brain power.

Re:It's not about appearances

[kalirion]

I'd say your empathy is too broken to be the same as 99% of the humans. You're different. When can we start experimenting on _you_ then?

Unfortunately he's not as different as you might think, considering the number of humans who think it's perfectly fine to spy on, imprison without due process, torture, and kill other humans as long as they are foreign nationals.

Re:It's not about appearances

[Beezlebub33]

I'll take obscure movie references for $500, Alex.

neanderthale genome

[pitje]

good to know G.W. has been good for something

Re:neanderthale genome

[dkleinsc]

Be fair: G.W. is no Neanderthal. Neanderthals were generally pretty stocky, and he's rather skinny.

Rush Limbaugh, on the other hand ...

Re:zoo

[TaoPhoenix]

+1 Seuss

The sentence in the article with intrigued me.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

"Why they died out is a matter of furious debate, because they co-existed alongside modern man."

Thing is.

Hasn't the author noticed that "co-existing alongside modern man" is not good for one's health?

Perhaps the sentence should have read:

"Why they died out is a matter of furious debate, although the probable reason is that they co-existed alongside modern man, which is a species known to be (a) warlike, (b) greedy, (c) bloodthirsty, and (d) in general dangerous to the health of other species, most of which it has eliminated from the face of the earth.

Re:The sentence in the article with intrigued me.

[ErikZ]

Feh. Their chicks were ugly and they kept on taking our food out of the fridge without replacing it.

They had to die.

Re:The sentence in the article with intrigued me.

[dkleinsc]

Well, regarding point d, be fair: the biggest cause of extinction occurred at the Permian-Triassic boundary and still hasn't been identified.

And there is an argument that a lot of the domesticated species, such as corn or dogs, have evolved over the last 20,000 years or so to form a symbiotic system with humans: we protect them for a while, give them ideal conditions, and make sure they reproduce, and in return we get food. So humans aren't too dangerous to be around if you're a species humans can make good use of. At least, not more dangerous than having a tiger in the area.

Re:The sentence in the article with intrigued me.

[meringuoid]

Extermination by Cro-Magnon invaders is an attractive idea; it certainly fits with what we see in about every other ecosystem when humans move into it. The problem with that is that in some areas, Neanderthals coexisted alongside modern man for about twenty thousand years. That's way too long; when modern man exterminates a species, he does it fast. If our ancestors considered Neanderthals monsters and slew them wherever they found them, then they should have vanished almost overnight.

Re:The sentence in the article with intrigued me.

[Red Flayer]

Ray, it's a surprise to see you commenting on a non-RIAA story (despite all evidence to the contrary, RIAA execs & lawyers are not Neandertals).

At any rate, one thing I've read from a couple sources is that Neandertals likely had a much higher metabolic rate than modern humans, and thus were outcompeted for food. One figure I read (in Nat Geo, I think) was that Neandertals would have needed around 7k calories a day, while moder humans require around 2k calories.

This, coupled with a less diverse food supply for Neandertals, meant that modern humans were much better at surviving and reproducing during times of scarcity, like the ice ages.

Modern humans and Neadertals competed in the same niches, and if the Neandertals were better adapted to it, they would have wiped out H. Sapiens instead.

I think it's a mistake to place any scorn on individuals battling for survival, like humans were doing then. Once a culture has developed that has the excess resources to care for those less capable, then you might have a point...

Re:The sentence in the article with intrigued me.

[MightyMartian]

Which is why I think the replacement hypothesis is much more reasonable. Humans had a slightly better average reproductive rate than Neandertals, enough that human populations in Eurasia exploded, marginalizing Neandertals, forcing them to the edges (and beyond) of their old stomping grounds, only increasing the mortality rate. Eventually, the populations simply disappeared, until the last groups, apparently in southern Spain and Gibraltar, were too small in number to sustain the species.

Re:The sentence in the article with intrigued me.

[kalirion]

I bet we only exterminated them when we found a tastier source of food.

Re:The sentence in the article with intrigued me.

[NewYorkCountryLawyer]

Ray, it's a surprise to see you commenting on a non-RIAA story (despite all evidence to the contrary, RIAA execs & lawyers are not Neandertals).

:)

Despite all evidence to the contrary, I did, and do, have a life outside of fighting with the RIAA subhumans. In fact, I was for the first half of my college career, an anthropology major, and prior to that attended the Bronx High School of Science. (One of my only nerd or geek credentials.)

Based upon all I learned in anthropology, I concur that the RIAA lawyers are not Neanderthals. I believe that the RIAA lawyers are NOT descended from a common ancestor at all, but are an alien form of being which probably came from outer space. I am uncertain as to whether they can be characterized as a "life" form or not, since their blood is cold.

At any rate, one thing I've read from a couple sources is that Neandertals likely had a much higher metabolic rate than modern humans, and thus were outcompeted for food. One figure I read (in Nat Geo, I think) was that Neandertals would have needed around 7k calories a day, while moder humans require around 2k calories. This, coupled with a less diverse food supply for Neandertals, meant that modern humans were much better at surviving and reproducing during times of scarcity, like the ice ages. Modern humans and Neadertals competed in the same niches, and if the Neandertals were better adapted to it, they would have wiped out H. Sapiens instead.

Thing is, h. sapiens has a remarkable track record of wiping out other species, and even members of its own species. Sometimes inadvertently by just greedily and myopically destroying the environment around them. Sometimes intentionally as for example exterminating bison, or exterminating Jews or Armenians, or sometimes just other tribes.

I think it's a mistake to place any scorn on individuals battling for survival, like humans were doing then. Once a culture has developed that has the excess resources to care for those less capable, then you might have a point...

If your assumption is true, that they were merely better adapted, then of course I would not place "scorn" upon them. However, human history shows that as well adapted as we are, we nevertheless -- collectively -- have a tendency to (a) kill more than we need for food, (b) consume without regard to the future, and (c) engage in senseless violence all kinds of living things.

I do have a certain scorn for selfishness, because human beings are capable of more, and it is perhaps their most distinguishing characteristic that they are; they have the ability to love their fellow man, people they don't even know; to love and to adhere to and preserve the values of people who died long ago; to love and to look out for unborn generations they've never met and never will meet.

Human nature has good in it, and evil in it.

In view of the scant relevant evidence we have, there is no reason in the world for us to eliminate, as one of the possible explanations for the extinction of the Neanderthal people.... us.

If someone who was once here is missing, we are, I am afraid, the "usual suspect".

Re:The sentence in the article with intrigued me.

[Sesticulus]

A modern human needs 2k calories a day when they work a desk job. When I worked construction I was eating around 5k calories a day and weighed 140 lbs at 5'10". I suspect the life of a modern human in the time of the Neanderthal was probably more on the construction end of the calories required spectrum than the sits around with a laptop end I enjoy today. Still not the 7k you mention above, but not as much of a difference.

Re:The sentence in the article with intrigued me.

[Red Flayer]

Modern humans living in "prehistoric" conditions have a much more sedentary lifestyle than you might think... but it's a positive feedback loop.

Requires more calories --> needs to hunt more --> requires more calories.

One of the factors feeding into the lower caloric requirement is diversity of easily-collected food sources... so less energy expended for hunting.

Also note that Neandertals regularly practiced cannibalism (nearly all Neandertal sites show evidence of cannibalism, and the best Neandertal DNA comes from bones scraped clean for food, thus being less contaminated).

Re:Wonder where the stories about trolls come from

[Anonymous Coward]

From what I heard about trolls, they where a local folk in some place... Denmark? I dono, it was only something I overheard someone say and cant remember clearly, but the point is, trolls were probably a folk local to some northern place, and others moved in and killed them off, demonising them in the process.

Clone one

[WindBourne]

If I were a billionare, I would be tempted to hire somebody to clone one. Likewise, to bring back some of the extinct mammals such as Woolly Mammoth.

Re:Clone one

[Locke2005]

Would you be tempted to clone a male or a female neanderthal? I know this sounds like a minor detail, but it speaks volumes as to what your true motivation is!

Re:zoo

[Anonymous Coward]

+1 Seuss

-1 Seuss
+1 Lopshire

Why use fossils?

[Benfea]

Can't they just get a DNA sample from the nearest redneck?

Re:Why use fossils?

[the eric conspiracy]

I was thinking Republican.

Re:Why use fossils?

[aquatone282]

I was thinking your mother.

Oh, so...

[nicodoggie]

...they're using a politician's DNA as a reference, or what?

Cloning != ready adult

[grimJester]

So we're not talking just as in "looks like a human", but something that was definitely just as sentient and self-aware as a human. It could probably not just understand that you're experimenting on it, but understand the experiment if you bother explaining the science behind it.

What people seem to forget in discussions on cloning is that cloned animals/humans are born and grow up just like any child. A cloned neanderthal would have a mother and would grow up with modern humans in our current society. Without knowing in advance that the kid is a Neanderthal, the average guy on the street would just think he/she looks a bit odd but have no clue that the person in front of them "isn't human".

Re:Cloning != ready adult

[MightyMartian]

What people seem to forget in discussions on cloning is that cloned animals/humans are born and grow up just like any child. A cloned neanderthal would have a mother and would grow up with modern humans in our current society. Without knowing in advance that the kid is a Neanderthal, the average guy on the street would just think he/she looks a bit odd but have no clue that the person in front of them "isn't human".

This really depends on whether Neandertals had the same neural wiring modern humans do. Perhaps they didn't have the capacity for full blown language, in which case a Neandertal might seem more like an autistic than a normal human. Just because they're closely related to humans doesn't mean they are humans, at least in the sense of fully modern H. sapiens.

Personally I'm

[Big Hairy Ian]

Just waiting for them to clone one as I have a sneaking suspicion they were actually stunningly intelligent and only died out because nobody likes a smartarse

Homo Floresis may be 13K years old

[peter303]

Enough to overlap with homo sapiens sapiens (if not a pygmy race of HSS).

Re:Homo Floresis may be 13K years old

[Anonymous Coward]

They're believed to be a pygmy race of homo erectus - the most successful (as in longest lived) of our genus. And there's a minuscule chance they may still be living in uncharted Indonesia!

most genes are for basic cell metabolism

[peter303]

It took 2 billion years of evolution for eukaroyates- cells with complicated internal substructures- to evolve. Another billion for multi-cellular chemical signaling. That was 3/4ths of our evolutionary history. So most multicellular creature share about that much DNA.

Re:Neanderthal MYTH

[MightyMartian]

Quite a hoax, considering numerous Neandertal skulls have been found in Eurasia and the Middle East.

Re:Neanderthal MYTH

[Anonymous Coward]

You see what you want to see. If you go looking for a Neanderthal and find a human skull, just call it a Neanderthal to keep the funding coming in.

Re:Neanderthal MYTH

[MightyMartian]

There are significant morphological differences between Neandertals and humans. But hey, as long as your long discredited world view gets a boost, then by all means call scientists liars. It only demonstrates the extent of your depravity, ignorance and immorality.

By Neruos

[Anonymous Coward]

* 1 is a number, because we say it's a number
* 2 is a number, because we say it's a number
* 1 and 2 are not related, because we say it's not related
* 1 + 1 = 2, because we say 1 + 1 = 2
* 2 can not be two with out 1, because we say it can not
* 2 is the progressive step of 1 by 1, because we say it's progressive

Genetics is exactly the same way.

Re:By Neruos

[Anonymous Coward]

• You are just a construct in my mind. I see your post because I think you do.
• I think, therefore I exist. Again this sentence is mine, the history of the philosopher who purportedly thought up that sentence is all made up by me.
• You are just an abstract construct. Anything you write is just my thought. You do not think. You do not exist.
• You have no way to prove your existence to me. Give that up.
• Actually I'm the same person who wrote the parent post.

Re:Neanderthal MYTH

[Aneurysm]

We are not here by random chance, look at the numbers and see the REAL ODDS calculated by REAL SCIENTISTS and you will see that it is impossible. Open your eyes and let the truth set you free.

Care to post these odds and the credentials of the scientists involved in these calculations?

Species definition is fuzzy.

[Web Goddess]

The definition of species is, we know today, rather fuzzy.

A number of closely related modern species--among fish, fruit flies, squirrels, etc.--can be coerced into breeding fertile offspring in laboratory conditions. However, they do not normally breed in the wild, and are considered distinct species. Their phenotypes are different enough that they don't "look like mates" -- e.g., the coloring of the male fish no longer triggers a mating response in the female fish, even though the offspring would be fertile.

With enough generations separated by "cultural" barriers to breeding, eventually the lack of interbreeding in the wild allows the two genomes to diverge enough that they can no longer can produce fertile offspring even when mated. Therefore, even if the neanderthals were a different species, it is possible that humans could have interbred with them. Possible... but, in fact, not the case:

NY Times article: "An early inference that can be drawn from the new findings (...) is that there is no significant trace of Neanderthal genes in modern humans."

No genetic evidence of iterbreeding between human and neanderthal.

- - -

What the heck is this massive interest in "cloning extinct species"?!! Weird. I guess the science fiction lure. A single animal, or even hundreds of cloned extinct animals, would in any event never reproduce their culture. A long-extinct culture cannot be cloned.

Re:Neanderthal MYTH

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right! I created them all, it's all in my mind.

You think you're a good troll? You think God is hard enough to disprove? Try disproving a solipsist!

Ethics vs. Curiosity

[Web Goddess]

BadAnalogyGuy said, "The problem would be that, like monkeys, Neanderthals are primates and would probably be the focus of animal rights groups seeking ways to stall the progress of science."

This is not a problem; this is a triumph of ethics over curiosity. Just because an experiment can be performed does not mean it should be performed.

(I am a scientist who has worked with mice and rats, mostly humanely. I later learned that I was bleeding far too much from tail veins in search of antibodies, and violating ethical standards, which I regret.)

Don't need new Neanderthals. We have Republicans.

[Simonetta]

The Neanderthals all died 30000 years ago because they were violent, stupid, and unable to adapt to changes in their environment.

We don't need new Neanderthals. We already have Republicans.

false by hypothesis

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, and another bit of trivia: they actually had a higher average brain size than Homo Sapiens.

Larger than that of modern humans, and thus certainly larger than that of contemporaneous humans, yes. But:

And in a smaller body, too.

No. They were "shorter" in stature than humans, but more massive even than *modern* humans (*fit* specimens anyway, which is what we're considering): ~75kg "inhumanly"-well-muscled frame on a very heavily-built skeleton about 166cm tall for males. ref

Their body surface area to mass ratio is also smaller than that of humans. ref

So if we go by the popular brain-mass/body-mass metric...

...they should actually be a little *less* intelligent, on average; after all, the ratio of their body mass to cranial capacity (to say nothing of their brain size, of which cranial capacity is only an upper limit) is smaller, not larger. As for the brain morphology itself, the braincase and likely the brain were both shorter and more elongated than those of humans. Hard to imagine a more developed neocortex on such a brain, though perhaps it's possible. I don't have a source offhand.

So we're not talking just as in "looks like a human", but something that was definitely [!?] just as sentient and self-aware as a human.

You mean probably as sentient, or approximately as sentient. Nice try at perpetuating a false inferiority complex though.

Otherwise I agree with your sentiment that we ought to accord "being" or "right" to other intelligent creatures, except I wouldn't base this on something so philosophically shaky as mere "empathy" (which perhaps you used for expedience rather than precision).

Check this out for some fun reading:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/species.html/

Mel?

[PalmKiller]

Is it me or does that neanderthal look a lot like Mel Brooks?

A couple of questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

1. If someone does clone a "Neanderthal", how do we know human DNA wasn't used to fill in gaps?

2. What, we're going to re-create the species so we can exterminate them again?

No do-overs!

Only 60%??

[Bio)-(azard]

I'll club my neighbor and they can come get the other 40%

Re:Don't need new Neanderthals. We have Republican

[wamerocity]

Yuk yuk yuk.

some very subtle neurological changes...

[Ardipithecus]

precipitated perhaps by a mysterious black slab that just appeared one morning outside the cave?

I'd hit that!

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me see what that Neanderthal ass looks like - I'd hit that.

H.S.S.

Who's your Grandma? mtDNA

[i*rod]

Interesting supplement to this thread, albeit a tad old: "Neandertal DNA July 29, 1997 by Mark Rose" http://www.archaeology.org/online/news/dna.html The research focussed on the mtDNA (mitochondrial DNA) and says in part: "If Neandertals made a significant genetic contribution to modern humans, similarities should exist between DNA of Neandertals and that of people from Europe, where the Neandertals persisted the longest. PÃÃbo and his colleagues compared the Neandertal DNA to that from five modern populations, but it proved no closer to DNA from modern Europeans than to that from four other groups. While this does not rule out the possibility of Neandertal and modern human mixing, it suggests that the Neandertal genetic contribution to modern gene pools, if any, was small."

Re:Wonder where the stories about trolls come from

[TrikerBob]

Finally an explanation for W.