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Scientists Map Neanderthal Genome

Posted by timothy on from the first-draft-means-they-can-still-send-it-back dept.

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."

6 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. FOXP2 by Chrisq · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  2. I kinda doubt it by Moraelin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    --
    A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
    1. Re:I kinda doubt it by oodaloop · · Score: 4, Interesting

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

      --
      Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
    2. Re:I kinda doubt it by mrsquid0 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      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.

      --
      Just because you are paranoid does not mean that no-one is out to get you.
  3. Serious question? by BadAnalogyGuy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  4. Re:what if by Raffaello · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.