Neanderthals "Had Sex" With Modern Man

According to Professor Svante Paabo, director of genetics at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Neanderthals and modern humans had sex across the species barrier. The professor has been using DNA retrieved from fossils to piece together the entire Neanderthal genome, and plans on publishing his findings soon. He recently told a conference that he was sure the two species had had sex, but still had questions as to how "productive" the relations had been. "What I'm really interested in is, did we have children back then and did those children contribute to our variation today?" he said. "I'm sure that they had sex, but did it give offspring that contributed to us? We will be able to answer quite rigorously with the new [Neanderthal genome] sequence." What remains a mystery is what Paleolithic brewery provided the catalyst for these stone age hook-ups.

Comments

This is important

[Raindance]

The issue of introgression (gene flow from neanderthals to modern humans) is hugely important. It's a lot more important than the curiosity or oddity the Times article makes it out to be.

All the published studies looking for this introgression have been based on neanderthal mDNA. Since it doesn't undergo recombination, it's not a good marker, and the negative results so far are predictable and do not preclude gene flow. It'll be interesting to see Paabo's results. He's been working on getting nDNA data from neanderthal remains for a while now, and perhaps this is a hint that he's found some introgression.

Why it's important:

The small picture of why it's important is it would substantially redefine our family tree. We could refine our primate phylogeny.

The bigger, more hazy, and potentially earthshaking picture of why this could be important is that it doesn't take many viable pairings to get genes from one gene pool to another, and these genes could have been very important to our development. Modern humans and neanderthals were under many of the same environmental stresses but likely developed different adaptions to them. This includes behavior and cognition genes. As Stringer points out in the article, "in the last 10,000-15,000 years before they died out, around 30,000 years ago, Neanderthals were giving their dead complex burials and making tools and jewellery, such as pierced beads, like modern humans.” Proto-modern humans were smart. But neanderthals were also smart, potentially in different and complimentary ways. And perhaps it took a combination of proto-modern human and neanderthal genes to truly make the modern human mind. Our brains could be an example of 'hybrid vigor' on a grand scale.

So the big question mark is whether, given we can determine gene flow, if this hypothetical combination of proto-modern human and neanderthal cognitive adaptions could have led to the cultural explosion of ~30-50 thousand years ago. The biology is plausible and the timing's right. The data's still out, but it's coming in. Odder hypotheses have come true.

Re:Scientific?

[wizardforce]

The neanderthals were close enough to modern humans that in my own opinion, it is possible that humans intermingled socially with them however, it was also my understanding that their DNA was distinct enough from ours to make them unable to interbreed and thus a separate species. Genetic markers in the million base sequence that has been reconstructed so far indicate that they fall significantly outside of typical variation for modern humans.

Jurassic Park redux

[One_Minute_Too_Late]

All we need to do now is to take that DNA, splice it back together with human 'junk' DNA and breed Neanderthals for the next great Disney theme park! Instead of being entertained by people walking around in giant suits pretending to be cartoon characters, it could be the greatest edutainment center in the world!!

But seriously. People have sex across interspecies barriers all the time; animal, vegetable, mineral, it doesn't matter. I doubt that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals looked at each other and said, Hey, I can't have sex with you, you're obviously a different species! Probably they thought to themselves, Two arms, two legs, looks about right, the bits are in the right places, why not?

Re:Jurassic Park redux

[lawpoop]

But seriously. People have sex across interspecies barriers all the time; animal, vegetable, mineral, it doesn't matter. I doubt that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals looked at each other and said, Hey, I can't have sex with you, you're obviously a different species! Probably they thought to themselves, Two arms, two legs, looks about right, the bits are in the right places, why not?

I see what you're saying, but there is a good argument against Neanderthal/Homo Sapiens intercourse. Humans have sex with all kinds of animals, but two they certainly *do not* have sex with are chimpanzees and gorillas. Why not? Because they keep to themselves and they don't want or have anything to do with humans, and if they ever felt threatened or bothered, they will kill you with a wayward strike. Chimpanzees in particular are vicious motherfuckers, and will rip your arms out of their sockets and chew your face off if they get into a rage. They're *much* stronger than they look, and they have the psychological makeup of a psychopath. Gorillas aren't mean like chimpanzees, but still they won't put up with any of your bullshit.

It's sort of the same thing saying that a human being had never had sex with a lion, panther, baboon, or bear. They're just not as approachable in real life as they are in the movies.

Now, humans *have* had sex with other great apes, such as orangutans. In fact, I read on the internet a few years back about an orangutan that was kept in captivity as a prostitute in southeast Asia. It was very sad.

So to me it's an open question. Were Neanderthals more like gorillas, or more like orangutans, in terms of their sexual receptivity to humans? To me, it's an open question. If you look at this skeletal comparison, a Neanderthal is obviously a creature you don't want upset with you.

What the troll did to the princess in his cave

[viking80]

You do not need any DNA analysis to figure that out. What do you think the troll did to the captured the princess, once he took her back to his mountain cave? And they did not call it the Stockholm syndrome if she ever was freed; it was called bergtatt (literally: taken into the mountain) or bewitched.

Unfortunately, the history is told by the winner; It would have been interesting to hear these fairytales as told by the Neanderthals.

Re:humans

[GoochOwnsYou]

Neanderthals primary were in Europe and the middle east. The 2 likley canditates of current ethnicicities with possible Neanderthal DNA would be Arabs and Caucasians.

Re:For in those days

[beadfulthings]

You don't even have to confine yourself to scriptural references. Everybody's mythology is chock-full of references to "others"--titans or giants, elves, dwarves, fairies or Shining Folk, really beautiful people or really ugly ones, people with supernatural or "different" powers, people who forced humans to mate with them or were forced by humans. Everybody's folk tales, national epics, fairy tales, religious scriptures, myths and legends--they've all got these sorts of references. It's interesting just to speculate on where and how "we" (humanity collectively) came up with all this wonderful stuff. I've always thought at least some of it must have had to do with our Neanderthal connections--whatever those turn out to be.

Re:humans

[lwsimon]

I suspect I do, based on my facial bone structure. I'm about 3/4 Germanic and 1/4 Scot. I have a very heavy brow, and my eyes are quite deep-set. I also have quite a bit more body hair than my friends, who are generally of English an Native American ancestry.

Re:For in those days

[CannonballHead]

The bible scholars ignore that and explain it away, deny and ignore it. They don't want to touch it. It is so stupid, so abhorrent to reason it's radioactive but it is in the bible.

I'd like to meet these "Bible scholars." Are they the kind of scholars that don't care if it is right or wrong in the first place? I've talked to plenty of Bible - and even Hebrew - scholars that talk about that passage. "Touch it," as you say.

It's Genesis 5 and right off the top it seems to say that angels (sons of god) had sex with humans (daughters of men) and begot giants (nephilim). It's the setup and reason for the flood.

That appears to be what it says, indeed. Why not let it say that?

A close reading shows Noah and his family wasn't chosen for being godly and good but for being "perfect of his generations" i.e not half-breeds!

Hmmm. I don't think that's the reason. Where is this "close reading" ?

No bible scholar is going to tell you what the book actually says there.

How many "Bible scholars" have you met? Incidentally, why not capitalize Bible, just like one would capitalize Romeo and Juliet or Tom Sawyer or any other book?

Re:humans

[damburger]

I heard that as well, and it would be consistent with the current hypothesis of Spain being the last hold out of Neanderthal populations. However, I can't stress enough that what we consider 'ethnicity' has no real correspondence to actual genetics.