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Genome of Neandertals Reveals Inbreeding
sciencehabit writes "In a report on the most complete genome of a Neandertal ever sequenced, an international team of researchers has found that the parents of a Neandertal woman from Siberia were as closely related as half-siblings. The genome also shows that at some point the Neandertals interbred with other human groups, including their cousins the Denisovans, and our own modern human ancestors. There are even signs of Denisovans interbreeding with a mysterious archaic species. In all, the study suggests very close encounters among the several kinds of hominins living in the past 125,000 years. The detailed genome of the extinct Neandertals—our closest relatives—also offers a new look at the genetic differences that set our species apart from all the others."
Not a surprise really. There weren't exactly large groups running around to intermingle. You want to procreate and expand the species you had to look within your own local group.
. . . so easy, a caveman could do her!
Incest is best. Keep it in the family. Or genus
rewriting history since 2109
Have gnu, will travel.
But modern humans are not from ONE SINGLE stock either.
For example, the Denisovans have offsprings, but only part of the modern humans are their offsprings.
And then, while most modern humans have Neandertal genes inside them, some modern humans do not.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
There was a great article in Science a few weeks ago evaluating 6 extremely complete skeletons that were "collected" by a giant cat about a million years ago. (reference below)
The biggest revelation to many biologists was the amount of variation among the skulls. If they'd been found independently, they probably would have been put into different species. It's almost as if biologists haven't figured out that people vary quite a bit within species.
Why can't we just see ourselves as one big amorphous mass of metabolism - still trying to climb out of the primordial ooze?
A Complete Skull from Dmanisi, Georgia, and the Evolutionary Biology of Early Homo, by David Lordkipanidze, Marcia S. Ponce de León, Ann Margvelashvili, Yoel Rak, G. Philip Rightmire, Abesalom Vekua, and Christoph P. E. Zollikofer Science 18 October 2013: 326-331. An early Pleistocene adult skull illuminates the evolution and morphology of the first hominins outside Africa.
I noticed your sig and I'm a bit low at the moment so: I just want to tell you all here that the LHC is in Europe.
Whar's mah karmah?
They're Neanderthals, despite the fact that 'tal' is the German word that it's based on.
Thal is the older German spelling of Tal, meaning valley. Both are pronounced the same, with t not th. It simply means Neander valley. The Valley is now called Neandertal, but my uncle kept his original name.
Anything that MOVES!
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Correction: Anything that doesn't move fast enough!
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Any small tribe or village, even up to the last century, is going to have some inbreeding; if there's only 250 people in your village (and assuming that the population has been relatively stable for the last few hundred years) and every potential mate in your village is at least a 4th cousin, probably more than one way. As James Burke noted, the steam engine caused a revolution in genetic engineering, because with the railroad and the steamship, it was possible to meet and mate with people who weren't related to you at all.
Hybrid vigor works on people. Look at the stature of people from feudal Japan and China; stereotypically small, almost tiny. When those people came to Hawaii and wed other Japanese (and Chinese) people from other villages, their children were inches taller - living in the same culture, often on similar diets. Their children were taller still, and THEIR children are the size of everybody else.
The problem with inbreeding depends on the closeness of the relationship. With your sibling? If you carry ANY defective recessive genes at all, the chances of a child having it expressed is one half. With your 2nd cousin? A much lower chance of recessives matching. But in a small community, you'll almost certainly be marrying a cousin of some degree or another, even if your culture either marries outside the village (Ashkenazim) or raids for women (Viking or Polynesian, for example). If your culture tracks genealogy and tries to prevent inbreeding, then the problem is reduced. (People in the "Old Country" didn't know WHY inbreeding was bad, but they could see the effects!)
The summary clearly states inTERbreeding, the title turned it into inbreeding which is more or less the opposite. But this is Slashdot where the editors can't write and the posters can't read.
Hmmm who can't read?
Source article:
"Paabo and his colleagues could tell that this Siberian Neandertal was the product of inbreeding and that her ancestors also chose their mates from their extended family. This suggests that this Neandertal woman came from a small, isolated population, the team reports online today in Nature."
Abstract Here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature12886.html
" mating among close relatives was common among her recent ancestors"
Yes, the article also discusses interbreeding.
While closeness is important, repeated closeness is a much bigger factor. You could have a child with your sister with a fairly small chance of birth defects, but if those offspring had offspring, the chances increase dramatically. IIRC, cousin marriages were common in the middle east, but it's a system of parallel cousin marriage with rules that prevent repeatedly drawing from the same small gene pool. It's an interesting mechanism of staying within the tribe without most of the adverse effects of incest.
This is my signature. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
Not so. In Saudi, where cousin marriages are very common, the incidence of genetic defects (particularly ano-genital malformations) is very high. A reconstructive surgeon's paradise. Mac
Not really any such thing as an "Indian"
Then explain Inde, the Apache people's name for themselves before U.S. westward expansion.
There's a good point hidden in the above AC's trollish "joke"; inbreeding happens with almost all, if not all, species, especially when there is a small population of that species. That includes Neanderthals and modern humans, dogs, cats, bonobos...
This story brings to mind an old pop song by some one hit wonder I haven't heard in almost half a century --
I'm a neanderthal man
You're a Neanderthal girl
Lets make Neanderthal love
In this Neanderthal world
(IIRC it was that one verse repeated over and over, a really repetitious and stupid but catchy pop song)
Free Martian Whores!