Neanderthal and Human Interbreeding Puzzle

I think the two species genetically grew apart over time. Let's not forget it's TWO DIFFERENT SPECIES we're talking about...

 

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It's my understanding the gene mutation for red hair in homosapians and Neanderthals is different. It's an unrelated mutation.

More than likely we didn't inter breed. I think?

 

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I personally would say we didn't interbreed even rarely. Perhaps like someone already alluded to:

About as often as a modern HS has some barnyard sex.

And frankly I suspect stone age men and women had a lot more easier access to "conventional" sex as a ratio of the population than modern man does.
Yes I think there was less weird kinky shit going on back then, they simply didn't "need" it.

 

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I strongly disagree. At least with this comparison. Contrary popular belief, Neanderthals were much more "civilized" than has always been thought. They looked more like us than has traditionally been displayed, and they more than likely were able to speak. Chances are very good that early humans did not even know that neanderthals were a separate species. They probably just thought that they were shorter, stockier people.

 

They did kind of eat some of them though.

 

What is the definition of a different species?

Given two animals that are able to mate & produce offspring, are they considered the same species?

It is my understanding that all dogs are considered to belong to the same species because they can successfully breed offspring. Comparison of Great Danes & Bull Mastiffs with Poodles & Retrievers make Neanderthals & Homo Sapiens very similar.

 

If they mated, would their offspring be sterile like a mule?

 

Unknown...

 

Disagree, Are they really teaching that? Neanderthals are very obviously different than Homo Sapiens and that would be obvious 40000 years ago. I suspect only outcasts of both groups would even think about it...

I do agree with you that they were very advanced and my "barnyard" comment does them disservice though. They were probably smarter than us and were stronger and physically superior to us. We just out "populated them".

 

Actually no, they weren't that different. Recent discoveries have shown that if we were presented with a neanderthal, we more than likely would not be able to tell that they were any different than us physically.

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Looks pretty human to me. As far as technology, they had the same as us, and some even more advanced than ours for the time. I think its pretty obvious that 40,000 years ago, people had no way of telling each other apart genetically. If humans at that time were to see an ape or a monkey, they would obviously deem it different than them. But neanderthals looked like us, more than likely spoke like us, had rituals, culture, tools, weapons, intelligence etc. Everything we had. The only difference was that they were a little bit shorter and stockier. In the face, they are nearly identical to us.

Its a very common misconception that neanderthals were "barbaric", "brutish" and ugly. Evidence shows that they buried their dead, cared for their old and disabled, had some form of spirituality etc. There is little doubt that early humans would have thought that they were also humans. There's no reason to think that they would not have mated with each other. Theory shows that if they did breed, they either could not produce offspring, or bred and produced offspring that were sterile, hence only one skeleton found that may have been a hybrid.

As is known, fossilization is rare. It could be that there were quite a number of hybrids, but no skeletal remains exist, or have not yet been found.

Their extinction has little to do with intelligence or the misconception that they were unintelligent. They existed at a time when the earth was much colder, and getting out of Europe (where most of them were) would have been harder. Humans were already in many places. Neanderthals were only in a few pockets here and there. Humans also evolved in many climates, and therefore could adapt to many climates. Neanderthals evolved to survive in cold climates. Their stockiness would have made warmer climates a little more intolerable. They were also not as nomadic as Humans. Evidence shows that they habitated places for longer periods of time. Humans tend to go somewhere, use up some resources and move on. We were simply more suited to do so.

For years neanderthals have been misrepresented. Only very recently have new discoveries been made as to their appearance and habits.

Edit: It should also be noted that species that live in cold climates tend to produce fewer offspring. Colder climates make survival much harder. and caring for young a much more daunting task. While humans lived in warmer more fertile climates, they would have been able to have many children and raise them simultaneously. Neanderthals could really probably only be able to have one at a time, and still the chance of success was low. They also hunted much larger and more dangerous prey than humans did. Probably leading to hunting being a much more dangerous activity and causing much more deaths among tribes. Humans living farther south had much smaller and easier prey to kill, and also had access to much more vegetation. Granted humans would have faced all the same challenges as neanderthals in Europe, they could always replenish their stock by more and more humans coming into the area. neanderthals didn't have that luxury.

 

This is the main issue: They either didn't mate, or their offspring didn't reproduce an hybrid for the last 600 to 800 thousand years. Mules are offspring of horses and donkeys. Horses have 64 chromosomes while donkeys have 62. Each parent contribute half of their dna 32 from a horse and 31 from a donkey. The resulting chromosome number of mule becomes 32+31= 63. So mules can not reproduce a new mule. In some rare occasions they produce an offspring, but the result becomes either a donkey or an horse, depending on mating partner. So it is allowed to produce an offspring, yet it is not allowed to reproduce a distinct "mule species". Similar isolated offspring would be possible between 46 chromosome of humans and 48 chromosomes of chimpanzees.

However, Neanderthals had 46 chromosomes, just as modern humans. So offspring of these two species would also have had 46 chromosomes. "At least technically", this number gives us a possibility of what any mule has never had: reproductivity. Yet for some reason, some dna traces tell us that it did not happen well before neanderthals went extinct; or offspring didn't transfer his or her genetic make-up to the future, so we can not see these marks in human dna. This sounds like a puzzle to me.

I found this paragraph about cross-mating, (source: http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/gen01/gen01739.htm), now I am trying the rethink of the possibilities among these options:

The first option is utterly unthinkable, when you consider human species "as we know" which is capable of having sex with literally "anything". The second one should be experimented through genetic engineering in order to prove/disprove. The third option is partly unacceptable since our hypothetical offspring would have had no problem with number of chromosomes; and partly considerable since there could be a type or a quality of reproductive cells preventing either an offspring and/or reproduction of this offspring.
Still not conclusive.

 

this has been proven? When and how?

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I don't think anyone can really know. Any answer will always be a speculative one.

 

Although it doesn't sound conclusive yet, a new study suggests that a small amount of Neanderthal genes "survive in us":

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8660940.stm

If this is true, the interbreeding is on the table now...

 

Check my post #13.

While expressed in a humourous fashion, it was intended as a vote for sexual activity, if not successful breeding.

See also my post #26.

 

Hey that's life...

I wonder what species our genes will live on in the far flung future...

 

I am doing a project on the co existence of neanderthals and early humans. I am looking for a sort of mentor or "science buddy". I am in seventh grade.

BTW; I believe the neanderthals actually did breed with humans and there is a test you can have to see how much neanderthal dna you have in your blood.

 

Welcome Ally. It seems pretty certain there was some mixing of the 2 species.

 

Thank You very much for replying!!!;-)

 

Hi Ally:
Neanderthals, denisovans, and sapiens sapiens("humans") are all one species = Homo Sapiens. We are just different sub species.

Non sub Saharan homo sapiens sapiens carry between 4 and 6 % sapiens neanderthalensis dna, and all together, we carry about 20% of the
sapiens neanderthalensis genome. It is currently believed that the distribution of sapiens denisovans is more limited. However the 430,000 year old complete sima de los huesos denisovan femur (which yielded denisovan mitochondrial dna)genome has yet to be decoded. We may yet have a new paradigm from which to work when that is done. Finding a denisovan in spain was completely unexpected, as their range was believed to be in central , eastern, and south-eastern asia.

You should read up on Matthias Meyer and colleagues describing the mitochondrial dna sequence from Sima de los Huesos. Which may indicate that Heidelbergensis was also within our species classification.

Good luck
and
have fun