Neanderthal admixture in humans!

[Heraclitus]

Fascinating news!

http://www.sciencemag.org/special/neandertal/


http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/

Via Razib:

I’m still digesting the papers on the Neandertals which just came out. You can find them here. If you have questions, please read the papers first. They’re open access, so free to all. There’s a lot to mull over, and I don’t know what I can add right now, but I will note:

1) There’s a lot of stuff that doesn’t have to do with admixture, but focuses on genes where Neandertals and modern humans differ. There is for example an enrichment of differences in genes which relate to skin morphology. But my friends who think that modern human uniqueness can’t be pinned down to changes in SNPs will probably feel even more validated by this paper.

2) The fact that non-Africans as a whole, including Papuans, have Neandertal admixture, presumably from interactions in the Middle East, seem close to falsifying the “two-wave” model of expansion “Out of Africa” which came to prominence in the early aughts. That is, one group of Africans went north through the Middle East, and another swept along the Indian ocean fringe and onto southeast Asia. If there were two waves then they interacted a lot because they both received the same proportion of Neandertal alleles, which makes the idea of two genetically distinct waves a bit useless.

It seems Salier was right on his money on Sunday. 1 to 4% admixture after years thinking this 600 000 year divergent branch went completly into oblivion is well... nerdy to get excited over. But I can't help myself!

Here's up to a new group of ancestors!






Excuse me I'll go back to reading it!

[Bosh]

This explains a great deal about many things...

[Theben]

This isn't news.

[Barnabas]

If this is true it will severely hurt my faith. Serious post.

I guess you can belive in God nd think that he guided evolution to create Homo Sapiens Sapiens, but if some humans mated with other now extinct hominids and transmited their genes, how can you still believe in God?

[Perfection]

He looks sad

[Riesstiu IV]

That's probably because he knows he will appear in a Hera thread 40,000 years later.

[Az]

****, that kind of thing will make you want to kill yourself. which explains the disappearance...


anyhow, this is really cool, although not really surprising.

[ricketyclik]

If this is true it will severely hurt my faith. Serious post.

I guess you can belive in God nd think that he guided evolution to create Homo Sapiens Sapiens, but if some humans mated with other now extinct hominids and transmited their genes, how can you still believe in God?

By believing in God, and not in some human writings that while providing some interesting takes on history and morals should only be taken literally all the way through by superstitious morons?

[ricketyclik]

Can someone set me straight here?

There's 4 % crossover in our DNA with Neanderthals. Why can't this be explained by a couple of humans mating with Neanderthals and the offspring being brought up in Neanderthal families, leaving Homo Sapiens Neanderthal DNA-free?

To put it another way, maybe they had some of our DNA, rather than us having some of theirs?

[trev]

They are all humans. Neanderthals are not a separate species as they can and did interbreed with other humans. Yes, there are some anatomical differences, but there are differences of a similar scale between the pigmy tribes of Africa and Scandinavians and Chinese etc. As a single species, of course the DNA is very similar.
There are much greater differences between skulls of a pitbull terrier and a greyhound, but they can interbreed and we know they are the same species, dog, exactly the same situation with Neanderthrals and humans. Genocide has been committed in the past against the Neanderthral tribe, rather than admit genocide we seem to feel more comfortable naming them as a separate species.

[ricketyclik]

That makes sense.

Maybe they were subsumed and ceased to be a separate group, like say... Jeez, I can't think of an example.

Maybe they still exist side by side with the rest of us. That would explain Rugby League players

[Jon Miller]

If this is true it will severely hurt my faith. Serious post.

I guess you can belive in God nd think that he guided evolution to create Homo Sapiens Sapiens, but if some humans mated with other now extinct hominids and transmited their genes, how can you still believe in God?

I am not sure why it would hurt your faith? Does the Bible ever talk about the purity of Homo Sapien Sapien? What part of God existing or even Christ existing (or even performing miracles) relies upon or is any way related to modern humans/etc genetics/maiting etc.

I think that there is nothing incompatible with any traditional/common/etc beliefs due to this (other than the old point of 800000 years or whatever, but I think that young earth creationists have had to deal with that for over a century).

JM

[Heraclitus]

This explains a great deal about many things...

Can you be more specific?

[Heraclitus]

They are all humans. Neanderthals are not a separate species as they can and did interbreed with other humans. Yes, there are some anatomical differences, but there are differences of a similar scale between the pigmy tribes of Africa and Scandinavians and Chinese etc. As a single species, of course the DNA is very similar.
There are much greater differences between skulls of a pitbull terrier and a greyhound, but they can interbreed and we know they are the same species, dog, exactly the same situation with Neanderthrals and humans. Genocide has been committed in the past against the Neanderthral tribe, rather than admit genocide we seem to feel more comfortable naming them as a separate species.

Neanderthals are classified either as a seperate species Homo N. or as a Subspecies Homo Sapiens N. The genetic and anatomical differences are much larger than between the currently existing races.

A up to 20% larger brain for starters. The ability to throw spears properly for another.

[Heraclitus]

Can someone set me straight here?

There's 4 % crossover in our DNA with Neanderthals. Why can't this be explained by a couple of humans mating with Neanderthals and the offspring being brought up in Neanderthal families, leaving Homo Sapiens Neanderthal DNA-free?

To put it another way, maybe they had some of our DNA, rather than us having some of theirs?

You are quite confused, read the link I provided and inqure about their method.


A bit OT I think this may point to other possible admixture in humans. I'm betting we will see some advanced erectus or other hominid admixture elsewhere in Asia in addition to the 4% N. that nonAfricans in general have.