You bunch of Neanderthals!

General General Discussion
1

No, seriously. It appears large portion of the population carries 1-4% Neanderthal genes. :cool:

Science reporter, BBC News

Many people alive today possess some Neanderthal ancestry, according to a landmark scientific study.

The finding has surprised many experts, as previous genetic evidence suggested the Neanderthals made little or no contribution to our inheritance.

The result comes from analysis of the Neanderthal genome - the “instruction manual” describing how these ancient humans were put together.

Between 1% and 4% of the Eurasian human genome seems to come from Neanderthals.

But the study confirms living humans overwhelmingly trace their ancestry to a small population of Africans who later spread out across the world.

[Neanderthals] are not totally extinct, in some of us they live on - a little bit
Professor Svante Paabo
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

The most widely-accepted theory of modern human origins - known as Out of Africa - holds that the ancestors of living humans (Homo sapiens) originated in Africa some 200,000 years ago.

A relatively small group of people then left the continent to populate the rest of the world between 50,000 and 60,000 years ago.

While the Neanderthal genetic contribution - found in people from Europe, Asia and Oceania - appears to be small, this figure is higher than previous genetic analyses have suggested.

“They are not totally extinct. In some of us they live on, a little bit,” said Professor Svante Paabo, from the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

Cont:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8660940.stm

2

Yea it’s not really surprising news at all. It’s been suspected for several decades, but this current group of scientists finally was able to isolate Neanderthal DNA and make the evidence more concrete.

3

I heard this report on the radio the other day. I kind of figured that the Neanderthal chicks must have been like the fat chicks at a bar at 2 AM.

4

My wife could told you that. I admit that I am a knuckle-dragging troglodyte. I think the only thing I am missing is the thick frontal bone over the eyes and the unibrow.

5

Can’t wait for the Black Supremacists to grab hold of this and make fun of our ‘monkey’ heritage.

I sometimes think the 1-4% is concentrated in 1-4% of the population.

6

Truth:eek:

7

I watched a special about neanderthals. At the time of the special they couldn’t conclusively prove their theories of neanderthal and modern human interbreeding. They say red hair is a neanderthal genetic trait. Recently I heard that natural red heads are becoming more rare.

8

I think he interviewed my ex. She was always accusing me of having skinless knuckles as well.

9

I think that I will believe the word of God over that of a fallible man, even if that man has an advanced degree.

10

my daddy always said to stay away from redheads. said they had a wild streak in em.

11

Given the possibility there may have been some interbreeding taking place between neanderthals and early homo sapiens, it suggests that our ancestral women were likely “so easy even a caveman can do 'em.”

12

Like Homer Stokes said on Oh Brother Where Art Thou… and these smart a$$ people wanna say we came from monkeys. That’s not my cultural and heritage … is that your cultural and heritage?

13

Interesting. I have often wondered how far back you would have to go back to reach a point in the evolution of man when we could no longer breed with other hominid species(using he broader term of course not the more narrow term).

Obviously we are to far divergent from the great apes now but going back the the common ancestors it is interesting to me when that divergence happened. The point of no return so to speak.

If I had to guess I would say modern man has a lot of DNA from various early Hominids from parallel branches of the Evolutionary tree that re-merged as the populations grew.

14

It is all our culture and heritage. Except we didn’t come from monkeys. Monkeys and us just came from a common ancestor.

15

Well that explains the hairy knuckles and my behavior before my morning coffee. Now if I can only get the warden to buy into this :cool:

16

:smiley:

I was assuming that it was our men doing the interbreeding with the Neanderthal women.But that would have ruined the joke huh.

I remember reading a story awhile back that they had found Neanderthal bones with our teeth marks on them…

It looks like they may have been a one-stop-shop for our ancestors.

17

I have been called a caveman more than once in my life, I guess there just might be some truth in it. :smiley:

18

Landmark study? I thought wal-mart was everywhere.

19

I first heard of the theory of this in an anthropology class I took in 1992 or 1993. Neanderthals actually had larger brains than contemporary homo sapiens. The theory I recall is that homo sapiens simply out-bred neanderthals, but we evolved into a single, mostly homo sapiens species.

20

You do understand that the “word of God” was written by fallible men with no degrees right?