Neanderthals ‘had sex’ with modern man

[Zyklop]

From The Sunday Times
October 25, 2009

Neanderthals ‘had sex’ with modern man

Jonathan Leake, Science Editor

Modern humans and Neanderthals had sex across the species barrier, according to a leading geneticist who is overseeing a project to compare their genomes.

Professor Svante Paabo, director of genetics at the renowned Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, will shortly publish his analysis of the entire Neanderthal genome, using DNA retrieved from fossils. He aims to compare it with the genomes of modern humans and chimpanzees to work out the ancestry of all three species.

Modern humans arrived in Europe from Africa about 40,000 years ago to find Neanderthals already living there. The two species then co-existed for 10,000-12,000 years before Neanderthals died out — a fact that has caused endless academic speculation about whether they interbred.
Paabo recently told a conference at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory near New York that he was now sure the two species had had sex — but a question remained about how “productive” it 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.”

Such an answer might ease the controversy over recent contradictory discoveries regarding Neanderthals. Some fossils seem to have both modern human and Neanderthal features, suggesting that the two species interbred. Yet DNA scans have shown that Neanderthal genes were very different from those of modern man.

Last week Professor Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum, presented a conference at the Royal Society in London with an idea that could accommodate both sets of evidence.

“It’s possible that Neanderthals and humans were genetically incompatible, so they could have interbred but their children would have been less fertile,” said Stringer.

This phenomenon is seen in many other species such as when lions breed with tigers and horses breed with zebras.

“I used to believe Neanderthals were primitive,” said Stringer, “but 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.”

Due to the length of time that has elapsed since Neanderthals became extinct, any trace of their DNA in modern humans could have been diluted below detectable levels. Paabo hopes to overcome this by scanning the Neanderthal genome for the genes of modern humans.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/new...cle6888874.ece

[Thulsa Doom]

It´s interesting that Pääbo comes forward with this obvious conclusion at this moment. He and his team must have come pretty far in their research, so maybe he is dropping hints to cover up his previous position.

I believe that intermingling is unavoidable when a related "species" advances into a new territory. Considering that all cat species can interbreed even though some of them are more then 5 million years apart genetically, it would be strange if two close relatives like Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals could not.

[Lutiferre]

I want to have sex with a neanderthal.

[Lutiferre]

I want to have sex with a neanderthal.

Scratch that, I meant with a human.. no, a deer.. no.. just forget it.

[The Black Prince]

Paabo recently told a conference at the Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory near New York that he was now sure the two species had had sex — but a question remained about how “productive” it had been.

This is indeed something...

Earlier the geneticists claimed that although Neanderthals and Archaic Modern Human (AMH) might have met eachother, there was no single evidience for sexual relationship. They said it might have been but it's pure speculation. And now Paabo himslef said: that the two species had had sex, that is quite a change.

Reproducing does seem to be still questionable. Earlier in 2008 they established the date of divergence at between modern humans and Neanderthals as 660 kya (95% certainty), this seems large but when you combine it with the divergence time between Sudanids and Europids (140kya) it might not be as large. The divergence time between the AMH and Neanderthals would be less of course since you can subtract at least 30kya of the divergence time (and perhaps more taking the Levant situation in view).
It shall in my opinion more depend on how far the two kinds have been driven out of eachother qua physicall structure.

The example they used of lions and tigers is nice to illustrate, and to be honest I don't know the divergence time between the two of them (a few millions yrs I guess). But even if it would be less as a million years ago, when you recalculate it to the number of generations that have passed for lions and tiger it is many and many times more as the number of generations that have passed between the Neanderthals and AMH

Sources:
Green et al. (2008). A Complete Neandertal Mitochondrial Genome Sequence Determined by High-Throughput Sequencing.

Gutenkunst et al. (2009). Inferring the Joint Demographic History of Multiple Populations from Multidimensional SNP Frequency Data.

[Fortis in Arduis]

Wow, that is just SO sensational!!!

Next page:

Tits and aZZ!!!

[sturmwalkure]

Now we know where Al-Frankawi came from.

[Mesrine]

Now we know where Al-Frankawi came from.

What is Neanderthal in me?

[Lutiferre]

This is indeed something...

Earlier the geneticists claimed that although Neanderthals and Archaic Modern Human (AMH) might have met eachother, there was no single evidience for sexual relationship. They said it might have been but it's pure speculation. And now Paabo himslef said: that the two species had had sex, that is quite a change.

But where is the change in terms of evidence?

All I have seen is the statement "I am sure they had sex", which might as well be a private sexual fantasy made into a "scientific" assumption.

If there was even a proportion of the difference between humans today and other hominids, then the scenario doesn't seem comparable to tigers and lions at all; because the difference lies in the modern human, unlike any other creature.

So I see little to no reason to expect any major kind of interbreeding or attraction. The differences would probably be recognized and either separation or war would be the response.

But that there should be some fringe cases of sex seems to me to be an insignificant and unanswerable speculation; it seems not to be substantially different from the fringe number of people who practice beastiality today with various other creatures.

[The Black Prince]

^sigh, just saw all that typefast errors of me.

But I'm curious too about that.. Paabo is not the type that speculates wildly about sexual fantasies on congresses.