Were the Neanderthals another branch of our species or another species altogether? Since I have seen both names used to refer to the Neanderthal in equally reputable sources, I assume there is a debate.
Also what is the latest word on whether the Neanderthal contributed to our modern gene-pool or not.
Neither. It’s “neanderthalensis” or even “neandertalensis”, but not neandertalis. Species or subspecies named after places (such as the Neander Valley) often end in -ensis. Another example is Australopithecus afarensis, named after the Afar region of Ethiopia.
A subspecies. A little weird looking but nothing that you’d be surprised to see hawking cotton candy at the local carnival.
Probably absorbed into our common gene pool like this.
Homo Sapiens sapiens walks down by the river with his superior brain and sees some neanderthal bitch washing her butt hair. He says “Hey, she ain’t pretty, but she’s there.”
Another odd theory is that they existed into fairly modern times, and still do in some form. Up until fairly recently in history the Basque of the Pyrenees have been pretty isolated. Different stature, bone structure, a prevalence of a certain blood type, and some other indications vaguely point to a different genetic heritage than other Europeans, perhaps a different race’s remnants. And the Basques have legends of the Cagots, and artifacts of the Cagots who were kind of a Basque gypsy and were physically much different, Neanderthallike than the other inhabitants. Another theory is that the Cagots were inbred lepers.
All very circumstantial and speculative of course.
Been doing some quick reading on the Cagots, hadn’t heard of them before.
Who were they? An intriguing mystery.
Best little link so far is Gaskell’s “An Accursed Race”[URL=http://www.lang.nagoya-u.ac.jp/~matsuoka/EG-Accursed.html]
My best bet is that they were descendants of the Cathars.
As they themselves claimed:
Which is a bit backwards, as it was Raymond of Toulouse that helped the Cathars against prosecution from the church.
Still confused about those missing earlobes…
Another interresting side-step.
The Masons are sometimes said to have a connection with the
Cathars and/or Templars.
Now, the Cagots were confined to mainly one profession, masonry.
Well, well, how about that?
Neanderthals co-existed with Cromagnon (early us) until about 30,000 yrs ago. Crossbreding may or may not have happened. There is a skeleton of that period that have both N and CM attributes, then again it may be deformed, either way it would have been no fun for a CM to give birth to an N, they had big heads. Mind you the way some people think could still be plenty of Ns around. 
Perhaps the situation between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon was similar to that between horses and donkeys. Donkeys and horses are quite similar, physically. They can mate, and are closely-related enough to produce offspring (the mule), but then the offspring is sterile. Hence, neither species can contribute to the gene pool of the other.
I have a hard time believing Neanderthals contributed to the modern gene pool. The physical differences between Neanderthals and Cto-Magnon (the modern humans who were contemporaries of the Neanderthals) seem too great. Have you checked out the brow ridge on a Neanderthal skull and compared it to a modern human skull? The difference (in a side-by-side comparison) is striking.
spoke-, this idea about mules is the basis for Finland paleoanthropologist Björn Kurtén’s theory of how Neanderthals became extinct. He wrote a novel, Dance of the Tiger, to popularize it. The novel presents the evidence gradually as in a mystery tale and lets you figure it out for yourself by the end of the book.
SPOILERSPOILERSPOILER
Kurtén observed that infant Neanderthals had smaller brow ridges and smaller jawbones. That means adult Cro-Magnons looked infantilistic to the Neanderthals. In ethology, infantilism is a trait used to endear loving feelings between individuals. Awww the cute widdle babeee… Therefore, the Neanderthals felt irresistibly attracted to the Cro-Magnons and fell in love with them and mated with them. The infertility of their offspring meant that the Neanderthal lines descended from Cromagnon-Neanderthal matings quickly died out.
It’s interesting to see a theory that they became extinct from love, rather than from rivalry/distrust/hatred/violence/genocide, as is usually assumed (e.g. in Auel’s Earth’s Children series of novels). Kurtén put a Scandinavian twist to Cromagnon-Neanderthal interactions by having his Cro-Magnons refer to Neanderthals as “Trolls,” implying that a distant racial memory of Neanderthals is what led to the Scandinavian folklore about trolls. That could be plausible, who knows?
[MPSIMS mode]I tried to read some of the French-language Cagot websites using the Google translator, as I know no French, and it translated Cagot as “canting hypocrites.” Surely inaccurate, but kinda poetic.[/MPSIMS mode]
The horse/donkey analogy makes sense to me.
Imagine this scenario: Donkeys go extinct tomorrow. Horses live on. 50,000 years pass.
Now a paleontologist comes along and looks at the fossil record. He finds lots of modern horse skeletons. He finds lots of donkey skeletons. And he finds a few skeletons (mules) which seem to have some characteristics of both species.
How is that different from the current human fossil record in Europe? You’ve got lots of modern human remains. You’ve got lots of Neanderthal remains. And you’ve got a handful of skeletons which have some characteristics of both species (such as the one taklon described).
Very briefly as I am on the road.
No.
Search the genome online database I have linked to in re the race discussions for current genetics papers on the issue. Hard data not speculation resolves these issues.
However, the short of it is DNA extracted from several Neandertal remains have placed Neandertal well outside the human range of diversity. They are, by this data, excluded from any meaningful contribution to modern humanity period, and highly unlikely to have been interfertile with humanity given the long contact period and ample occasion to contribute to the pool. All current data points to some version of African descent, 100%, with a variety of scenarios on backflow in re early exiters among the proto Modern Humans.
The Spanish child was a just that, a child’s skeleton with indistinct morphology and damaged to boot.
Actually Neaderthals had slightly larger cranial cavities than we do. And, like Cro Magnon, lived and hunted in family units, used tools, and had elaborate ritual/spiritual lives.
But, although Neanderthals had, like CM’s, a larynx, they did not not a supra-pharynx. because of this they were unable to form the different vowells that enabled CM communicate with each other on a more complex level, and pass detailed information down from one generation to another. (kind of like Al Gore’s “digital divide” on a anthrological level)
Evidence shows that Neaderthal man did just fine for 30,000 years, through even worse climatic conditions than those that pervailed at the time of his disapperance about 40,000 years ago. So it is believed that he was crowded out by the superior skills of CM.
As for the Cro Magnon/Neadertall mix analogized in terms of horses plus donkeys - actually, donkeys and horses do not mate of their own volition in the wild. And, as Gregor Mendel pointed out, geneitics is a matter of either/or: when you mate a tall bean plant with a short bean plant, you get either a tall or short plant, not a medium plant. So even if a Neanderthal man were to club a CM woman and drag her by the hair back to his cave, the result would either have or not have a supra-pharynx.
slithy trove wrote:
That’s beside the point. I was analogizing their genetic relationship, not their mating behaviors.
Besides which, humans have shown a remarkable tendency to couple with whatever critter might be handy and about the right size. (Just ask that nervous-looking sheep in that pasture over there.) So if a human will couple with a sheep, why not with a Neanderthal?
I’m not sure why you consider this a strike against the donkey-horse-mule analogy. The mule inherits some characteristics of the donkey, and it inherits some characteristics of the horse.
So yeah, a human-Neanderthal hybrid would either have or not have a supra-pharynx, but what exactly do you think that proves?
Also, if genetics is purely a matter of either/or, how is it that mules are halfway between donkeys and horses in size?
Briefly, no. Mendel was a great pioneer but genetics has moved far beyond the point where citing Gregor is useful in re such questions. A variety of scenarios such as co-dominant alleles can be cited to. However, that is neither here nor there.
If one wishes to learn more, go to genome.org and search on Neandertal (using the proper sci. ref) and human descent and you can pull up the substantive original science on this over the past 5 yrs. Rather than relying on half-baked speculation. Or not as you prefer.
Please, sir. We serve our speculation fully-baked 'round these parts.
Besides which, my educated guess (that Neanderthals did not make a lasting contribution to the DNA of modern humans) seems to have been borne out by your precious “substantive original science.” Heh.
Now kindly retire from the thread, and let us get back to our armchair scientificating.