# I can has Neanderthal genes? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 6, 2010, 9:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552 "2010-05-06T21:00:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/41 "2010-05-07T20:03:12Z")
It’s been my theory for quite some time that N5s (the immune system subgroup which are immune to Bubonic Plague) were of partial Neaderthal stock. This would definitely explain a higher modern population in the European ancestry. I have also long thought that my family had Neanderthal blood lines. We just seem to have an easier time building muscle, and a harder time supporting a high growth rate. (Tall TCs tends to be gimpy TCs.) And we have the aforementioned immune system difference. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 7, 2010, 11:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/42 "2010-05-07T23:03:17Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > It’s been my theory for quite some time that N5s (the immune system subgroup which are immune to Bubonic Plague) were of partial Neaderthal stock. This would definitely explain a higher modern population in the European ancestry. That doesn’t make any sense. Especially the last sentence. I don’t even know what that means. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/43 "2010-05-08T00:43:56Z")
Well, different species have different proteins in their immune systems. Bubonic plague can not infect people with the N5 protein. Blood lines carrying a natural advantage against bubonic plague would have been more successful throughout Europe. If two groups left Africa, one mixing with Neanderthals, and one not. The line carrying the Neanderthal immune protein (assuming I’m correct about that connection) would be more successful. ---
**Author:** ![Sitnam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6a8cbe/32.png) [@Sitnam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sitnam)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/44 "2010-05-08T01:05:14Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > If two groups left Africa, one mixing with Neanderthals, and one not. The line carrying the Neanderthal immune protein (assuming I’m correct about that connection) would be more successful. That protein which is in the one to four percent genetic material _some_ of us share with Neanderthals was enough to save 1/3 of Europe from the Black Death? Thats certainly a statistical Hail Mary. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 2:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/45 "2010-05-08T02:10:53Z")
> [@TruCelt](#): > > Well, different species have different proteins in their immune systems. Bubonic plague can not infect people with the N5 protein. Blood lines carrying a natural advantage against bubonic plague would have been more successful throughout Europe. > > If two groups left Africa, one mixing with Neanderthals, and one not. The line carrying the Neanderthal immune protein (assuming I’m correct about that connection) would be more successful. Yes, I understand that. But why would Neanderthals have an immunity to bubonic plague? And what does this mean: > [@](#): > > This would definitely explain a higher modern population in the European ancestry. Higher population density when? ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 3:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/46 "2010-05-08T03:08:08Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > For the record, I’m quite happy to be part Neanderthal. I had a hard time believing that the two populations were unable and unwilling to interbreed successfully. The little I’ve read suggests recent data is fairly convincing that at least one out of Africa group contains Neanderthal contribution to the genome; this group may have mixed before it split into European and Asian groups. My understanding is that Paabo, at least, believes the mixing may have occurred during Paleolithic times; I assume some of this reasoning is based on mitochondrial DNA studies. It seems to me that there may be some discomfort around the whole Neanderthal-genes-in-Europeans-and-Asians-but-not-Sub-Saharan-Africans thing. There exists a general doctrine of genetic egalitarianism that is based on a monogenetic Adam-and-Eve sort of origin for modern humans. Evidence of injection of “outside” genes, particularly into groups composing a couple or three “race” categories is not going to be a comfortable thing, and I expect fairly rigorous examination of the evidence before it’s widely accepted. While it’s fun–and commercially successful–to imply that Neanderthals would be a step backward, those popular perceptions have little to do with reality. They could just as easily be advantageous genes. And 1-4% is actually quite a large number; perhaps on order of the difference between humans and chimpanzees, right? ---
**Author:** ![Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/a9a28c/32.png) [@Oslo\_Ostragoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Oslo_Ostragoth)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 3:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/47 "2010-05-08T03:24:23Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > … Same brow ridge, same short leg/long arm/long torso, same heavy musculature. :eek: You just described me, my father, and his father. Except although I have the frame for big muscles, I never got them, despite trying. ---
**Author:** ![septimus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/septimus/32/410_2.png) [@septimus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/septimus)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/48 "2010-05-08T05:48:01Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I wonder what this will do to our sense of what the [Identical Ancestor Point](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Identical_ancestors_point) is for _H. sapiens_. If the last Neanderthals died out ~25k years ago, it can’t be earlier than that, so good-bye 5-15k years ago as the time period. (Did you write “earlier” for “later”?) Two points: (1) I think the models used to estimate MRCA and IAP specifically assume no non-sapiens ancestry. (2) I’m doubtful about the MRCA and IAP estimates in general. Australia and America were fairly isolated. Even allowing for _some_ diffusion, can one be sure diffusion was enough to meet MRCA and IAP estimates? The one MRCA-like estimate I saw that showed its assumptions _specifically ignored_ the difficulty of diffusion parameters (as being unknown) and used instead a very crude diffusion model. > [@Pleonast](#): > > I think that as our knowledge of population genetics improves, we’ll discover that the species concept is naturally very fuzzy. It was a thread at SDMB, I think, which called my attention to the fact that inter-species (but intra-genus) breeding, however rare, does occur. Charles Darwin wrote: > [@](#): > > Several years ago I saw confined in the Zoological Gardens of London a female hybrid from an English dog and jackal, which even in this the first generation was so sterile that, as I was assured by her keeper, she did not fully exhibit her proper periods; but this case, from numerous instances have occurred of fertile hybrids from these two animals, was certainly exceptional. ---
**Author:** ![TruCelt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/trucelt/32/523_2.png) [@TruCelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TruCelt)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 11:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/49 "2010-05-08T11:20:52Z")
This may help explain my point. [http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/previous\_seasons/case\_plague/clues.html](http://www.pbs.org/wnet/secrets/previous_seasons/case_plague/clues.html) The gene I had seen referred to as “N5” is called “CCR5” here. It’s the same gene which seems to provide immunity to HIV infection. Also, I should have used the term “Black Death” instead of bubonic plague. Why would Neanderthals have an immunity? We are not referring here to a developed immunity such as results from vaccination, if that’s what you mean. We are talking about a simple misalignment between the disease and host. Much like the way apes can carry HIV but not be made ill by it. Higher population density when? Now. There would be a higher number of descendants in Europe of plague resistant vs plague vulnerable populations. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/73ab20/32.png) [@The\_Tao\_s\_Revenge](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Tao_s_Revenge)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/50 "2010-05-08T13:13:09Z")
> [@robardin](#): > > “…there is at least some cave man biology in most of us”? I can’t wait until the ad agency for GEICO read this headline. Neanderthals are so easy even a cave man could do them! ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 2:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/51 "2010-05-08T14:18:02Z")
> [@septimus](#): > > It was a thread at SDMB, I think, which called my attention to the fact that inter-species (but intra-genus) breeding, however rare, does occur. One thing to keep in mind is that the modern BSC definition of “species” pretty much rules out significant inter-species breeding in the wild. If there is significant interbreeding, then the populations aren’t considered different species any more. But the term “species” is a human construct. ---
**Author:** ![Chief\_Pedant](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@Chief\_Pedant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chief_Pedant)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/52 "2010-05-08T16:27:43Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I’d say it’s likely to stick - genetics has advanced a lot in recent years, and their methodology sounds much more inclusive than earlier studies.Hard to think of any - random drift wouldn’t give you the correlation they’re claiming - I mean, 3% is a lot. > > Well, at least half my ancestor population is likely Neanderthal-free. Don’t be too hasty to criticize Grandma’s habit of sleeping around : _“The analysis of the Neandertal genome shows that they are likely to have had a role in the genetic ancestry of present-day humans outside of Africa, although this role was relatively minor given that only a few percent of the genomes of present-day people outside Africa are derived from Neandertals. Our results also point to a number of genomic regions and genes as candidates for positive selection early in modern human history, for example, those involved in cognitive abilities and cranial morphology. We expect that further analyses of the Neandertal genome as well as the genomes of other archaic hominins will generate additional hypotheses and provide further insights into the origins and early history of present-day humans.”_ (emphasis mine) [http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/328/5979/710.pdf](http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/328/5979/710.pdf) Sounds like you can blame her for being ugly, though. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Tethered\_Kite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/a5b964/32.png) [@Tethered\_Kite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tethered_Kite)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/53 "2010-05-08T16:35:56Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Gee, I got roundly trounced here a couple years ago when I stated that I was certain that we had neanderthal genes in our cro-magnon woodpile. I know at least one guy who you could stand next to a skeleton in a museum and people would think he was a clean shaven modern dressed display unit :rolleyes: Same brow ridge, same short leg/long arm/long torso, same heavy musculature. Back in college a bunch of us used to call him Og because of the neanderthal look he had going on. And yes, he could play the Geico caveman with minimal makeup. I’ve met a few people who certainly share this phisiognomy. So I was delighted by the news this week that perhaps my flights of fancy weren’t so far fetched, after all. Love it. One guy always walked into a business meeting late and I could almost see the club he was dragging with him.😛 ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/54 "2010-05-08T16:44:43Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > Gee, I got roundly trounced here a couple years ago when I stated that I was certain that we had neanderthal genes in our cro-magnon woodpile. I know at least one guy who you could stand next to a skeleton in a museum and people would think he was a clean shaven modern dressed display unit :rolleyes: Same brow ridge, same short leg/long arm/long torso, same heavy musculature. Back in college a bunch of us used to call him Og because of the neanderthal look he had going on. And yes, he could play the Geico caveman with minimal makeup. I always thought that [Milford Wolpoff](http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wolpoff/) looked Neanderthal-ish. Oddly enough, he’s the most high profile anti-Out of Africa anthropologists, claiming Europeans are directly descended from Neanderthals. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 4:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/55 "2010-05-08T16:46:31Z")
> [@Tethered\_Kite](#): > > I’ve met a few people who certainly share this phisiognomy. So I was delighted by the news this week that perhaps my flights of fancy weren’t so far fetched, after all. > > Love it. One guy always walked into a business meeting late and I could almost see the club he was dragging with him.😛 You know, the “cavemen are always late” thing is an offensive stereotype, right? I mean, they frequently are late, but it’s offensive if a non-caveman says it. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/56 "2010-05-08T16:51:43Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > I always thought that [Milford Wolpoff](http://www-personal.umich.edu/~wolpoff/) looked Neanderthal-ish. Oddly enough, he’s the most high profile anti-Out of Africa anthropologists, claiming Europeans are directly descended from Neanderthals. 🙂 Thank you! I remembered this guy from TV but had forgotten the name. And I definitely thought he looked the part. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 5:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/57 "2010-05-08T17:29:23Z")
> [@Bridget\_Burke](#): > > Thank you! I remembered this guy from TV but had forgotten the name. And I definitely thought he looked the part. There was a time, not all that long ago, when Out of Africa wasn’t so nearly the consensus view, and you’d see him pop up in documentaries to discuss his hypothesis, which he calls the Multiregional hypothesis. These days, though, I think the Out of Africa hypothesis has won, hands down. I have to wonder if he’s finally given up on that hypothesis since it just doesn’t stand up to the DNA evidence we have. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/58 "2010-05-08T20:23:10Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > While it’s fun–and commercially successful–to imply that Neanderthals would be a step backward, those popular perceptions have little to do with reality. They could just as easily be advantageous genes. And 1-4% is actually quite a large number; perhaps on order of the difference between humans and chimpanzees, right? I think that is a misread of the paper by whichever journalist is reporting this. All extant humans share about 99.9% of our DNA. We share 99.5% of our DNA with Neanderthals and about 98.5% with chimps. These are the numbers I’ve seen most commonly reported. I can’t see that we are suddenly saying that some extant human populations differ by as much as 4% in their DNA. Oh, and thanks for the link to the paper in _Science_ in your subsequent post. I tried wading thru it, but I think I’ll wait for the PBS \*NOVA \*special on this subject-- that was a little dense for me. ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/59 "2010-05-08T20:57:36Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > We don’t know. Odds are they had light-ish skin, but that’s just a guess based on the fact they lived mostly in the north. Artist renditions tend to make them look like heavy set Caucasians with large noses and heavy brow ridges. The main thing I have with the dirty, tangle haired image is the evidence of _jewelry_ in the grave goods. This seems to me to indicate they actually had some form of aesthetics. If you are bothering to put on jewelry, you probably do something about neatening your hair, and probably washing and using minerals and plant substances to decorate your body [look at the guys in the amazon, no clothing worth mentioning other than a gourd or whatever on their nads, but elaborate face painting and hair decorations.] ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [May 8, 2010, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552/60 "2010-05-08T21:04:45Z")
> [@Chief\_Pedant](#): > > It seems to me that there may be some discomfort around the whole Neanderthal-genes-in-Europeans-and-Asians-but-not-Sub-Saharan-Africans thing. There exists a general doctrine of genetic egalitarianism that is based on a monogenetic Adam-and-Eve sort of origin for modern humans. Evidence of injection of “outside” genes, particularly into groups composing a couple or three “race” categories is not going to be a comfortable thing, and I expect fairly rigorous examination of the evidence before it’s widely accepted. > > While it’s fun–and commercially successful–to imply that Neanderthals would be a step backward, those popular perceptions have little to do with reality. They could just as easily be advantageous genes. And 1-4% is actually quite a large number; perhaps on order of the difference between humans and chimpanzees, right? I picked up on that as well. I have been reading a lot of Spencer Wells work recently including the book Deep Ancestry. He is the foremost or at least the most famous and influential scholar in this area and he goes out of his way not to be racist but, if you read the DNA evidence even in layman’s terms, it turns out that we aren’t just all one big happy homo sapien family differentiated only by skin tone. There were a number of events during the time of the last Ice Age that made human differentiation fast and furious whether it involved people moving to Northern Europe, the Asian mainland or isolated them as the Australian Aborigines. Both the blatantly racist and scientific arguments have always been phrased in a backward way it seems to me. Africa has more human diversity than any other place on earth so you can’t just lump even black Africans together as a group. That is true. However, maybe the small groups that moved out of Africa 40,000 - 10,000 years ago were rather small and underwent a Founder effect coupled pushed through a genetic funnel because of harsh circumstances and then got another shift through interbreeding with Neanderthals. That would mean that everything isn’t only skin deep just like most people think intuitively anyway and that there are somewhat distinct human populations no matter how large even though there is always a gradient because of further inbreeding. The proponents of the ‘only skin deep’ hypothesis haven’t stood up well to scientific scrutiny in my opinion but it is career suicide for researchers to state that outright nor should they. The facts speak for themselves so far assuming the research is correct. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-can-has-neanderthal-genes/538552.md?page=4)