# Me, a Neanderthal and baby makes three? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 18, 2004, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-a-neanderthal-and-baby-makes-three/234964 "2004-03-18T02:46:53Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Elmo\_Lincoln](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Elmo\_Lincoln](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elmo_Lincoln)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-a-neanderthal-and-baby-makes-three/234964/1 "2004-03-18T02:46:53Z")
I’m watching the Science Channel and they say Neanderthal DNA is significantly different from homo sapiens. So I’m thinking, ok, Neanderthals were a different species, which is an interesting concept. What if they had survived? Humans have had a bloody enough history just working stuff out amongst themselves without throwing a whole other intelligent SPECIES into the mix. This show goes through the usual theories about what happened to them: Unable to adapt, competition from us, and so on. And they end with this skeleton that seems to have both Neanderthal and homo sapien characteristics and the theory that Neanderthals weren’t so much wiped out by us as absorbed by us through interbreeding. One of the scientists even jokingly notes how he himself has some Neanderthal features. Can two different species make babies with each other? Were Neanderthals a different species, or just ugly humans that really hard-up homo sapiens could make babies with? ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-a-neanderthal-and-baby-makes-three/234964/2 "2004-03-18T02:50:02Z")
I think you’re going to have a hard time finding a factual answer to that one. It’s still being actively debated amongst those in the know, and I’m sure we’ll have people here who will be willing to argue both sides. ---
**Author:** ![mnemosyne](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c4cdca/32.png) [@mnemosyne](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mnemosyne)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-a-neanderthal-and-baby-makes-three/234964/3 "2004-03-18T05:46:21Z")
What I know of this comes from a science fiction book, and I have no way of knowing how much is fact and how much was embellished for the sake of the story I read, but from what I understand, there appears to be archaeological evidence that we might have interbred with the Neanderthals, making us _Homo sapiens sapiens_ and them _Homo sapiens neanderthalensis_ - that is, they would be a different subspecies. Others have theorised that Neanderthals may have had 24 pairs of chromosomes rather than our 23 (many closely related primates have 24, and ours is the result of the fusion of a couple of chromosomes found in primates), which would make us different species _Homo neanderthalensis_ and _Homo sapiens_. So I guess whether we interbred and offspring were fertile would come down to the chromosome count, which we can’t find. I´m not trying to answer the question, really, since I have a sense of how little I know about this, but that is a start. I guess it’s a bit of an add-on question. The book I read wasn’t written that long ago, but is this an accurate representation of where science is today? The book was really well researched, but since it had real live Neanderthals in it, obviously there is SOME embellishment! The book also discussed efforts to determine the code of Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA - was this, or is this, a work in progress? Do we have enough tissue to have some of this DNA around? ---
**Author:** ![RandomLetters](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/8edcca/32.png) [@RandomLetters](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandomLetters)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-a-neanderthal-and-baby-makes-three/234964/4 "2004-03-18T07:32:48Z")
The genetic test [that I have seen](http://www.nature.com/nsu/000330/000330-8.html) show little or no support for for the interbreeding theory. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 4:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-a-neanderthal-and-baby-makes-three/234964/5 "2004-03-18T16:44:56Z")
> [@Elmo Lincoln](#): > > Can two different species make babies with each other? Were Neanderthals a different species, or just ugly humans that really hard-up homo sapiens could make babies with? The Biological Species Concept (BSC) says that two populations consititute different species if they do not hybridize widely in nature. Two species can be perfectly interfertile (and many are) in captivity, or in special circumstances. Many species of ducks, as well as all the wild species of canids (wolves, jackals, coyotes) are interfertile in captivity but constitute good species nevertheless. The genetic evidence for Neaderthals does not indicate whether or not they were interfertile with us. However, it does imply either that hybridization, if it occurred, was not common or widespread, or that any hybrid lineages did not survive into the present. The degree of genetic differentiation, plus the absence of indication of hybridization, suggests that Neaderthals would have qualified as a separate species under the BSC. **mnemosyne** , to answer your question, the idea that we might have interbred with Neaderthals is pretty much out of date based on recent analyses of Neanderthal DNA. ---
**Author:** ![Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bosda_di_chi_of_tricor/32/16845_2.png) [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-a-neanderthal-and-baby-makes-three/234964/6 "2004-03-18T16:53:24Z")
I am a supporter of the Genocide/Cannibalism theory. _Fried Neanderthal! MMMMmmm! Them’s good eatin’!_ ---
**Author:** ![toadspittle](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/c0e974/32.png) [@toadspittle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/toadspittle)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-a-neanderthal-and-baby-makes-three/234964/7 "2004-03-18T17:31:06Z")
More importantly: Are humans and chimpanzees interfertile? I have never seen any discussion of this at all. I can’t believe that a mad scientist/determined pervert hasn’t tested this yet. What’s the world coming to? ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [March 18, 2004, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/me-a-neanderthal-and-baby-makes-three/234964/8 "2004-03-18T17:44:04Z")
> [@toadspittle](#): > > More importantly: Are humans and chimpanzees interfertile? I have never seen any discussion of this at all. You haven’t been reading this forum then: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=185926](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=185926) [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=196816](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=196816) [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=189418](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=189418) [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=155521](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=155521) [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=64664](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=64664) Basically, it is probably unlikely but it is far from impossible. It cannot be known for sure without conducting some unethical experiments