# Neanderthals + Cro-Magnon=Children? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 17, 2000, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998 "2000-02-17T15:29:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Jois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea666f/32.png) [@Jois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jois)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2000, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/21 "2000-02-18T04:40:00Z")
Trouts, As long as the interrupt isn’t religion or creation, you are forgiven 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Jois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea666f/32.png) [@Jois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jois)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2000, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/22 "2000-02-18T05:35:00Z")
trouts1: I’ve been reading (Christopher) Stringer and McKie’s “African Exodus” c 1996 - Is this the same Stringer you are talking about? What’s the book title? Haven’t you quoted Cavalli-Sforza, too? The Great Human Diasporas? BTW: In “African Exodus” pp 97 mentions the idea that if a bathed, shaved and dressed in modern clothing Neanderthal were dropped in a New York subway “…it is doubtful whether he would attract any more attention than some of its other denizens.” (Via Wm. Straus and A.J.E. Cave) And then goes on to say others dispute this point and notes that Steve Jones of… delivered the pithy riposte paraphrased above-but now that I’m laughing again here it is: “Most people would change seats if a Cro-Magnon sat next to them on a train,” he says. “They would change trains if a Neanderthal did the same thing.” I thought the DNA/ mtDNA and “out of Africa 2” were pretty much accepted? The experiments re-done and verified? Irishman’s 3 populations A, B, & C makes sense and so does Spoke-'s horse & donkey = mule. Aren’t horses and donkeys different species? And the definition of species is reproduce fertile offspring? If that’s right then the question is - Are Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons the same Genus only or the same species? ---
**Author:** ![trouts1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@trouts1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trouts1)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2000, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/23 "2000-02-18T13:41:00Z")
Jois: The book was Christopher Stringer & Clive Gamble, **"In Search of the Neanderthals"** Jois above: “were pretty much accepted,” yes, but its not quite written in stone yet, “DNA dating is based on the assumption (debated by geneticists) that mutations occur at a constant rate.” The following from some bones from Feldhofer Cave, near Dusseldorf, Germany, in 1856, quoting from, [http://www.archaeology.org/9709/newsbriefs/dna.html](http://www.archaeology.org/9709/newsbriefs/dna.html) Note: a single sample. > [@](#): > > The accumulated mutations in NA can be measured, and the time necessary for them to occur calculated. The amount of difference between Neandertal and human NA suggests that our common ancestor existed about 550,000 to 690,000 years ago. Although this date must be qualified (it is based on one specimen only, and the DNA clock may or may not be as accurate as we assume), it is in accord with the fossil record. Osteological characteristics of the 300,000-year-old remains from the Sima de los Huesos in northern Spain (see “Faces from the Past,” ARCHAEOLOGY, May/June 1997) and the 400,000- to 500,000-year-old jaw from Mauer, Germany, indicate that these humans, generally classified as Homo heidelbergensis, are ancestral to Neandertals. This suggests the split between the ancestors of modern humans and Neandertals had occurred somewhat earlier, about the time indicated by the new DNA date. > [@](#): > > If Neandertals made a significant genetic contribution to modern humans, similarities should exist between DNA of Neandertals and that of people from Europe, where the Neandertals persisted the longest. Pääbo and his colleagues compared the Neandertal DNA to that from five modern populations, but it proved no closer to DNA from modern Europeans than to that from four other groups. While this does not rule out the possibility of Neandertal and modern human mixing, it suggests that the Neandertal genetic contribution to modern gene pools, if any, was small. The site below was the starting point for the site above. It has tons of stuff such as: [http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/academic/cult\_sci/anthro/exploratorium/hominid\_journey/timeline.html](http://www.mc.maricopa.edu/academic/cult_sci/anthro/exploratorium/hominid_journey/timeline.html) Introducaiton to Genetics Review of Mendelian Genetics What is our Genetic Makeup - How Does it Work. Basic Terminology and Concepts Necessary to Understand Genetics. Mutations - Source of New Variation. Basics of Natural Selection Species and Fuzzy Sets - What Makes Something a New Species? Fossil Hominid Descriptions and Timeline Evolution - a General Background For reference: > [@](#): > > Currently the most commonly accepted theory of the emergence of modern humans is one sometimes called Out of Africa 2. This theory says that hominids first evolved in Africa and that sometime between one and two million years ago the first representatives (Homo erectus) spread from Africa through the Middle East to India, South East Asia, and Europe. This is Out of Africa 1. These Eurasian populations of Homo erectus diverged and gave rise to species such as the Neanderthals. Meanwhile, back in Africa modern humans evolved, followed the same routes out of Africa to all the places hominids had already reached and beyond. They caused the extinction of the other successors to Homo erectus, possibly absorbing a few through interbreeding. (Wenke 1990, p139) ---
**Author:** ![trouts1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@trouts1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trouts1)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2000, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/24 "2000-02-18T13:47:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Jois: > Can you connect this idea with the “Out of Africa” idea, that all modern humans have DNA going back to 100,000-130,000 years ago? > [@](#): > > Last year mtDNA recovered from Neanderthal bones was sequenced. This is thought to be between 40 and 50 thousand years old. It is believed that will not be possible to recover DNA from fossils more than 100,000 years old. (Rose) It is too early to fully evaluate this, but obviously there is very great potential here for answering questions about the latter stages of the emergence of modern humans, particularly regarding the relationship between Neanderthals and modern humans. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2000, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/25 "2000-02-18T14:38:00Z")
You need also to recall that “Neanderthals” is a pretty broad classification – it represents what is either an entire species or an entire subspecies, with nearly the breadth of variation that _Homo sapiens sapiens_ entails. The usual depiction of the Neanderthal is the Classic (late Ice Age European) variant. The Levantine Neanderthals (granted nobody calls the Middle East the Levant anymore, but it’s enshrined as the technical term) were much more like early _H. s. sapiens_ – someone reversed the Neanderthal-on-the-subway line to suggest that professional wrestler Hacksaw Jim Duggan could be sent back in the same time machine and fit right in with a Levantine-Neanderthal tribe, at least as far as appearance goes. ---
**Author:** ![Jois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea666f/32.png) [@Jois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jois)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2000, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/26 "2000-02-18T17:10:00Z")
Trouts1: those cites are amazing-esp., the first one in “Cell” with its rigerous peer review and reputation. Could you go back over the African Diversity question by mipsman? I thought it meant the population used for the study rather than the whole of Africa. Whatever study was underway, greater diversity was found making it the oldest population or genetic material… And Polycarp, I like Levant! I’d like to look at a couple of the maps in my books to see just how far afield the Neanderthals went. Further North and a little further East? I didn’t think they went into Asia, but now I have to check. I’d like to have my books updated with each new find - have to give it a new name… Internet? * * * Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&\* codes 'til I get 'em right. ---
**Author:** ![Jois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea666f/32.png) [@Jois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jois)\ **Post date:** [February 18, 2000, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/27 "2000-02-18T17:12:00Z")
Trouts1: those cites are amazing-esp., the first one in “Cell” with its rigerous peer review and reputation. Could you go back over the African Diversity question by mipsman? I thought it meant the population used for the study rather than the whole of Africa. Whatever study was underway, greater diversity was found making it the oldest population or genetic material… And Polycarp, I like Levant! I’d like to look at a couple of the maps in my books to see just how far afield the Neanderthals went. Further North and a little further East? I didn’t think they went into Asia, but now I have to check. I’d like to have my books updated with each new find - have to give it a new name… Internet? * * * Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&\* codes 'til I get 'em right. ---
**Author:** ![Jois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea666f/32.png) [@Jois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jois)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2000, 6:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/28 "2000-02-19T06:29:00Z")
Hi Polycarp! I guess that is why the Neanderthal on the train or bus or street is so funny to me, everyone has tossed in their two or three cents about how he looks. * * * Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&\* codes 'til I get 'em right. ---
**Author:** ![Jois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea666f/32.png) [@Jois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jois)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2000, 6:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/29 "2000-02-19T06:32:00Z")
Honestly, that double post wasn’t there until I posted “Hi Polycarp” and then pressed “reload” is this an abandon all hope…thing? * * * Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&\* codes 'til I get 'em right. ---
**Author:** ![trouts1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@trouts1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trouts1)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2000, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/30 "2000-02-19T14:17:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Jois: > I thought it meant the population used for the study rather than the whole of Africa. Whatever study was underway, > greater diversity was found making it the oldest population or genetic material… Still not sure what the context is but you might be referring to the diversity of genetic material. The greater diversity here refers to genetic variation. African populations show the greater genetic variation when compared to populations outside of Africa so are the oldest population. It takes longer to get diverse. For the birth and head size question I can’t find any more information. I received one answer to the question: **neoteny:** retention of some larval or immature characters in adulthood > [@](#): > > This crisis was resolved thousands of years before neanderthals. The crisis arose about the time of Homo habilis. The problem was how to accommodate increasing brain size with the need of human females to walk upright. The remedy was neoteny, i.e. humans are born earlier in the fetal trajectory and the skull size grows outside the mother. For example in apes, the adult skull size is about 2 times the birth size. > > In humans the adult brain size is about four times the birth size. Roughly the crisis came about 350 cc birth skull size. > > Both truly modern humans and Neanderthals would have given birth to neotenous infants at or under 350 cc skull > size. The answer this person gave me suggests a method and that it likely held for Neanderthals but I’m trying to verify it. The implication being that a specific adaptation by Neanderthal females would have taken too much time so Neanderthal and Modern fetus’s did not require more room. ---
**Author:** ![Jois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea666f/32.png) [@Jois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jois)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2000, 3:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/31 "2000-02-19T15:37:00Z")
Mipsman asked: “If you had Homo erectus from England to Java, wouldn’t there be archaic Homo sapiens over at least that much area? Did they go the way of the Neanderthals?” Everything I’ve read so far says, “…replaced…” Everywhere modern man went he **replaced** the existing population. Some pundit said that the biblical model for modern man might better be called “Cain” rather than “Eve” or “Noah.” * * * Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&\* codes 'til I get 'em right. ---
**Author:** ![mipsman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mipsman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mipsman)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2000, 5:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/32 "2000-02-19T17:21:00Z")
I think North America would show the greatest genetic variation from randomly sampling members of the poulation. Migration and diverse populations living side by side would confuse and muddy the picture of genetic diversity. That is why I was trying to phrase a question about if the analysis performed identified specific African peoples as the most genetically diverse or if all of Africa was the most genetically diverse. (And, just to make sure, aren’t we talking specifically about mitochondrial DNA diversity?) It would seem that you would have to consider people like the Tassili of the Sahara and the Bushmen of the Kalahari, people who have probably been where they are for a long, long time, differently than you would consider the Bantu speaking peoples who have expanded from West Africa practically over all of the sub-Saharan continent. Variation in the Bushmen (are you supposed to call them !Kung now?) would likely be from long term secular changes and variations in Bantu speakers would be from assimilation of absorbed peoples. Polycarp, your observation about Levantine Neanderthals (and how did they know they had big noses anyway?) gets back to the OP. The recent archaeological evidence shows overlapping periods (in time) of occupancy of this area by Neanderthals and Homo sapiens sapiens. The best explanation I heard was that during the minor glacials, the Homo sapiens sapiens retreated south and during the minor interglacials the Neanderthals retreated north. Wouldn’t the more modern appearance of Levantine Neanderthals be the result of genetic mingling with Homo sapiens sapiens while the one was packing up to go and the other was moving in? ---
**Author:** ![trouts1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@trouts1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trouts1)\ **Post date:** [February 19, 2000, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/33 "2000-02-19T17:22:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Mipsman asked: > “If you had Homo erectus from England to Java, wouldn’t there be > archaic Homo sapiens over at least that much area? Did they go the way of the Neanderthals?” > > Everything I’ve read so far says, “…replaced…” Everywhere modern man went he replaced the > existing population. With **very fuzzy** dates note just relative position: Homo erectus 1,600,000 to 250,000 Possibly Homo ergaster as a period fill for 250,000 to 40,000 Homo sapiens 40,000 which splits to Neanderthals and Homo sapiens sapiens Put archaic Homo sapiens in with ergaster. Stringer & Gamble " say this guy “is currently in some doubt”. **Keep this in mind for what follows.** So the line up for African Homo erectus in the Late Homo, kick off: 1 S.E. Asian Homo erectus 2 Chinese Homo erectus 3 Homo sapiens **3 could be European archaic Homo sapiens and African archaic Homo sapiens, which later gets to Homo sapiens.** Some put erectus as definite for Asia and possible for Europe at 1,000,000 years ago. Even this is fuzzy with the Dmanisi site in Georga possibly at 1.6 for erectus. This even questions whether erectus came out of Africa at all. At 750,000 there is evidence of erectus in Middle East and Southern Europe but the earliest sites in the Mediterranean have **no** fossil evidence only tools. So who exactly made the tools is questionable. At roughly 500,000 erectus is **morphing in the West while in the East still fairly erectus like.** The Western branch get different brain case shapes, more modern-sized brain and less skull mass. These changes signal to some the beginning of archaic Homo sapiens. Some call this guy a later erectus, others the first sapiens and for less confusion some call him Homo heidelbergensis. Back to the question. Archaic is not a settled item. **If you accept** he was there in the West you could probably say he developed into something else and have some support for it. You would probably not think he went in the same dead end manner that Neanderthal went. As for the East there is there less support for archaic than the West which is questionable so having erectus East to West does not imply archaic over the same range. Everything above is questionable. If you get a book on this stuff and every time the author mentions a site, find or other keyword and search the net I find about 80 to 90 percent of the time there will be very specific information available on the data the author is presenting. Quite a few times I find the authors conclusions very questionable. I find quite a bit of the “evidence” as presented by the authors on tools, skull shape and burials to be very subjective. ---
**Author:** ![trouts1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@trouts1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trouts1)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2000, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/34 "2000-02-20T01:15:00Z")
If you want to rake over Iberia see below. [http://www.med.abaco-mac.it/articles/doc/006.htm#STRINGER](http://www.med.abaco-mac.it/articles/doc/006.htm#STRINGER) Basically: 1. N is around for a long time and available to learn and mate. Does not prove anything. He was just there and mixing longer than at other places. 2. From tool fragments N sticks to Mousterian tools while later modern inflow move on to new tools. N is stupid and does not pick up from moderns. My overall take is in line with Irishman who I think is valid everywhere but without proof. From the site: The extinction of Iberian Neanderthals and Its Implications for the Origins of Modern Humans in Europe Which has: Introduction The Ebro Frontiera Unpacking the Upper Paleolithic Package The evolutionary meaning of Art An Ecologically Based Model for the Spread of Modern Humans into Iberia Conclusion References by João Zilhão ---
**Author:** ![Jois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea666f/32.png) [@Jois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jois)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2000, 7:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/35 "2000-02-20T07:06:00Z")
First! **How do you know that Neanderthals had big noses?** All of the measurements that go with skulls (modern, old or middling) have been studied in great detail and a study has been made of putting flesh to skulls with clay. ## Our skulls (and all of our bones) are marked with openings or attachments for muscles, tendons and other anatomical stuff. An experienced person can figure out from the bare skull how big the noses were, how wide, eye lids, lips, and just about anything else. Mipsman, From what I’ve been reading (from books I think I have already mentioned here) there is no human being on earth at this time that is very different from us. The oldest populations have still even now more variety in their DNA, mtDNA, specific chromosomes - you name it, than everyone else. And every study so far says that oldest most varied DNA, mtDNA or specific chromosomes is African. So if you pick the three most divergent looking or sounding on acting living people from Africa and three of any living people from someplace else and do any test that involves genetic/DNA in any form you get the same answer - more variety from Africa and less from others. 1987-Wilson, C----, and Stoneking from UCal/Berkeley use placental mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from 147 individuals, made a gene tree showing Africans to be most diverse and oldest and modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens or Hss) were in Africa 400,000 years ago. Then immediately said **error** and changed the 400,000 to 200,000. There was grumbling. 1991 the same group published the repeated experiment (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 1991 and Science 1991) and still came up with Africa and 200,000. There was grumbling. 1991 Merriwether of U Pittsburg and Wallace of Emory U/Atlanta and others did mtDNA on 3,000 people and said the native population of Africa have greater diversity consistant with evidence from a variety of sources - Africa. There was grumbling. Ruvolo (formerly one of the grumblers) tried was was supposed to be a less mutation prone part of the mtDNA (named COII) and still got 200,000 years ago for the (common) ancestor, and Africa. Japanese researchers stepped in here - Horai & all…with their research and said 280,000 for common ancestor. Horai & all then went ahead and sequenced all 16,500 bases of the mtDNA for three humans: a Japanese, a European, and an African; and for 4 apes: an orangutan, a gorilla, a pygmy, and a common chimp. Horai & all used the apes to calculate the mutation rate among primate populations so they could apply those rates to the human lineages (one of the running argument and cause of grumbling in the past - i.e. how do you know the mutation rate?) Horai & all ended up with common ancestors at 143,000 years ago. Africans still have greatest diversity. Grumbling now directed at the continued use of mtDNA, maybe what holds true for mtDNA won’t necessarily be true for the rest of our genes… (Sounds like grasping for straws here, doesn’t it but the old theories die hard and it must have seemed worth wile to them.) Kidd and Tishkoff of Yale looked for things in DNA that would be variations in populations that would define the populations and their relations to other populations. And they found it on chromosome 12. You know we have a lot of junk in our DNA that serves no known function - doesn’t make protein or carry any messages. Just hanging around, long strings of bases of meaningless repititions. And THEY come in several forms. Some of us inherit one kind and some of us inherit the other - on DNA not mtDNA. Perfect and the Yale group went with this. You know the drill now, Africans have the greatest variety of these strings (250 of the AGCT bases) of chromosome 12 and on a second section of chromosome 12 there is a another oddity were there is a stuttering section which repeats “CTTT” but some people don’t carry this repeat(this lack is called a deletion). Sub Saharan African individuals have every variation/variety of deletion and no deletion, stuttering “CTTT” in different numbers of repeats - and the rest? The rest have only one pattern for deletion with 6 times repeat of the “CTTT” ornon deletion and 5 or 10 time repeat of “CTTT” - and do I have to tell you the rest? I will anyway. Modern people came from Africa 90,000 years ago. Kidd said, “Our work blows the multiregional hypotheses right out of the water- multiregionalism is utterly incompatable with the facts we have uncovered.” We are all young and African in origin. NOTE: The above is from “African Exodus” by Stringer and McKie, pub. 1997 First American Edition. All typos and odd grammar are mine. Now if you are going to worry about 120,000 and 90,000 and other variations in the Out of Africa (OOA) date, you should try to put that devil behind you. It just shouldn’t make that much difference. Cavalli-Sforza & all examined chromosomes 13 and 15 and came up with the same - more variations in Africans and OOA in 112,000. His work also called for what is called “Rapid Replacement Model” - that Hss is the same process by which other species spread - rapid radiation from the center. * * * Nap Attach ---
**Author:** ![Poto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7ab992/32.png) [@Poto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Poto)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2000, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/36 "2000-02-20T13:01:00Z")
From all I read, the interaction of the two must have been minimal. Neanderthals went on using more primitive tools and being pushed to remote corners of Europe while the wimpier cousins with the brains took over. ---
**Author:** ![Jois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea666f/32.png) [@Jois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jois)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2000, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/37 "2000-02-20T17:36:00Z")
Yep, Sunbear, that is the way it is beginning to look to me, too. Although (see OP) the question of bones that look like a mix between Neanderthals and Cro Magnon do pop up from time to time. Polycarp noted that the Neanderthal had been around long enough to have developed some changes in their physical attributes, too. I think only DNA will resolve these isolated bone questions on a one by one basis. And there are a few annoying surities in the reading; an author here who tosses in that it takes about a million years before a species becomes so different from one another that they cannot breed and produce fertile young (probably Cavalli-Sforza) and others who insist Neanderthals and Homo sapiens sapiens were all one species and could breed freely. I do try to check the dates of the authors and their references but think this is an issue for DNA when all is said and done - and so far the answer is no, Neanderthals are not us. It is interesting that when modern humans came out of Africa they hooked a right and went to Asia and beyond. They didn’t go left because into Europe because of the glaciers or coldness of the weather or because the Neanderthals were there? When the modern humans finally came into Europe it looks like the came in over the top and came down Europe, finally overcoming the last of the Neanderthals in Spain. (Where those daned bones of the OP were found, yikes.) * * * Oh, I’m gonna keep using these #%@&\* codes 'til I get 'em right. ---
**Author:** ![Diceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/22d042/32.png) [@Diceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diceman)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2000, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/38 "2000-02-20T17:46:00Z")
Who saw _Nova_ last night? They had a very interesting episode on the oldest skeletons in the Americas. It look like the Native Americans might not be the first people to live in the New World! A skull from around 10,000-12,000 years ago (found in the Pacific Northwest, IIRC) has traits that are quite caucasoid in appearance. Specifically, they look most similar the Ainu, the indigenous people of Japan (most Japanese are decended from the Chinese). In South America, other skulls of similar age look more like Australian Aborigenees than anyone else. The mongoloid people that became the American Indians likely came later, after the ice caps had mostly melted. Who else saw this episode? What do you think? * * * –It was recently discovered that research causes cancer in rats. ---
**Author:** ![trouts1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@trouts1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trouts1)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2000, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/39 "2000-02-20T20:49:00Z")
Diceman: Great show, I’m going to start another thread. ---
**Author:** ![trouts1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ecccb3/32.png) [@trouts1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/trouts1)\ **Post date:** [February 20, 2000, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998/40 "2000-02-20T22:23:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Jois: Neanderthals are not us: Well, how about “not us” 90% of the time? The Iberian group is somewhat isolated and likes the now Blond girls who just arrived. From paper of Erik Trinkaus, João Zilhão and Cidália Duarte who are the kid’s caretakers. **"The Lapedo Child: Lagar Velho 1 and our Perceptions of the Neandertals"** From: [http://www.med.abaco-mac.it/home.htm](http://www.med.abaco-mac.it/home.htm) **Snippets & rebuttals follow** > [@](#): > > …a largely complete early Upper Paleolithic (ca.24,500-25,000 B.P.) child’s skeleton from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho (Portugal) provides further insight into the nature of the shift from Neandertals to early modern humans in Euro Discovered in late 1998. > > It is this morphological mosaic which forms the basis for the interpretation that Lagar Velho 1 is a modern human child with genetically-inherited Neandertal traits. Given its geochronological and geographical position, we take this to indicate that the population to which it belonged was the evolutionary product of a process of admixture between Neandertals and early modern humans occurring several millennia before, at the time the latter first dispersed into Iberia 28,000 to 30,000 years ago (Duarte et al., 1999). > > The only human populations present were late Neandertals and early Upper Paleolithic early modern humans. > [@](#): > > For example, the identification of a trait in a modern human population here considered, as indicating Neandertal affinities is irrelevant if that trait had a contrasting configuration among the European early modern humans. Similarly, the identification of a trait as generally ancestral (plesiomorphous) for all later Pleistocene humans is not pertinent, if that trait was already lost among European early modern humans. As previously noted and referenced (Duarte et al., 1999), this unpredictable combination of features from contrasting ancestral groups is characteristic of hybrids between closely related species or between distinct populations/breeds within species. It therefore appears most likely that this morphological Neandertal / European early modern human mosaic in Lagar Velho 1 represents the result of admixture between these two populations in Iberia. Since Lagar Velho 1 lived at least a few millennia after the probable period of contact between Neandertals and early modern humans in Iberia (ca.28-30,000 years B.P.) (Zilhão, 1993, 1997, 2000; Hublin et al., 1995), this implies that its mosaic was not the result of an isolated and rare event but that the inferred admixture occurred on a population basis. > > That is why we have referred to him above as a "modern human child with genetically-inherited Neandertal traits. It does reject the categorical thinking which perceives the Neandertals as not quite human enough. **Rebuttals by:** **António Amorim: Dec 1999:** Says DNA is too different but it could have happened. Main point is Neanderthals did not contribute significantly. **Luís Raposo:** With the this cultural framework in mind, it is easy to conclude that we have no difficulty in accepting that Neandertals and modern humans could perhaps have occasionally mixed. Even the taxonomic lassification of both as distinguished species, increasingly adopted during the past decade, had always seemed to us as irrelevant for the purpose of this debate, since we are aware that the Linean criteria to define “biospecies” or “live species” (which are object, themselves, of many exceptions) are not entirely applied in relation to “morphospecies” or “fossil species”. In the present case, we are at the extreme limit of data inadequacy: there is no genetic data and only one single individual, a young child, is known. **António Bracinha Vieira:** Need more samples. **Eugénia Cunha:** Need more samples. Child still changing into adulthood so typing not altogether valid. In the history of human paleontology there are some examples of sub-adult skeletons which have been interpreted more conservatively. Most recently, the discovery of an ancient child’s burial on the Nile, the oldest known burial in Africa north of the equator - Taramsa Hill, in the Nile valley -, is a good example. It is a 8-10 YEAR old child, intentionally buried, probably older than 50 000 years (Science News, 1998). The team (Vermeersch et al., 1998) assigned the child to modern sapiens because of the shape of its brain case, the rounding of its forehead and the slenderness of the limb bones. However, the child also has a few Neandertal like traits, such as a relatively large, sloping face and a flattened upper-arm bone shaft, yet no hybridization was claimed. Does challenge traits as possibly falling within modern’s variation. In all, since the majority of the features can be refuted, one cannot say that there is an unexpected or “mixed” combination of features in Lagar Velho 1 skeleton. Thus, hybridization has no validity, at least on the basis of the skeletal features they propose. Also questions variability of available mating time 1000-7000 years. **Nuno Ferreira Bicho:** Genetics not cultural is questionable. Evidence questioned,rabbit holes juggled bones, questionable dating. A bulldozer raked the site hitting and arm and the skull. **Reply from:** Erik TRINKAUS, João ZILHÃO and Cidália DUARTE November 1999 Dismisss Raposo and Bicho as not scientific. DNA inbreeding possible between more divergent chimp populations. **Reply to Amorim** Amorim accepts the results reported by Gagneux et al. (1999) on the mtDNA of African hominoids. These results show that contemporary interbreeding populations of chimpanzees are internally more diverse than the ensemble of Late Pleistocene fossil and modern humans, including one Neandertal. At the same time, however, he accepts the conclusion of Krings et al. (1997, 1999) that the difference between the Neander Valley hominid and present day humans implies their split from a common ancestor some 300,000 years ago. These two propositions are mutually incompatible. Geneticists compute the time-depth of a split from a common ancestor on the basis of the amount of genetic difference between the two species whose phylogeny they are trying to reconstruct. If the genetic difference between Neandertals and present day humans means that they are two different species which split 300,000 years ago, the much larger difference between populations of chimpanzees would imply that those populations belonged to different species whose last common ancestor would have lived a lot more than 300,000 years ago. Since that is not the case, there are only two possible outcomes to the contradiction: either Neandertals and moderns were conspecific populations at the time they co-existed and interbreeding at contact is what one should expect; or the use of genetic variability to predict past phylogenetic processes with the degree of resolution required in the case of the evolution of humans over the last 100,000 years is not warranted. The fact that Neandertals may have contributed little or nothing to the genetic makeup of today’s Europeans does not mean that they did not contribute significantly to the genetic makeup of the immediately succeeding European populations of early pleniglacial So, “Neanderthals are not us,” is true in the larger scheme of things but it looks like there is some room for partying. There may be an attempt to break out a new group of Homo ancestor. It’s an awful lot of speculation from one very important find. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-cro-magnon-children/7998.md?page=3)