# Neanderthals--Hss or not? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 25, 2000, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433 "2000-06-25T00:01:14Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Jois](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ea666f/32.png) [@Jois](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jois)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/1 "2000-06-25T00:01:14Z")
Neat BBC site with 3 or more pages with different viewpoints. This one might be the most realistic in determining whether or not we will ever prove by DNA that Neanderthals produced fertile offspring with Hss or was capable of producing fertile offspring Hss: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/apeman/dig\_deeper/article\_1.shtml](http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/apeman/dig_deeper/article_1.shtml) IMHO they weren’t, didn’t, and wouldn’t, and couldn’t. And you say? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 1:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/2 "2000-06-25T01:49:32Z")
I believe that it was Scientific American that hired a forensic reconstruction person to build a Neanderthal face from a skull. Many of their readers commented that the result looked very much like Pablo Picasso. ---
**Author:** ![lswote](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lswote/32/5737_2.png) [@lswote](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lswote)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/3 "2000-06-25T02:01:41Z")
I am assuming that you didn’t explain what Hss means because if someone doesn’t understand the term they probably wouldn’t be able to contribute anything to the thread anyway, right? ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 2:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/4 "2000-06-25T02:13:21Z")
Homo sapiens sapiens, one presumes baring spelling errors. Incidentally, one also presumes that the change from Homo s. to Homo s. s. implies that Neanderthal was at one time classified as N. sapiens? ---
**Author:** ![Boris\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@Boris\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boris_B)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/5 "2000-06-25T03:18:08Z")
I think the _Homo sapiens sapiens_ moniker was made up to distinguish newly recognized varieties, the other one being _Homo sapiens neanderthalis_. This is was probably some sort of a compromise between folks who thought modern folks and Neanderthals were different species, and those who thought they are the same. I woulda called Cro-Magnon and my nextdoor neighbors _H. sapiens modernis_ or whatever Latin for “new/modern/recent” is, because I don’t like the stammery sound of “sapiens sapiens”. Just my opinion. The idea that Neanderthals were _H. sapiens sapiens_ strikes me as odd. What other kinds of _H. sapiens_ are there? The other species in the genus are _H. habilus_ and _H. erectus_ (I think the latter includes Peking man and Java man, but don’t bet the ranch on it). What the “Neanderthals are Hss” advocates are saying, I suppose, is that there is no real difference between Neanderthals and today’s people. I have no idea if they are correct. Can’t we tell by casual observation the difference between a Neanderthal’s skull and the skull of old man McTarnahan? Being able to interbreed doesn’t tell us anything - wolves and dogs can do it, housecats and leopards can do it, and they are considered separate species. All the Hss designation did in the first place was separate Neanderthals into a different variety, or sub-species. But I’m scraping the bottom of my anthropology barrel so I’ll quit. ---
**Author:** ![Boris\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@Boris\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boris_B)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/6 "2000-06-25T03:35:48Z")
Hey, I didn’t realize Neanderthals were around that recently. The subtext of the movie _The Thirteenth Warrior_ is that the last of the Neanderthals had great battles with Vikings. That’s a lot less unrealistic than I had thought, since I had thought Neanderthals were gone like hundreds of thousands of years ago. Oh well. (If you want a thumbnail review of that movie: everybody hated it but me and the two people I saw it with. We thought it was a kick.) ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 3:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/7 "2000-06-25T03:52:55Z")
It was an excellent book and a pretty good movie. ---
**Author:** ![Boris\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@Boris\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boris_B)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 3:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/8 "2000-06-25T03:55:28Z")
It doesn’t look like anyone is actually saying that Neanderthals actually _were_ Hss, only that they could be breed with us. In my defense, I was confused by the “–” nomenclature in the thread’s title, which I thought meant “equals” but apparently means “is able to produce rugrats with”. My bad. The following family tree symbolizes how much we have yet to learn: [http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/apeman/family\_tree.html](http://www.bbc.co.uk/science/apeman/family_tree.html) Why? Because it’s not even a tree! The branches don’t touch each other. Unless all these kazillion (actually more like ten) hominid species spontaneouly speciated out of dust, there has to be some “tree trunk”. _H. erectus_ had to come from somewhere; I always that thought it was _H. habilis_ but the tree doesn’t back me up. _pout_ Anyway, I’d love to see what the connector species are, and see (for example) what the most recent common ancestor between people and chimps is … is it like a tree shrew? Or some much taller more familiar looking anthropoid…? Oh, so much to learn. ---
**Author:** ![Ptahlis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a8b319/32.png) [@Ptahlis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ptahlis)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/9 "2000-06-25T03:58:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*\* > housecats and leopards can do it\*\* What? I would be really interested to see any info on this if you can provide a cite. ---
**Author:** ![carnivorousplant](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnivorousplant/32/3563_2.png) [@carnivorousplant](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/carnivorousplant)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/10 "2000-06-25T04:10:26Z")
I’ve owned some pretty tough tomcats in my life, but none that tough. ---
**Author:** ![avalongod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@avalongod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/avalongod)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/11 "2000-06-25T05:21:26Z")
I am pretty sure Neanderthals were never classified anywhere in the Homo sapiens category, but rather had their own, none other than Home neanderthalis or something like that if I remember correctly. As for breeding I recently saw a documentary which suggested that the two species were capable of hybridization, but that the offspring of the unions were infertile. The same documentary (on Discovery) stated that conclusively, we have NO Neanderthal genes in us. ---
**Author:** ![avalongod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@avalongod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/avalongod)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 5:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/12 "2000-06-25T05:22:37Z")
Oh, and I believe the Homo sapiens sapiens bit is meant to distinguish us from the original homo sapiens who apparently had about 1/2 the brain size as we do. ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/13 "2000-06-25T14:00:10Z")
Somebody mentioned Homo erectus (Java and Peking man) as being distinct from Homo sapiens. Well, even there, things aren’t so clear. There are apparently a number of scientists who now think that erectus and sapiens are the same. Mind you, I’m not sure that I agree, but the discussion is out there. From the end of _Dragon Bones: The Story of Peking Man_, by Penny van Oosterzee: "No single definition has been found that distinguishes _Homo sapiens_ from _Homo erectus_. Species are similar to individuals in that they have real beginnings and endings with their own evolutionary tendencies in between. Neither _Homo erectus_ nor _Homo sapiens_ alone fit this description, but a lineage combining the two does. We are all creatures of our time, and in our time we still insist on looking at ourselves outside the natural order of things. Biologists who study, say, butterflies know that different populations of the same species can look quite distinct. They are not tempted to hastily split them into separate species. We make far too much of our anatomical differences as our fixation on trival race differences tragically demonstrates. Why must we look at ourselves any differently? The fact is Peking Man was us." ---
**Author:** ![David\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/51bf81/32.png) [@David\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_B)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/14 "2000-06-25T14:03:24Z")
I should add that I addressed this a little bit in a Mailbag answer: [http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mancestor.html](http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mancestor.html) That had the erectus/sapiens thing there as well, though as I noted, most scientists aren’t buying it. ---
**Author:** ![avalongod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@avalongod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/avalongod)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/15 "2000-06-25T14:24:51Z")
That same documentary I saw said pretty conclusively that we are all the same race…they even suggested that we are decended from only a few individuals, though I don’t know about THAT. They also noted that we don’t have very much mutation in our genetic code…we are too similar to each other to have much direct descent from an older species like erectus. ---
**Author:** ![mipsman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mipsman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mipsman)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 9:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/16 "2000-06-25T21:08:26Z")
There is no question that the Out of Africa II migration of Homo sapiens sapiens starting around 100,000 BC swamped the existing African and Eurasian archaic Homo sapiens (defined as the less robust descendants of Homo erectus, mellowing out a little because of the use of fire and FINALLY starting to improve on the hand axe). The question Jois proposes is was that swamping of the Neanderthals (the most famous archaic Hss) due to total extermination or was there some fertile interbreeding. Of course they “did it”. The plumbing is identical. The history of more technological and more numerous invaders moving into the land of less sophisticated locals is full of sexual mixing. The question is would such a union be fertile. We can’t tell yet. Paleo evidence and genetic evidence are pointing away from each other. Neanderthals (and other archaics) were tough people and could easily kick the crap out of an Hss mano a mano. I wonder if that is why modern Hss males have much more dominant brow ridges. The Neanderthal (and other archaics) males could have had their way with Hss women but Neanderthal women would have thrown the Hss males up against the side of the cave. The result is we would have some archaic male genes and, surprise, they do not show up in the female descended mDNA. The DNA evidence is there that we are descended from the Out of Africa II Hss. But those people themselves are “archaic” Hs, only a few 100K away from pure Homo erectus. Assuming that they could interbreed with their archaic cousins, it would be a simple explanation for current racial differences: a little of the various archaic Hs genetic spice to flavor the predominant Hss stock, resulting a variety of races in a short period of time. ---
**Author:** ![avalongod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@avalongod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/avalongod)\ **Post date:** [June 25, 2000, 11:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/17 "2000-06-25T23:29:45Z")
quote: ```auto Homo neanderthalis is NOT an archaic version of Hss. Homo neanderthalis, see, separate species. quote: ~~~The question Jois proposes is was that swamping of the Neanderthals (the most famous archaic Hss) due to total extermination or was there some fertile interbreeding As I mentioned in an EARLIER post, apparently this theory has been disproven. quote: ~~~Neanderthals (and other archaics) were tough people and could easily kick the crap out of an Hss mano a mano. Except that Hss probably had better weapons. quote: ~~~The Neanderthal (and other archaics) males could have had their way with Hss women but Neanderthal women would have thrown the Hss males up against the side of the cave. Exactly when did these two species join the WWF? Again, this is assuming that Hss left their weapons at home. quote: ~~~I wonder if that is why modern Hss males have much more dominant brow ridges. Huh? <feeling my brow> quote: ~~~The result is we would have some archaic male genes and, surprise, they do not show up in the female descended mDNA Are you trying to suggest human males and female evolved along 2 separate tracks? Tell me I misunderstand you. Mendel would be rolling over in his grave. quote: ~~~Assuming that they could interbreed with their archaic cousins, it would be a simple explanation for current racial differences: a little of the various archaic Hs genetic spice to flavor the predominant Hss stock, resulting a variety of races in a short period of time. Yeah...either that or Hss in separate geographic areas evolved minor physical differences. :rolleyes: ``` ---
**Author:** ![mipsman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e99b99/32.png) [@mipsman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/mipsman)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2000, 12:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/18 "2000-06-26T00:52:49Z")
Neanderthals are not proven to be a separate species. The possibility of fertile interbreeding has not been disproven. You don’t have bigger brow ridges than a female? Hmm, have you taken a sex test? mDNA only gets passed thru the female line. There is no male contribution to mDNA. Why do you think it is called the Eve hypothesis and not the Adam hypothesis? It is very possible that current racial differences occured over the last 40K years from an undifferentiated Hss stock. But it seems like you would have to postulate a rapid mutation rate for skin, hair, physiogonomy, and some bone structures that does not show up in the rest of the DNA, since current Hss DNA is remarkably onsistent. Occam’s Razor, throw in a few geographically localized genes from archaics and, presto, you have races. ---
**Author:** ![Boris\_B](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/fbc32d/32.png) [@Boris\_B](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boris_B)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2000, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/19 "2000-06-26T02:36:40Z")
[Bengal Cats](http://www.exoticbengals.com/history.htm) are what I was thinking of. It looks like I have been slightly misled. The “leopard” in question is actually the Asian Leopard Cat, which has the rather less than panteric weight of 13-16 pounds. I had thought these crosses occurred through artificial insemination, but it looks like ALCs and housecats might be capable of making sweet love. Anyway, the important thing is, the ALC is known by the scientific _Felis bengalensis_, so there is another case of two nominal species interbreeding. Okay, so maybe somebody does feel that Neanderthals are a part of _Homo sapiens sapiens_, which makes them a closer relative to us than other _H. sapiens_ varieties. This is odd, since some of us seem to feel that Neanderthals aren’t even part of _H. sapiens_. Until I turn some tremendous corner of undertanding, I’m going to stick to the happy medium position: Neanderthals are part of Hs but not Hss. I’m not saying you’re wrong, I’m just getting a little confused by the debate. ---
**Author:** ![avalongod](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/35a633/32.png) [@avalongod](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/avalongod)\ **Post date:** [June 26, 2000, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433/20 "2000-06-26T02:51:52Z")
quote: ```auto The possibility of fertile interbreeding has not been disproven. I beg to differ. Any archaeologists with some first hand knowledge care to weigh in on this. quote: ~~~You don't have bigger brow ridges than a female? Geeeze, not NOTICABLY so. I'll have to pay attention to more male and female faces. Are we talking on the forensic science level here, cuz this is just not an observation I have made. Could be just one of those things I've taken for granted, I'll give you that, but certainly you are not talking as prominent as a Neanderthal. quote: ~~~mDNA only gets passed thru the female line. There is no male contribution to mDNA. Why do you think it is called the Eve hypothesis and not the Adam hypothesis? Never heard of it. But then again, micro was never my strongpoint. Do you have some sort of citation so that I might read up on this hypothesis? quote: ~~~But it seems like you would have to postulate a rapid mutation rate for skin, hair, physiogonomy, and some bone structures that does not show up in the rest of the DNA, since current Hss DNA is remarkably onsistent. You sorta lost me here, could you try that again with a lucid sentence? I'm not sure what your point is. quote: ~~~Occam's Razor, throw in a few geographically localized genes from archaics and, presto, you have races. Oh geeze, it makes me cringe when I see people use OR without a clue. It is like giving handgrenades to school children. I stongly suggest that OR is NOT going to help your hypothesis. ``` [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/neanderthals-hss-or-not/23433.md?page=2)