Comments on: Neanderthal-human mating, months later….

By: Steve C

Steve C — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 20:53:49 +0000

Humans mating with Neanderthals? Hmmm, could this be the first evidence of alcohol use?

By: Leon

Leon — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:35:42 +0000

I’ve read the research paper with a very poor knowledge of genomics and statistics and without english being my native tongue (ouch). My question to you Razib is, since you’ve obviously made sense of it all, what does this implies in regards to the halotype presence in limitrophe population in the nortmost parts of sub-saharan Africa and populations of contemporary sub-saharan origin in the Americas, particularly in the Caribbeans and in South-America, which I guess are still essentially sub-saharan population even considering out-of-africa admixture.

By: Me5000

Me5000 — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 05:47:37 +0000

You either evolved from APE’S or NEANDERTHALS – I prefer NEANDERTHALS how about you????

By: Me5000

Me5000 — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 05:38:08 +0000

I have allways been taught the we evolved directly from APES – So this is good news to me that weeeee didn’t!

By: ziel

ziel — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 23:25:19 +0000

I thought they were hairy – at least I recall Cochran and Harpending noting that they’ve found little notches in the fingers like chimps get from holding on to their mother’s fur.

By: Sandgroper

Sandgroper — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 19:10:09 +0000

Sorry, I think this one’s better:

http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/17/neanderthal_woman_is_first_rep/

By: Sandgroper

Sandgroper — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 19:03:21 +0000

http://news.discovery.com/history/neanderthal-human-mating.html

By: Miley Cyrax

Miley Cyrax — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 19:00:34 +0000

@Jim Johnson, #17
That’s not a naive thought at all. This sort of discussion comes up every other post on blogs like Tetrapod Zoology concerning various taxa. “Species” is indeed a slippery and arbitrary concept (different thinkers and scientists have different suggested definitions for it), more for our conceptual convenience than for some infallible reflection of reality. Terms like “genus” and “family” are even worse and are close to meaningless in some contexts. Some taxa are lumped and some taxa are split for no particular reasons.

By: juan

juan — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 18:46:58 +0000

Is there a good picture somewhere that illustrates what the depigmented neanderthals might have looked like?

By: Sandgroper

Sandgroper — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:41:29 +0000

Ali referred to ‘the picture’, which I take to mean the picture in the post.

I was pointing out that it’s already dealt with specifically in the post.

By: Jim Johnson

Jim Johnson — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:19:29 +0000

Forgive me if this sounds naive, but I’ve begun to wonder why, if neanderthal-hominids were so closely related to human-hominids as to make interbreeding possible, that we still refer to them as a different species. It would seem to me to be more fitting to current usage to refer to them as a different race (since that is how we refer to radically separate strains within our species). Or paleo-race, if that makes one feel more comfortable.

Per Wikipedia: “A species is often defined as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring.”

I’m aware that isn’t a hard and fast rule – taxonomic units are notoriously arbitrary and slippery (wolves & coyotes famously interbreed to produce fertile offspring, yet few people would argue they aren’t separate species) and “race” is even worse, because of our own blind spots regarding it.

However for many people the statement, “2 percent of your genes come from a different species” has a negative connotation that “2 percent of your genes comes from a now-extinct race” does not. (I wonder if that might partially explain the apparent lack of media interest you mentioned.)

Mostly though, when the news was first released, this revelation seemed huge to me – it absolutely rocked the world of recent hominid development and the standard perception of who we are, and I felt now “race” more neatly captured my perception of Neanderthals than “species” did.

Among scientists, such a change in labels might have little effect, but it might open up the topic to acceptance and understanding by non-scientists.

By: Aidan Kehoe

Aidan Kehoe — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 17:18:03 +0000

Sandgroper, I read the post; I read Ali’s comment as deriding those who, decades ago, came up with the popular image of Neanderthals as brunettes, given the information in the post, and my reply disagreed with him. I don’t follow your question.

By: Sandgroper

Sandgroper — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:55:12 +0000

#13, #14 Don’t you people even read the post? What, you just look at the pictures?

By: Aidan Kehoe

Aidan Kehoe — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 16:08:14 +0000

Ali, most people don’t have golden hair and blue eyes, it was a reasonable guess.

By: Ali

Ali — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 08:00:05 +0000

for the picture, how do you know neandertals did not have golden hair and blue eyes? lol, you racist Europeans

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 04:34:12 +0000

#9, i haven’t followed the story closely, but i think you’re right. perfect storm. the anthony chick seems like a head-case too.

By: Mike S

Mike S — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 04:22:50 +0000

Great article, thanks. OT: the fellow portrayed in the headshot, pigmented or not, looks 10 times smarter than my boss!

By: Sandgroper

Sandgroper — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 03:58:09 +0000

#8 Yeah, what I meant.

By: ziel

ziel — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 03:54:23 +0000

i think what insightful was implying that there’s a pretty robust trend of late of black children being abused and the media giving them nominal attention as opposed to white children.

Generally black-on-black crime commands near zero interest. But I think there’s something more here – I think this story has such a hold on the public because it involves one of society’s most precious assets – beautiful young fertile women – grossly abusing that preciousness by killing her daughter to behave promiscuously (or so it seems). I doubt such a case involving an overweight, unattractive white mother would have held all that much interest either. Now would a very attractive young black woman have held such mystique? I don’t think so – I don’t think African-American women tap into these primal, fertility-based reactions among the general (white-dominated) American public.

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Tue, 19 Jul 2011 03:05:44 +0000

One thing intriguing me is whether Denisovan ancestry contributed to blonde hair in Melanesians. I haven’t seen this alluded to specifically anywhere, although I think Razib hinted at it once.

we don’t even know the genetic architecture yet. once that’s understood, perhaps we could look?