Comments on: Ötzi – more Neandertal than the average bear

By: Day Brown

Day Brown — Sun, 19 Aug 2012 17:00:44 +0000

I’ve been saying this for years to no effect, but talk to a midwife. There are still plenty in my neck of Ozark woods where the hospital is too far. She’ll note the robust Neandertal pelvis and show how it dont crack open to facilitate birthing like Homo Sapiens. So, the latter females can safely deliver the hybrids, but not the former. Which is why European women still have more delivery trouble, and why the percentage has dropped over time.

By: Lank

Lank — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 12:52:12 +0000

Any ideas on how this may be related to the differences in Neanderthal loci between Europeans and East Asians?

By: Solis

Solis — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 18:04:08 +0000

It isn’t that surprising that Neolithic Europeans had more Neanderthal than modern Europeans; what’s surprising is the high Neanderthal admixture (5.5%) found in Ötzi and how it went down almost 2% for modern Europeans in just 5,000 years.

Considering that Tuscans also have the most Neanderthal out of any group, and that the G haplogroup (since Ötzi was G2a4) presence in northern Italy isn’t that negligible from what I’ve seen, it seems that there has been a Neolithic continuum in northern Italy for 5,000 years. I wonder what’s the estimate of Neanderthal for Sardinians who have more G than other Italians.

But, haplogroup G also has a low frequency throughout Europe, while Neolithic Europeans seem to have had this haplogroup at higher frequencies.

Could there be a link between Neanderthal admixture and haplogroup G?

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:20:38 +0000

#3, i think so. it could actually be west eurasians #1, then later west eurasians #2 though.

By: Karl Zimmerman

Karl Zimmerman — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 15:04:27 +0000

Correct me if I’m wrong, but doesn’t this pretty much require there to have been at least two different major Neandertal admixture events, one which affected all non-Africans, and a second which impacted at least some West Eurasians, but was later diluted to be nearly equal with East Eurasians?

By: Matt

Matt — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 07:20:46 +0000

While the otherwise Otzi-like Sardinians seem pretty average in their similarity to the Neanderthal…. interesting?

By: Razib Khan

Razib Khan — Thu, 16 Aug 2012 01:09:25 +0000

this makes sense in light of stuff i’ve seen presented btw.