Neanderthals and baseball
I’ve long had a soft spot in my heart for Neanderthals.
The ancient ones, that is, those early humans who’ve gotten a bad rap as powerful heavy-browed vulgarians, but about whose culture we really know very little, and who seem to have buried their dead and perhaps had speech.
In college I took a physical anthropology course in which the professor was strongly in the camp of those who felt Neanderthals had interbred with the more modern Cro-Magnons to produce us. This idea comforted me. For some reason I preferred that a tiny spark of Neanderthal survive than that the entire group, dominant and widespread for hundreds of thousands of years, be totally obliterated leaving no issue whatsoever.
But a while back scientists were able to extract a tiny bit of ancient DNA from the remains of one Neanderthal individual. On the basis of that admittedly sparse evidence, they concluded that there was no interbreeding, and that for reasons that remain an utter and speculative mystery, Neanderthals died out entirely without mixing with the victorious successors, Cro-Magnon man (and woman, naturally).
Here’s a lengthy and brand-new article on the subject of Neanderthals in October’s National Geographic, complete with visualization of a Neanderthal (and the relatively new evidence for the somehow surprising fact—to me, anyway—that many of them might have been redheads):
Small wonder he looks a bit perplexed and a trifle sad. Neanderthal life on the frozen tundra was probably arduous to begin with. And then, after all of that, to be bested by those lightweights with the higher foreheads (but the smaller brains—apparently looks aren’t everything), those upstart Cro-Magnons!
To top it all off, the National Geographic article accuses Neanderthals of cannibalism, whereas (according to the Wikipedia article) there is an ongoing debate in the anthropological community on whether the marks left on Neanderthal bones were instead evidence of a practice called ritual deflensing, connected with burial rituals. But the Neanderthals are not around to clear up the controversy.
There is still disagreement over the intermixing question, as well, with some believing it did happen but on a very small scale (see the Wiki article again, as well as this). My own hypothesis is that, since Neanderthals and Cro-Magnons lived in the same general geographic areas for quite a while before Neanderthals died out, it’s more likely than not that there was at least some hanky-panky. Human beings being what they are, it would be far more strange if there had been absolutely none.
You may wonder how it is that baseball will come into play here. Well, I was mulling over why it is that I keep cheering for those Neanderthals, even though I pretty much know they were ultimately losers. And then it hit me: my lifelong tendency to root for the underdog.
Cro-Magnons (me, you, us) remind me just a tad of the New York Yankees of my youth, perennial winners who didn’t excite my imagination even though they were ostensibly “my” team. That’s why, when I came to New England many years ago, I found my natural place as a Boston Red Sox fan.
Now, of course, the Red Sox are no longer the bridesmaids of baseball. In fact, they’re once again guaranteed to at least tie for the wildcard spot in the playoffs. And those Yankees, who’d owned them all those years but who Boston shamed forever in the 2004 American League Championship Series, leading to Boston’s historic 2004 World Series win and the breaking of The Curse? One more loss and they’re out of it. And their stadium? Going, going, gone—its last day was yesterday.
Yankee Stadium opened in 1923 with a win over—who else?—the Boston Red Sox. They’ll have a spiffy new one, of course. Unlike the Red Sox, who decided to refurbish but keep the old and very charming Fenway Park, the new Yankee Stadium will be an entirely different structure—although located across the street from the old one, which will be torn down.
To continue the Neanderthal analogy, I can find no evidence that the new Yankee Stadium will contain even a single molecule from the old one—unlike the Boston Celtics’ present home the Fleet Center, which incorporates pieces of the famous parquet floor from the old Boston Garden into the new. Perhaps that karma is one of the reasons the Celtics finally came back into their own this year.
It is impossible to make positive conclusion about intermixing on the basis of a single specimen, especially poorly preserved. DNA degrades rapidly in room temperature, only small fragments could be recovered from bones thousands years old. We shall wait until some Neandertal corpse preserved in tundra permafrost or in Alpine glacier would be found. Inter-species hybrides usually are sterile, but it is still unknown if Neandertals were distinct species or sub-species. This can be revealed if we can obtain intact chromosomes and compare karyotypes – number and morphology of individual cromosomes.
Neanderthal life on the frozen tundra was probably arduous to begin with.
Indeed, they probably only survived into their early twenties, if they were fortunate enough to make it from child birth, dieing from some oral disease, or in some violence over land or women, no concept of germ theory, terrified by the cruelty of the natural world, in utter intellectual darkness, and superstition as a first attempt at philosophy soothed these terrors with I’m sure fantastic stories — for where there is no possibility of a reasonable or scientific explanation, then any explanation will do; 9/11 conspiracy theorist show that ”yes” we do have a strain of the Neanderthal with us to this very day, if any of them are reading this, welcome!
There’s a series of books which begins with a young human girl adopted by Neanderthals. Very imaginative. I listened on tape many years ago but gave up when it became too much like a soap opera in later books.
this is from a customer review:
“Jean Auel’s narrative powers swept me into a past rich and alive with people, creatures, smells, and sights that are immediately familiar, yet breathtakingly foreign. That’s what first caught my attention. Then I began to care about Ayla, the skinny, pale child caught in an earthquake. I followed her story with keen interest and ached over her insecurities and alienation. This is a story about people with all the feelings and emotions of you and me. And though some tried to ban the book for one particular scene of forced sex, I found it in no way glorifying the act.”
http://www.amazon.com/Clan-Cave-Bear-Earths-Children/dp/0553250426
“Perhaps that karma is one of the reasons the Celtics finally came back into their own this year.”
Isn’t it pretty to think so. Rather than Karma, look to bought players — the Yankee and Red Sox take on cause and effect.
DC: wasn’t that a daryl hannah movie?
It’s very possible to have hanky-panky but still no genetic intermixing: either the species aren’t close enough to produce offspring, or they produce infertile offspring (a la mules).
It seems nearly undeniable that humans and Neanderthals had at it once in a while. But it’s not clear that those couplings would have produced viable offspring that bred back into the human line.
Mitochondrial DNA studied in this work is inherited only in female line. Any male inheritance makes no contribution to it, so it is still possible that Neandertal genes made it to our gene pool from Neandertal males.
DC/Vince
That would be Jean Auel’s “Earth’s Children” series, that starts with “Clan of the Cave Bear”. The movie was merely a passable take on the story.
The first book is a very unique and excellent novel. Unfortunately, the rest of the series steadily devolves into Mary Sue territory very quickly.
Neo,
I must disagree with your comparison of Yankee Stadium with Fenway Park. We made a pilgrimage this summer to watch a game at the Stadium before it was torn down. We included a trip to Boston to see a game at Fenway as well. Yankee Stadium, while old, is still a serviceable park, and the ghosts of the Yankee greats were palpable. In contrast, Fenway is an old rattletrap, with rickety seats (mine was broken) and a leaky roof. In addition, the Sox had the audacity to sell us expensive seats which had their view of home plate completely blocked by a post.
As far as I’m concerned, Fenway should be demolished, the debris burned, and the ground sown with salt!
Please note that I’m more of a Red Sox fan than a Yankee fan, so my allegiance to the teams does not color my judgement of the stadium.
What hominid group did Obonga evolve from?
The fact that the Neanderthals could make do in a very hostile climate garners my admiration. But, then again, I’m a cold weather guy (although recently having been on The Big Island I now have mixed feelings about Winter).
Sergey sez:
It is impossible to make positive conclusion about intermixing on the basis of a single specimen, especially poorly preserved. DNA degrades rapidly in room temperature, only small fragments could be recovered from bones thousands years old. We shall wait until some Neandertal corpse preserved in tundra permafrost or in Alpine glacier would be found.
Oh, it’s “impossible,” is it? How easily the word rolls off the tongue. The sun failing to rise tomorrow isn’t impossible (a black hole from outer space could eat it tonight), yet very many people would easily bet their lives that it would/will occur.
Are you willing to bet your life that what you claim to be impossible really is so? (Hint: you better not.)
In fact, neanderthal DNA (and not just mitochondrial) has survived (in other than frozen into permafrost form) within ∼39,000 year old neanderthal bone found within European caves, and for the last two years two scientific teams — one European, one American — have been forging ahead on the species’ complete genomic decipherment; they should be done with the initial phase soon, perhaps within a year or two. They intend, indeed, to ultimately do the job several times over for (if I recall correctly) a half dozen different neanderthal individuals.
You can read all about it in the 16 Nov. 2006 journal Nature, the principal article of which, “Analysis of one million base pairs of Neanderthal DNA,” is now available for perusal free of charge. Science one day later on 17 Nov. 2006 has a parallel article, but it’s still locked behind a subscription or pay-per-view barrier; you can see the abstract to it here: “Sequencing and Analysis of Neanderthal Genomic DNA.”
The European team is centered at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, and led by team leader Svante Pääbo, with principal author Richard E. Green. The American team, with team leader Edward M. Rubin and principal author James P. Noonan, is headquartered at the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute in Walnut Creek, Calif., along with the Genomics Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley.
One can hear or see an interview (my now ex-wife) Tamara Lynn Scott and I did with James Noonan not long after those articles appeared: audio, video. I also have a transcript, but I’m afraid it hasn’t been posted anywhere (linkable); e-mail me if you’d like to read it.
To summarize: soon the complete deciphered genome of neanderthal will be available for detailed comparison with both Homo sapiens and the chimpanzee (whose genome was completed a few years ago). When done, it should certainly be possible as a result to determine many things about human and neanderthal evolution, including whether the two could breed together and product fertile offspring.
Indeed, it would be possible at that point to resurrect the neanderthal species, though there would be severe ethical issues with proceeding down that path, and in my view it probably oughtn’t be done. But in principle, it will be possible. According to Noonan, Homo erectus is probably decipherable too.
On a lighter subject: My baseball-crazed husband told me that dirt from the infield of Yankee Stadium would be buried under home plate at the Yankee’s new digs. We’re Rangers fans (I know, pitiful) so we hate ’em wherever we find ’em. I can’t believe they won’t reuse the arcade they have left.
You probably didn’t see the Braves commercial from about 12 years ago when they moved from their old stadium to Turner Field. Starts with manager Bobby Cox sitting at his desk late at night reading something when you hear a metalic scraping. Curious, he follows the sound out onto the field, where he finds John Smoltz with a shovel and a wheelbarrow. I don’t remember the words, but the gist was “this mound has been good to me, and I’m taking it with us”, and Cox replies with a “hang on, let me go find a shovel so I can help”.
That’s a nice reconstruction. Interesting how depictions of the Neanderthal have “evolved” over the years – from ape-like brutes to beings very much like ourselves. They still haven’t quite shed their “cave-man” attributes, though, especially in television and movie appearances. In those, you still see dirty, swarthy, dark-haired, unkempt, shuffling creatures wearing bits of skin for clothing. I’ve always liked this little guy – he looks aboriginal, like somebody with an actual culture. He’s taken some pains with his hair and his outfit. He’s also a happy Neanderthal – not your typical grumpy, grunting one.
A depressing analysis. By means of scientific extrpolation, it would infer that Cubs fans are invertebrates.
I like this reconstruction by artist Jay Matternes, which appeared in an article on neanderthals in the Science 8X (8X = year of publication) science magazine from about a score years ago.
One thing I think people often overlook while looking on such reconstructions is now swept-back (“flat”) neanderthal heads were. Though their skulls contained a brain as large as our own, neanderthal skulls fit that brain into a much lower profile, almost wholly lacking the big uplifting dome of the head of modern humans. From the eyebrows, the neanderthal skull went nearly straight back.
Here’s a skeletal comparison of neanderthal vis-a-vis Homo sap, along with a great photograph of a neanderthal skull.
I found my natural place as a Boston Red Sox fan.
I always knew I liked this blog… now I know why 😉
Is it just me or has something happened with television science programming on a subject like neandertals or early man? The level of speculation seems out of control. Wild guess reenactments are not science. Just give me the known facts without insisting you draw all conclusions for me.
I can’t believe no one has said this so far (but of course, like I said before, I am Polish – but I caught the connection right away – cause Lord knows those Neanderthals knew how to swing a bat.
In fact wasn’t that the name of the team in the Philip Roth novel – the Port Rupert Neanderthals? Ooops Sorry that was the Port Rupert Mondays (well I actually think my name is better)
Excellent post. I’v always been fascinated by these kind of things as well.
This is why neanderthals didn’t have a chance against faster, nimble homo sapiens:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x98jCBnWO8w&feature=related
Everytime I watch a free-running video, I remember that humans are the best primates ever. Truly fearsome.
Now imagine a pack of humans attacking like that. With weapons, whooping and all painted up with torches…..
Strong and squat Neanderthal didn’t stand a chance.
“,” put that up there where needed….
Cool FX!
Microcephalics and Neanderthals have common physical traits, hmm.
Cubs Rule!
“If it takes forever…”
Strong and squat Neanderthal didn’t stand a chance.
Sorry, but that, I think, is just stupid. Neanderthals were extremely similar to modern humans — as well as much stronger. Moreover, neanderthals lived in proximity to H. sap. for more than 10,000 years, so whatever the reasons for the former’s decline, it wasn’t a sure, fast thing.
As a Red Sox fan, I always thought of the players on the NY baseball team as a bunch of Neanderthals, who had they been on the Sox and helped the Sox win the Series, would have been reclassified as Cro-Magnons.
Julie Brown, in her song “I Like Them Big and Stupid,” provides us with another reference of Neanderthals in popular culture.
When I need somethin’ to help me unwind
I find a six foot baby with a one track mind
Smart guys are nowhere, they make demands
Give me a moron with talented hands
I go bar-hopping and they say last call
I start shopping for a Neanderthal
The bigger they come the harder I fall
In love ’til we’re done then they’re out in the hall
{Refrain}
I like ’em big and stupid
I like ’em big and real dumb
I like ’em big and stupid
What kind of guy does a lot for me
A Superman with a lobotomy
My fathers outa Harvard
My brothers outa Yale
But the guy I took home last night
Just got outa jail
The way he grabbed and threw me, ooh it really got me hot
But the way he growled and bit me, I hope he had his shots
The bigger they are the harder they’ll work
I got a soft spot for a good lookin’ jerk
{Refrain}
I met a guy, who drives a truck
He can’t tell time but he sure can drive
I asked his name and he had to think
Could I have found the missing link
He’s so stupid you know what he said
Well I forgot what he said, ’cause it was so stupid
The bigger they come the harder I fall
In love ’til we’re done then they’re out in the hall
{Refrain}
I like ’em big and real dumb
I like ’em big and
I think the Boston Red Sox should bow down before Wriggly Feild and recognize the genetic superiority of the Chicago Cubs.
Sorry, but that, I think, is just stupid.
Yeah…. The fossil record is lying and all the reconstructions are wrong.
Neanderthals were extremely similar to modern humans – as well as much stronger.
Maybe not so much. However, being stronger may not have been an advantage–watch Ultimate Fighting. The stronger guys usually lose to the more agile and faster fighters..
Moreover, neanderthals lived in proximity to H. sap. for more than 10,000 years, so whatever the reasons for the former’s decline, it wasn’t a sure, fast thing.
Homo sapien was on foot. Genocide didn’t move at the speed of aircraft and vehicles like it does now.
I think we probably killed them out. They’re pretty ugly and competed with us for game–that’s reason enough….
harry McHitlerburtonstein, the Cubs are due. What is it: 99 years? I for one would be glad to see them win the Series.
Thats right Gringo, you’re with me. There will be others no doubt, who will be gnashing their teeth in resentment of my written truth. Stand with me Gringo, for we are righteous!
They’re pretty ugly
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder — particularly between species (if indeed neanderthals and humans were separate species — as I mentioned before, we’ll know soon). In any event, when species become established as separate species, strong selection pressures typically quickly come into being to create “attractiveness” (read: beauty) barriers between the groups, as trying to reproduce with a member of a different species is evolutionarily a waste for both parties.
I do not think the Red Sox will be repeating this year. Too many injuries. Too many parts that either are not working or work only part of the time.
On the other hand, Tampa Bay is STACKED with talent at all positions and firing on all cylinders. They have no weaknesses and have been consistent all season long. A real machine and set up to be very strong for many years to come. That often happens when you have high draft positions for so many years in a row. It reminds me of the old Edmonton Oilers in the NHL. For more than a few years they were doormats, but they were drafting high. Then they got Gretsky and it all was rounded out. And were powerful for many years because of the stockpiled talent. Ditto for the Detroit Red Wings.
The Red Sox will be contenders for some years to come, too, but I give the talent edge to Tampa Bay (and I’m a Red Sox fan).
They’re pretty ugly
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder – particularly between species
Anyone watch Star Trek?
Seen the fanboys that go for the Klingon Ladies? And the fangirls that go for the Klingon Guys?
‘Nuff said.
“Moreover, neanderthals lived in proximity to H. sap. for more than 10,000 years, so whatever the reasons for the former’s decline, it wasn’t a sure, fast thing.”
Homo sapien was on foot. Genocide didn’t move at the speed of aircraft and vehicles like it does now.
Really? How long did it take at the end of the ice age for H. sap. to exterminate some 32 genera of large animals (“megafauna”) in America — mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, giant sloths, (armadillo-like) glyptodons, saber-toothed “tigers,” dire wolves, etc. — from northern North America to the southernmost tip of Tierra del Fuego in the South? Answer: probably less than 1,000 years.
While many have doubted that humans were responsible for those extinctions, that consensus has changed as it has been determined that the same thing happened — and at very different times — in Australia, New Zealand, Madagascar, and other places basically the moment humans entered the scene. Not only that, but those same animal species in America had survived earlier transitions from ice to warmer interglacial conditions a number of times before without resulting in mass extinctions.
Thus, the long interval — more than ten millenna, which all of human history and prehistory since the ice age would easily fit into — during which humans and neanderthals shared Europe between them, remains a mystery not to be dispelled by facile talk about the humans being crippled in their genocidal proclivities by being afoot.
Anyone watch Star Trek?
Seen the fanboys that go for the Klingon Ladies? And the fangirls that go for the Klingon Guys?
‘Nuff said.
LOL! Well, if it’s in Star Trek, that proves it! (Not.)
Rather than humans in makeup that puts a curl on their foreheads, reading scripts by human writers, let’s look at real chimpanzees. How many humans would one think are seriously attracted by those engorged pink organs female chimpanzees extrude at their rear ends when they’re sexually receptive?
While there may be some human males that find that especially attractive, I suggest that it’s pretty few.
LOL! Well, if it’s in Star Trek, that proves it! (Not.)
Come on, at least respond to what I *said*– the FANS of the show find these really not very pretty “aliens” attractive.
If modern folks, who are grossed out by BO and random grooming acts, can find someone with a funky forehead and *really* bad teeth attractive for various habit-based reasons, then it’s reasonable to figure that our ancestors who were NOT so greatly different would find some Others attractive.
Frankly, the fact that you assume the differences are as great as between chimps and humans shows you’re a bit biased…..
Thus, the long interval – more than ten millenna, which all of human history and prehistory since the ice age would easily fit into – during which humans and neanderthals shared Europe between them,
Sure, they all cuddled around the fires and sang Kum-bye-ya. I think saying they ‘shared’ Europe is specious–not even modern humans ‘share’ Europe.
Maybe you know neanderthals, but modern human behavior seems to baffle you. Unless h. sapiens was somehow kinder and nicer than we are right now, they fought and killed for dominance, for resources and for fun. Hey, it is especially fun if the ‘other’ looks and thinks differently than you…
remains a mystery not to be dispelled by facile talk about the humans being crippled in their genocidal proclivities by being afoot.
Woop! Woop! Pedantry alert!
I don’t know if it’s such a mystery: Look at those things–we killed ’em.
I think it’s some romanticized ‘noble savage’ nonsense that causes us to look at ancient h’ sapiens differently than we look at each other now.
What if a group of neanderthal wandered into modern-day Afghanistan, or Africa today?
They’d be dead by sundown except for the ones they’d torture as ‘devils’ and ‘witches’. Such as it was then….
Human beings being what they are, it would be far more strange if there had been absolutely none.
There must have been crossdressing..
Who can ever forget Boggs riding that horse in Yankee Stadium.
Or a chemicaly enhanced Clemens in Yankee uniform. Twice.
Or how that neandertal Many Ramirez broke our harts looking for better hunting grounds.
Of course there was crossdressing..
Neanderthal and ancient man ‘shared’ Macedonia just like the Serbs and Albanians do today.
I doesn’t even happen today! How can we imagine they lived side-by-side like Arab and Palestinian; lo those eons ago?
Next we’ll hear that Sox and Yankees fans have bred and produced offspring….
La! I meant “Israeli and Palestinian”, or “Jew and Arab”, but “Arab and Palestinian” actually kinda works if you think Jordan, or Egypt….
Next we’ll hear that Sox and Yankees fans have bred and produced offspring..
It is in the realm of possibility… Although highly unlikely.
Foxfier Says:
Come on, at least respond to what I *said*— the FANS of the show find these really not very pretty “aliens” attractive.
If modern folks, who are grossed out by BO and random grooming acts, can find someone with a funky forehead and *really* bad teeth attractive for various habit-based reasons, then it’s reasonable to figure that our ancestors who were NOT so greatly different would find some Others attractive.
Frankly, the fact that you assume the differences are as great as between chimps and humans shows you’re a bit biased…..
I said nothing which would imply I’m “assum[ing] the differences [between humans and neanderthals] are as great as between chimps and humans.” No, chimpanzees (and bonobos) merely happen to be our closest living relatives with whom such a comparison could be made. Moreover, chimps and humans are not so “greatly different,” and your saying so implies that it is you who is “a bit biased.”
Getting to your supposedly-avoided main point: that “the FANS of the show find these really not very pretty ‘aliens’ attractive,” — my point remains that they’re not aliens, they’re humans with a bit of makeup on, and so still definitely within the range that lots of girls and guys find attractive. And we just don’t know (despite all the oh-so wonderful “reconstructions”) if that was true vis-a-vis neanderthals and humans or not.
If humans and neanderthals were significantly attracted to each other as well as inter-fertile, that makes the apparent dearth of neanderthal genes in modern humans an even greater mystery. On the other hand, if they were not inter-fertile but yet were attracted to each other, that means that there probably was insufficient time during which the two species’ range overlapped for significant “attractiveness” evolutionary barriers between the groups to arise.
I seem to be detecting a trend here, Neo. You, like Book or all other classical liberals, have a romantic attachment to the underdog ; )
And we just don’t know (despite all the oh-so wonderful “reconstructions”) if that was true vis-a-vis neanderthals and humans or not.
Whaaaaaat? What’s wrong with the reconstructions?
It’s the same technique used to reconstruct crime victims’ features. It’s a well-known science and produces replicable, empirically-anchored results.
You are unpleasant and have some kind of stone-axe to grind, I just can’t figure out what it is…..
Hmmmm…. Is this an ex-wife thing?
Hey, Neo, what about reports of Neanderthal having social welfare by taking care of the crippled and old?
Whaaaaaat? What’s wrong with the reconstructions?
It’s the same technique used to reconstruct crime victims’ features. It’s a well-known science and produces replicable, empirically-anchored results.
Such techniques may be “empirically-anchored” and somewhat reliable for humans. However, extrapolating and relying on such supposed results when applied to other species — particularly when one then attempts to use them to decide whether that species is sexually attractive, to us — goes a step too far in my view. Since such reconstructions depend on skeletal details alone, they tell us nothing about hairiness and other superficial features, not to speak of behavior, that might well make members of that other species or subspecies distinctly unattractive to humans.
Return to the exemplar of the chimpanzee. A similar ”reconstruction” based on the chimp skeleton alone might also produce apparent results which a human being gazing at might well find attractive. The reality is different.
You are unpleasant….”
You are invited to skip over my postings.
I said nothing which would imply I’m “assum[ing] the differences [between humans and neanderthals] are as great as between chimps and humans.”
vs
How many humans would one think are seriously attracted by those engorged pink organs female chimpanzees extrude at their rear ends when they’re sexually receptive?
Did so.
You’re trying to claim that the currently closest, by YOUR version, is closer than the imaginable (honestly not so much different when you look at the cultures/races of man) folks available otherwise.
Oh, by the way? Closest relative based on what?
http://www.wesleyjsmith.com/blog/2008/08/humans-are-not-98-genetically-identical.html
(short version: hey, we look alike! So…?)
Michael McNeil –
I swear, my sister’s first boyfriend looks like the classic Neanderthal. And we said that BEFORE they started dating.
All right. Can somebody please explain to me how to make block quotes here?
Only the first sentence was supposed to be quoted.
I can see no contradiction of my statement that single specimen is not enough and the cited article about Neandertal genome reconstruction. In the second case, hundreds of specimen were used. And 1 mln base pairs is not very impressive: full human genome is 3000 times longer. Ancient DNA comes in shreds, rarely longer 1000 base pairs. To sequence them all and than recover original text from thousands fragments is a formiddable challenge. I still sceptical about outcome. Even for much shorter DNA – mitochondrial DNA of tundra permafrost frozen mammoths 12 000 years old – bacterial contamination severely hinders deciphering. PCR is too sensitive for extrangeous DNA contamination.
I read that Nat Geo article, and it left me saying that sometimes scientists try too hard. The one number jumped out at me- daily caloric requirment for sustinance- the Neanderthal was over 4000, the Human’s was in the upper 2000’s. At least in the Western European area, the Neanderthals seemed to have died out at a peak ice age, when food supplies would have been scarce. I imagine much of the time the Early Humans and Neanderthals would have avoided each other in preference for easier and safer game- either would have to be considered a serious threat to the other. Once food started getting scarce, every advantage would be the early humans, and especially given the dependency on game the Neanderthals had, they couldn’t compete for game against the new kids on the block. Game over. At least it seems reasonable to me. Would explain the Neanderthals turning to cannibalism also (if that was the case). I suppose it would explain if the early Humans ate them as prey as well.
The problem of hybrid fertility is a rather complicated. There is Holdane rule: if in progeny of hybrids one sex is absent or sterile, it must be heterogamete sex. In mammals this is the male sex, that is, hybrid males could be sterile, while females fertile. So Neandertal genes can be inherited from pra-pra-mothers.
Neandertals really florished in Europe for hundred thousand years of the Late Pleistocene, before glaciation began. And their physical build shows adaptation to vegetable diet, like modern gorilas. So it is quite probable that they became extinct due to climate change. Another their disadvantage was lack of social skills that we have. May be, some community organizer could have saved them. But Obama, unfortunately, was born too late.
I remember an article about a cave where all Neanderthal sceletons were male, and all human sceletons female. This is a well-known pattern for tribal wars, when victors slaughter all enemy men and take their women as a war prize.
It is quite possible that in warmer climate some Neanderthal groups survive at least to Medieval period. Some sketches exist showing Neanderthal-like African aborigens made by a Portugal missionary in 15 century in Mozambique. Member of the tribe were allowed to board of the ship, where he made his drawings. They were completely naked and did not make any syllables that this priest, a linguist, could recognize.
Dr. McNeil: Thank you very much for interjecting so much actual knowledge into this discussion. I learned a lot reading the comments today!
As to the attractiveness issue: that reconstruction looks a heck of a lot like Russell Crowe, and my wife thinks he’s kind of hot, so . . .
Foxfier sez:
Did so.
Did not, and your quote by me doesn’t demonstrate anything of the kind. Nor did I claim that chimpanzees share any particular percentage of human DNA — which is tricky to evaluate anyway in numerical terms since mutations steadily introduce differences throughout a species’ DNA as time goes on.
However, as noted before, the chimpanzee genome has now been completely deciphered (except for numerous small details, which is true for the human genome as well). There’s no remaining uncertainty as to the basic fact of how interrelated chimps and humans genetically are (beyond that, even at the protein level chimps and humans are extremely similar); nor anthropologically, where the divergence between the groups is estimated to have occurred at perhaps 7 Ma (while the divergence date for neanderthals and humans was a bit less than 1/10th as long ago, at around 0.5 Ma).
Hell, chimpanzees even wage war! (The males of one chimp group were observed to systematically kill the males of another over a period of years, the victors eventually absorbing the survivors on the losing side.)
This chart from the Nature Neanderthal piece pointed to earlier graphically illustrates the degree of relative divergence between the chimpanzee, neanderthal, and human genomes.
Another fascinating article in this regard is “Genetic evidence for complex speciation of humans and chimpanzees,” also in Nature from 2006 but still behind a subscription barrier unfortunately; the abstract can be read at the link. According to that piece, evidence indicates that chimpanzees and humans initially diverged but before they had fully separated into non-interfertile separate species, at about 6.3 Ma some genetic interchange (hybridization) occurred between them, following which full species separation took place.
The chimpanzee genome decipherment itself was reported in Nature back in 2005, in an article-rich special issue the contents for which can be seen here. The principal research reports from that special issue are available without subscription, “Initial sequence of the chimpanzee genome and comparison with the human genome” and “A genome-wide comparison of recent chimpanzee and human segmental duplications.”
That issue also reports the discovery of the first chimpanzee fossil, whose abstract can be seen here: “First fossil chimpanzee.”
sergey sez:
I remember an article about a cave where all Neanderthal sceletons were male, and all human sceletons female. This is a well-known pattern for tribal wars, when victors slaughter all enemy men and take their women as a war prize.
Reference please!
sergey sez:
I can see no contradiction of my statement that single specimen is not enough and the cited article about Neandertal genome reconstruction. In the second case, hundreds of specimen were used. And 1 mln base pairs is not very impressive: full human genome is 3000 times longer. Ancient DNA comes in shreds, rarely longer 1000 base pairs. To sequence them all and than recover original text from thousands fragments is a formiddable challenge. I still sceptical about outcome. Even for much shorter DNA – mitochondrial DNA of tundra permafrost frozen mammoths 12 000 years old – bacterial contamination severely hinders deciphering. PCR is too sensitive for extrangeous DNA contamination.
You obviously haven’t read the pointed-to article. Yes, 1 million base pairs is just a start; however, the techniques being used are fully capable of being ramped up dramatically (which has been done), as indeed must be the case for the entire genome to be deciphered in a matter of a few years.
And yes, bacterial as well as modern human contamination is a problem — which the researchers are addressing and working around. They’re able to detect which samples have been heavily human-contaminated and are using only those largely free of it, whilst discarding the contaminated results and sticking with the neanderthal.
As to your other attempted point, that “In the second case [the ongoing neanderthal genome decipherment], hundreds of specimen were used,” this is completely false. Only a single individual’s bone has been employed thus far — a specimen from the Vindija cave in Croatia, discovered in 1980 — while, as James Noonan points out in his interview, to get more DNA results from such a specimen, one simply analyzes more bone.
Michael McNeil:
“How long did it take at the end of the ice age for H. sap. to exterminate some 32 genera of large animals in America – mammoths, mastodons, camels, horses, giant sloths, glyptodons, saber-toothed “tigers,” dire wolves, etc. – from northern North America to the southernmost tip of Tierra del Fuego in the South? Answer: probably less than 1,000 years.
That’s bad ass!
We fucking ROCK!!
Of course we also build some pretty mint motorcycles and ATV’s. You forgot to mention that.
They were completely naked and did not make any syllables that this priest, a linguist, could recognize.
Well, that proves it!
sergey sez:
Neandertals really florished in Europe for hundred thousand years of the Late Pleistocene, before glaciation began. And their physical build shows adaptation to vegetable diet, like modern gorilas.
There are so many things wrong with that. Where to begin? The Pleistocene era is the ice ages — not “before glaciation began.” Yes, there were occasional warmer “interglacials” a la the present epoch within that time frame, but mostly it was glaciated.
And as to whether their “physical build” proves that neanderthals were vegetarian “like gorillas,” this too is wildly off the mark. Indeed, neanderthals attacked their “vegetable” prey with such ferocity that they endured injuries at a rate comparable to that of modern rodeo riders, as this chart (hat tip: Phillip L. Walker, U.C. Santa Barbara) makes plain.
Hey, Neo, what about reports of Neanderthal having social welfare by taking care of the crippled and old?
That apparently is the case, as neanderthal skeletons are known which have suffered debilitating injuries preventing hunting and food gathering on one’s own, but which clearly had healed while life had gone on for some time. Noonan mentions it in his interview, for instance.
I remember an article about a cave where all Neanderthal sceletons were male, and all human sceletons female. This is a well-known pattern for tribal wars, when victors slaughter all enemy men and take their women as a war prize.
That reminds me of this
6:1 When humankind began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, 6:2 the sons of God saw that the daughters of humankind were beautiful. Thus they took wives for themselves from any they chose.
So the Lord said, “My spirit will not remain in humankind indefinitely, since they are mortal. They will remain for 120 more years.”
6:4 The Nephilim were on the earth in those days (and also after this) when the sons of God were having sexual relations with the daughters of humankind, who gave birth to their children. They were the mighty heroes of old, the famous men.
I meant Eemian stage, from 132 000 to 114 000 years ago, when oaks grew in Norway and Greenland, well above Arctic circle. I do not remember where I read about cave with two types of skeletones, but I found an article about skeleton with admixture of Neanderthal and human traits:
Duarte et al. (1999) — The early Upper Paleolithic human skeleton from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho (Portugal) and modern human emergence in Iberia. PNAS, Vol. 96, Issue 13, 7604-7609, June 22.
harry McHitlerburtonstein the Conservative Extremist:
LOL!
Sergey said:
I meant Eemian stage, from 132 000 to 114 000 years ago, when oaks grew in Norway and Greenland, well above Arctic circle.
Yes, the Eemian was the last interglacial comparable to the present “Holocene” era (except that the ice sheet on Greenland apparently did largely melt unlike the present day during that one).
However, the Eemian does not support your point, because neanderthals lived in Europe for hundreds of thousands of years prior to that (including other previous interglacials), while they did not become extinct until ∼29,000 BP.
Thus neanderthals survived thorough glaciation in parts of Europe and tundra conditions in most of the rest for 85,000 years following the end of the Eemian — a rather long interval for them to supposedly then finally succumb to the ice.
The most recent study of Neanderthal diet:
Neanderthal exploitation of marine mammals in Gibraltar – Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 22.09.08
That’s all well and good and interesting (however, please provide links to these sorts of references in the future; I do), but it doesn’t mean that neanderthals didn’t also hunt big game, as their typical severe injuries as well as other evidence such as weapons certainly attest.
Moreover, Gibraltar — the last refuge of the neanderthals — is a bit of a special case, a peninsula natural fortress surrounded by water. Neanderthals who often lived far inland wouldn’t have had the opportunity to exploit such resources.
In severe cold, big game is often the only source of nutrition. When hunting musk ox or caribou, especially in the winter, there is not much cover provided by lush vegetation or amber waves of (wild) grain.
If you go after a big game animal once a week, you have fifty-two encounters per year. If four get rough, a ratio I pulled out of my ear, by the time you’ve hunted for ten years, you ought to be in a wheel chair.
Gathering, on the other hand, will impose cumulative trauma injuries which won’t cripple you on account of you’re dead of something else before the cumulative effect accumulates sufficiently.
Ricki, you have to close your tags. place a / before blockquote within the brackets.
The Nat Geo article linked talks about the diet of Neanderthals being very heavily based on game with minimal vegetative supplementation. Given their caloric needs, plants don’t make much sense, but meat and fat do. The Dolphin was singular- probably washed up on the shore. I’m betting no one found any sign of fishhooks, harpoons or nets there.
Given the reliance on game, the cold (and therefore lack of prey), and their caloric needs, the Neanderthals were living on the edge as is. Once modern humans showed up, that was more than enough to tip the scales against them. At least, that’s my theory.
Here is Ted Kennedy talking about Neanderthals.
Link courtesy of a commenter in Gateway Pundit
This is an issue that has long fascinated me, and I’ve followed the scientific developments as closely as I could. It will be exciting to see how the genomic data eventually pans out. I think the chances are good that there is just a little bit of Og, Thag, and Oona in all of us (and thank you, Gary Larson, for the names).
However, I suspect that the Cro-Magnon men may have done their utmost to keep their women away from the Neanderthals. Because once you’ve had Neanderthal, you never go back. At least that’s what I’ve heard.
“How many humans would one think are seriously attracted by those engorged pink organs female chimpanzees extrude at their rear ends when they’re sexually receptive?
Don’t knock it ’til you’ve tried it, pal…
I know many wikipedia articles contains copyright violation or licence violation. how do i do this..