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cacrw t1_jaasvyg wrote

When you read stories of humans having sexual relations with pillows, car exhaust pipes, and goats, you realize boinking neanderthals was probably widely and enthusiastically pursued by Europe’s oldest humans.

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OptimalCrew7992 OP t1_ja8vzrw wrote

New research reveals that Europe's oldest known humans had frequent interbreeding with Neanderthals, challenging previous assumptions about the rarity of such interactions. The study also found evidence of genetic mixing between different populations of early humans in Europe, shedding new light on the complex history of human evolution. This article highlights the key findings and implications of the study

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vankorgan t1_jab90h1 wrote

I feel like this exact same article comes out once a year. Didn't we already know this?

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dub-fresh t1_ja9xtmd wrote

This is the only way I've ever learned about this. The homosapien genetics essentially 'won' over time.

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wittor t1_jaa9ifm wrote

I would not say there was something to lose or win in this case. As new populations (of homo sapiens) settled(in Europe, coming from other regions) the admixture (of the gene polls of both populations) diluted Neanderthal's contribution (that they made to the gene poll of the more ancient population) to the total gene pool of (present) Europe.
Edited for clarification ()

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Swanlafitte t1_jab5e68 wrote

My guess is there are more Neanderthal genes around today than at any time before. One study says they never had more than 5000-70,000 at their peak. https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sciencealert.com/how-a-perfect-storm-of-sex-and-population-size-may-have-sealed-the-neanderthals-fate/amp

If this is correct then they were never diluted.

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supersecretaqua t1_jaaup6a wrote

Is that not what they said? I think you interpreted it as somehow meaning "the genes themselves physically lost battles in expression" or something but I'm certain they're just talking about overall dilution over time for the reasons you said ad an example lol, since that is generally the thing like they said

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wittor t1_jab7g0f wrote

I think winning and losing are not a good analogy for the fluctuations on a gene pool caused by the contact of two previously separate populations and their interbreeding.

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supersecretaqua t1_jab9u36 wrote

Plenty of people disagree with you. It's officially used more than you seem to realize. It is the reality of it too. Like the words literally properly encompass what happened... If a species dies out... It lost. Period.

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hobbit_lamp t1_jaatnn4 wrote

right? like, is this some Mandela Effect or something? I didn't think it was such a rare thing but I have seen more than one article suggest it.

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dub-fresh t1_jaavjdk wrote

Yeah I'm 40, lol. Can't believe I just assumed everyone knew this for all these years.

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Lesbaru t1_jaabljz wrote

Someone more talented than me needs to write a movie script or book about this. Move over Montagues and Capulets.

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StillAFelon t1_jaaf2ar wrote

Clan of the Cave Bears isn't too far off...the rest of the series is just smut though. We'll written smut, but smut nonetheless

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kakapo88 t1_jaakwid wrote

Ten. Loved the first book, even if it was a bit silly in places. And then it got sillier and smuttier, but in a highbrow Paleolithic way.

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Lycaeides13 t1_jaaq8dr wrote

The information was well researched but Mary Sue and her husband with the magic deflowering dong started to drive me crazy. The last book was such a come down in quality.

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04221970 t1_jaac4ew wrote

This assumes there was consistent and real conflict between the two populations.

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AnarchoGaymer t1_jab71sk wrote

do we know that homo sapiens are not just a mix of homo something and neanderthals?

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[deleted] t1_jaa7pj4 wrote

[removed]

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Loki11910 t1_jaa93re wrote

Well the Neanderthal may have actually been a night active predator, which almost made the homo sapiens go extinct. That is at least the theory raised in "Sapiens a brief history of mankind" so I would say almost none of it was.

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Musk-Order66 t1_jaaenul wrote

Hey I’m 3rd Generation European-American… I’m a night owl. Medications don’t seem to work to keep me awake during the day and active at night.

I have epic light sensitivity and see very well in the dark.

… can I blame it on my Neanderthal night hunter genes!?!

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PerformanceNow t1_ja9ixo4 wrote

This was theorized about 20 years ago but people thought the proponents of it were crazy. I thought it made a lot of sense and now it seems that that's what the establishment is agreeing with.

It's amazing how consensus can change

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Kuivamaa t1_ja9tnah wrote

I thought that by now we had a very good idea on how extensive the level of mixing between modern humans and Neanderthals thanks to dna studies. The Homo sapiens that got out of Africa interbred with them at such an early stage that all Europeans and Asians have some Neanderthal admixture in them. Asians have more because their ancestors mixed with Neanderthals again (after european and Asian lineages split) and finally south eastern Asians plus oceanic people also have Denisovan admixture.

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First_Foundationeer t1_jaaw7zm wrote

I didn't know that bit about asian populations. I wondered why I had so much Neanderthal DNA according to 23andme!

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Night_Runner t1_jaa8bp3 wrote

It's not so much that scientists changed their minds, it's more that those who were strongly opposed to the idea either retired or died of old age. It's the same pattern with lots of scientific ideas we take for granted.

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atjones111 t1_ja9uk4t wrote

To people within the anth world this has a commonly known understood and accepted fact/theory for the past 50, it’s just all the non scientific people who doubt it, a certain group of people love to stifle or research and progress, hell we’re just sort of reaching the point where evolution is a commonly held belief

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alphaphilomath t1_jaar59w wrote

I was taking Anthropology courses in the mid nineties and not one of my professors agreed with my opinion that there was no way sapiens weren't hooking up with Neanderthals repeatedly. As if they'd never met a human. So, I'm not sure where those who held that belief were especially 50 years ago, but I didn't meet them.

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atjones111 t1_jaas2vc wrote

It’s not something promoted in intro courses as it opens up a conundrum, that being well what do you call the archaic/modern human that comes from it and so forth, probs not taught in 90s due to evolution bad hysteria then, colleges don’t like losing funding, maybe your profs sucked or were just of the 5% conservative anthropologists, idk odd they would say that

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Point_Forward t1_jab2r9i wrote

Scientists and those trained in the scientific method tend to be conservative in what they admit when there is a lack of evidence one way or the other. In other words, if there isn't good evidence to support it then the default position is disbelief.

It really is a more sensible approach to the accumulation of knowledge, to not get our beliefs ahead of the evidence. It is better to require a high bar to accepting new theories than to too easily accept them.

It's fine for lay people to have pet theories and believe in things and ideas that are fun but not well proven but it isn't a good attitude to have for a professor or expert. If the new models prove themselves correct then the next generation can build on them, but they should be good enough to convincingly beat out the old theories before they are adopted and taught as the mainstream.

That's my thought at least, but it's a point that have a lot of people angry at what is accepted as the mainstream among academics because it seems slow and is skeptical of exciting new claims.

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atjones111 t1_jab3cja wrote

You’re not wrong and that’s a good point, lol I’m even nervous to tell people I’m an anthropologist because they then know I believe in evolution. But yea I agree better to have a high bar to accept theories than a low, because if it’s something that’s true it should be easily replicated with success to prove it, if not you may be grasping on a theory

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flatcologne t1_jaafhxr wrote

It’s not really a shift in academia or anything as much as just advances in genetic sequencing allowing us to see conclusively that the genetic makeup of all modern Europeans is around 1-3% Neanderthal dna

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Yrolg1 t1_jaawbtx wrote

> It’s not really a shift in academia or anything as much as advances in genetic sequencing allowing us to see conclusively that the genetic makeup of all modern Europeans is around 1-3% Neanderthal dna

And the article says a Neanderthal ancestor 4 to 6 generations back. 2^5 = 32, or about 3% of his ancestry.

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GrandBed t1_jab13r3 wrote

The first group of experts thought modern day humans would not have sex with Neanderthals on the regular and just out hunted them. The second group thought humans would have sex with Neanderthals. The first group didn’t seem to understand humans very much.

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wittor t1_jaaczwv wrote

Consensus is basically a synonym for textbook simplifications that hardly match the state of any academic discipline.
Unfortunately, most of the nuances on archeology are lost between school books and cheap speculation in popular books.

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Skugla t1_ja97rmg wrote

New? We learned this 20 years ago when I studied archaeology. 🤔

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Doktor_Wunderbar t1_ja99mqg wrote

It sounds like they're proposing that it happened to a greater extent than previously understood.

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Minuted t1_ja9a55y wrote

Did you read the article? It's very short. It's about a study that indicates human neanderthal intermixing and breeding being more common and widespread than previously thought.

>The researchers found that all three individuals had Neanderthal ancestors, with one individual having a Neanderthal ancestor as recently as just four to six generations back. This finding is surprising because it was previously thought that interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals was relatively rare, with most modern humans having only trace amounts of Neanderthal DNA.

Seems to reference a paper published in 2021 though, not sure why the article was only published now, and the link doesn't seem to work. edit: Atually I think that link was just a link to another website, New Scientist. Still seems odd.

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Gamma_31 t1_ja9dk7l wrote

I'm a complete layman here, but it makes me wonder if Neanderthals were bred out of existence more than anything. I heard from PBS Eons that it's conjectured that Neanderthals had greater nutritional needs, and that it's possible hybrids between Neanderthals and Sapiens were infertile for one sex (males I think?). If Sapiens was more adept at gathering resources, it would follow that some number of Neanderthals might successfully join Human communities and survive to pass their genes on to the Sapiens population. If all-Sapiens and blended communities were doing better at survival than all-Neanderthal communities, that would eventually lead to the extinction of the Neanderthals while preserving some of their genetics in primarily-Sapiens descendants.

I do wonder how migration of other groups into Europe that did not have Neanderthal ancestry affected the distribution of Neanderthal genetics in the native European populations. Could that have possibly diluted the contribution of Neanderthal ancestry of some European groups to current levels?

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OrangeSlimeSoda t1_ja9h195 wrote

Yes, Neaderthals required about 30-50% more calories daily than Homo Sapien Sapiens. This meant that they were less able to survive on foraging than Homo Sapien Sapeins were, and both the men and women were involved in hunts. Since hunting poses greater physical danger, the adult mortality rate for Neaderthal women would have been higher than for Homo Sapien Sapien women. Neaderthals also hit sexual maturity a few years earlier than modern humans do, meaning that they generally had less time in adolescence to hone their skills before being expected to perform the same tasks as adults. All these factors would have limited their population growth and made life as an adult more dangerous. I can see this as being a major reason why Neaderthals were forced to breed with Homo Sapien Sapiens as their own numbers dwindled.

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Zenkakau t1_ja9rsja wrote

Wait but homo sapien sapien both man and woman hunted too

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OrangeSlimeSoda t1_ja9t9av wrote

Yes, it occurred in Homo Sapien Sapien societies but not necessarily out of a biological necessity. Generally, men hunted and women foraged, but roles could and would be shared when and if needed. The fact that modern humans could survive on scavenged food gave modern humans some wiggle room to avoid taking unnecessary hunting risks. Foraging (and pre-pubescent children having more time to learn foraging skills), typically done by women instead of men, would have therefore been an essential factor to the long-term success of Homo Sapien Sapiens over other hominids.

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OlyScott t1_jab6hef wrote

I've heard that there's not good evidence that men were the hunters and women were the gatherers.

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orincoro t1_jaa3o1s wrote

Moreover it is really not strongly supported that humans actually outcompeted Neanderthals in any particular way. They could been bred out, died of disease, or many other outcomes. The argument that we necessity survived because we were better on some way is not very scientific. Weaker and less resilient species win out all the time for obscure reasons.

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OwnedMyself t1_jaa6y8z wrote

If you want to see an extension to your pondering, your comment reminds me of this video which always makes me chuckle when I watch it!

The guy probably made it as a joke… but now I can’t be sure he’s not some kind of time traveler…

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Mapleson_Phillips t1_ja9qxzr wrote

The fact that we have a female Neanderthal genetic inheritance, but a male one leads strong credence to this observation.

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SPYK3O t1_ja9q9j6 wrote

Also doesn't like 1-2% of the population have traces of Neanderthal dna? Kinda obvious at that point lol

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Pyro-sensual t1_jaa7myx wrote

If I'm not mistaken, all Caucasian people and many Asians have 2 to 6 percent Neanderthal DNA.

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wittor t1_jaadyqn wrote

Those are more basal populations with more admixture, i think the present distribution of their genes is lower than expected when compared with those populations because most of those hybrid populations were assimilated by incoming waves of migration of sapiens from outside Europe with no or little admixture.

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prosfromdover t1_jaahsjh wrote

I've never understood why this is a surprise. Neanderthals were probably just as sexy as humans late at night by the campfire ... a little fermented this and that, a little Marvin Gaye.

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Jaksmack t1_ja9sg78 wrote

Did Neanderthals also "start" in Africa and migrate out?

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FreesiaAlbaa t1_jaa4eff wrote

Homo neanderthalensis evolved in Europe, parallel to Homo sapiens in Africa, from a common African ancestor of the genus Homo. The Neanderthals migrated from Europe to parts of west and central Asia.

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Poes-Lawyer t1_jaac82j wrote

Do we know what the first species of Homo was? Presumably that was the first one to expand beyond Africa?

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Zillatamer t1_jaaf9zb wrote

Well, yes, because we literally decide on what animals belong to our own genus. It's technically arbitrary, since we know Homo evolved from within Australopithecus. Homo habilis is generally considered the first species of Homo, though H. rudolfensis is about the same age. In our own line of descent it goes H. habilis, H. erectus, H. heidelbergenis, and then H. sapiens.

Homo erectus is thought to have left Africa first, about 2 mya, and persisted in Eurasia for quite a long time. Homo heidelbergenis left Africa later, maybe ~500 kya; the ones in Eurasia evolved into Neanderthals and Denisovans, while the ones in Africa evolved to Homo sapiens.

However, the existence of Homo floresiensis (often called Hobbits, because they're very short) in Indonesia adds a weird wrinkle to the question of "which species of Homo left Africa first?" Because it has a weird mix of traits that have led to very differing opinions on its classification. Some think it may be a direct descendant of H. habilis, some unknown early species of Homo, or even a derived member of Australopithecus, meaning one of those could have left Africa before even H. erectus, but we have no evidence for these ancestors in Eurasia, and most agree that it probably didn't evolve from H. erectus. This is actually one of the only really "missing links" left for our genus. It doesn't really affect our own lineage, but these are our cousins, so it's still an important question. It's kind of the weirdest outlier in human evolution that we know of.

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taleofbenji t1_jab3oei wrote

Also, trying to think of direct lineages is pointless. The interbreeding is like a whirlwind of genetic exchange over incredibly long time scales.

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Yrolg1 t1_jaaxpcc wrote

What about H. ergaster - isn't that the African form of erectus, or did it come later? And isn't heidelbergenis constrained to Eurasia?

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Zillatamer t1_jab1h3g wrote

H. ergaster is thought to be just a later form/descendant of the African H. erectus, some don't consider it distinct enough to be its own species. Like I said, H. heidelbergenis evolved in Africa and later spread to Eurasia.

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galaxeblaffer t1_jaa744v wrote

we Homo sapiens share a common ancestor with neanderthals, commonly beleive to be H. heidelbergensis https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_heidelbergensis who evolved in Africa. So you can pretty much say that neanderthals was kind of humans as well. it's often why we refer to them and denisovans as cousins, fascinating stuff really ! https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal has a pretty good section on the evolution of neanderthals.

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smashkraft t1_jaa7uh2 wrote

The leading thinking right now is that they evolved in Europe and Asia, not Africa. There is an interesting map about 1/4 of the way into this article.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/who-were-the-neanderthals.html#:~:text=When%20did%20Neanderthals%20live%3F,physical%20evidence%20of%20them%20vanishes.

​

I am not expert about non-African hominids, but I guess this implies that there were already some/many hominids outside of Africa leading up to Neanderthal. We (homo sapiens) were just a branch that still evolved in Africa.

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[deleted] t1_ja9k4rm wrote

[removed]

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[deleted] t1_ja9m7po wrote

[removed]

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HegemonNYC t1_ja9ffsz wrote

The concept of species seems vague and not very scientific. If sapiens and Neanderthal can commonly interbreed, what definition is there of species other than they have some distinctive features in their bones? Considering modern races or ethnic groups of homo sapien can also be identified by their phenotype/appearance while living or as skeletons/fossil why do we consider Neanderthals a separate species, or subspecies? Isn’t it more accurate that Neanderthals were just a distinctive looking group of the same species as Homo Sapien?

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gwaydms t1_ja9pydr wrote

>The concept of species seems vague and not very scientific.

Scientists know this.

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Fallingdamage t1_ja9qnm0 wrote

Because science is vague?

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Aekiel t1_ja9sftw wrote

Because the term species was introduced before we understood genetics that well.

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HegemonNYC t1_ja9u9f3 wrote

Right. Hence any discussion of human ‘species’ like Neanderthals sounding very Victorian and eugenicy. ‘They had broad chests and survived well in the cold’ or ‘they had heavier brow ridges’ seems like ridiculous concepts to determine a different species. You can easily make the same kind of list about Northern Europeans vs SE Asians for example (the Homo Scandanavianus species is defined by its great height and broad frame, high nose bridge, facial hair and and exotic coloration in eye and hair color). It is considered preposterous and racist to categorize modern humans into separate species yet it seems to be the method we categorize other genuses of ‘Homo’ and even all species are just separated by looking kinda different. It seems very archaic and pre-science.

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smashkraft t1_jaa9y57 wrote

I think this article has an interesting, nuanced take.

https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/are-neanderthals-same-species-as-us.html

​

A few interesting pieces of information:

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HanseaticHamburglar t1_jaacri7 wrote

It started that way but its becoming more scientific as we understand DNA.

Manatees are closer to elephants than whales but i don't think scientists 150 years ago could have drawn those conclusions. And there are countless examples of reclassification based on new evidence, and to some extent that goes beyond phenotypic expressions.

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HegemonNYC t1_ja9ui9f wrote

Yes, they should fix it. It seems misleading to claim that Neanderthals were a separate species, rather than merely a somewhat different looking group of people.

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Pyro-sensual t1_jaa7xup wrote

There's really no fixing it. Taxonomy is just a way for humans to divide things up to try to understand them. It's not an inherent quality of nature.

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Yukimor t1_jab9rus wrote

It’s not possible to fix.

Here’s a question for you. There are three species of zebra— grevy’s, mountain, and plains. You might wonder “why aren’t they all just the same species?”

It’s a good question. Turns out all three species have completely different number of chromosomes. Sure, they all look very similar and can interbreed, but once you start to look underneath the hood, you discover complicated distinctions. Lumping them all together erases those distinctions and is an oversimplification in that case.

That’s what scientists struggle with and why there’s so much discussion. You have animals that LOOK very much alike, but when you unravel their genomes and trace their phylogenetic and geographical history, you realize a lot of those similarities are very superficial.

There’s no “fixing” that. There’s just making adjustments and tweaks as we gain more information and improve our understanding of how different groups of similar animals relate to each other.

Humans and Neanderthals have the same number of chromosomes. But under the hood, we’re looking at evidence that hybridization wasn’t simple, and that the male offspring of such unions may have been infertile or even sterile. That suggests that the two groups were far more distant than any ethnic distinction you’d find in modern humans today, while still being a lot closer to each other than a Plains Zebra is to a Grevy’s Zebra.

The comparison may be a lot more similar to domestic cats and Asian leopard cats. The crossing between those two species produces the breed we know as Bengal cats today. But not all the direct offspring of such pairings are fertile— interestingly, as in Human-Neanderthal hybrids, the male offspring are often infertile. But nobody in their right mind would say an Asian Leopard Cat is the same species as a domestic housecat.

That’s just one example of why it’s complicated.

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gwaydms t1_jaamuhe wrote

Domestic dogs (Canis lupus domesticans) can breed with coyotes (C. latrans), which are a different species (in the same genus).

See this article for more. Nomenclature literally means name-calling. So if you're averse to that, please skip. ;)

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Muzzerduzzer t1_jaa3tg6 wrote

I think its because changing people's way of thinking about species (especially human species) is really hard. A good portion of the population already don't want evolution taught in school. Now throw in anything that makes it sound like we are not even %100 human.

"God's perfect and unique creation based off of his image not even human?!?!" /s

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HegemonNYC t1_jaa4fbd wrote

Seems like a different crowd. Scientists simultaneously understand and embrace evolution and dna etc. Yet they also use ‘species’ when ‘regional variant’ or something similar is more appropriate. I think it’s because scientists like to discover new species, and don’t like to discover ‘a fossil of a known species that might be a little different looking’. Again, Victorian holdover.

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Muzzerduzzer t1_jaa4uyy wrote

I can see that. Maybe its a time thing. Science and history will probably mean something different in the future. Just like how science and history are different from the past.

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Cupnoole t1_jaadcvn wrote

In this specific instance I think the group that you are speaking of will be quite fond of that proposition. Most of them has been rationalizing Neanderthal as just another kinds of human race, not a distinct human species.

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Muzzerduzzer t1_jaaewv8 wrote

I think a lot would. But there's a reason I'm not allowed to teach Sunday school anymore lol. There's a lot of fear of losing ones self worth and purpose if it's built on the idea of being unique and something that goes beyond science.

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wittor t1_jaaf6v4 wrote

There are many ways to define a species depending on what you are trying to explain. The idea that a species is composed of all individuals that can successfully interbreed is a simplification used for basic learning purposes and is expected to be understood as an approximation to a more complete theory.

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HegemonNYC t1_jaavvfj wrote

Does more complete theory have a definition that is objective?

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reasonably_plausible t1_jaa4s13 wrote

>The concept of species seems vague and not very scientific.

That's because applying any sort of strict categorization to a very fuzzy system isn't going to go nicely. Animals don't just gain a feature and are suddenly unable to reproduce with similar creatures, inability of interbreeding is based off of what specific mutations any individual species has gained. You can have extremely different organisms that are capable of interbreeding or you can have extremely similar organisms that are incapable of interbreeding. You can even have a set of ring species where species A can breed with species B, B can breed with C, C with D, D with A, but A cannot interbreed with C, nor can B breed with D.

Capability of interbreeding seems like a nice clean dividing line for species, but nature doesn't divide things up nicely into boxes. A taxonomy based off of genetic drift with speciation based off of morphology and behavior is the best we can do to satisfy the human need to categorize everything into nice compartments. If a neanderthal has a different set of bones and body structure as well as a radically different primary diet and metabolism, why does it make sense to talk about it as the same as Homo Sapiens?

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jpastore t1_ja9ll85 wrote

Not according to another comment where they talk about different rates of maturation, and dietary differences. Neanderthals needed substantially more calories. IDK enough to provide more details but it seems like there are several scientific distinctions.

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TheDangerSnek t1_ja9yzbx wrote

Exactly what I am thinking. If we take a skeleton of an native australian and an european human, they look a bit different. But they are both humans, that could interbreed.

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satireplusplus t1_ja9nry8 wrote

Could be very similar to the concept of a mule, these offspring would be called hybrids:

> The mule is a domestic equine hybrid between a donkey and a horse. It is the offspring of a male donkey (a jack) and a female horse (a mare).[1][2] The horse and the donkey are different species, with different numbers of chromosomes; of the two possible first-generation hybrids between them, the mule is easier to obtain and more common than the hinny, which is the offspring of a female donkey (a jenny) and a male horse (a stallion).

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HegemonNYC t1_ja9t74s wrote

No, it is in no way like a mule. Mules are not fertile. Horses and donkeys are barely fertile together, they can make the mule but a mule can’t make more mules. Neanderthals and Homo sapiens can fully interbreed, with fertile offspring. Hence why we can see Neanderthal dna in ours.

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0ldgrumpy1 t1_jaa1q6k wrote

I have an interesting question. Neanderthals used the same style of stone tools for half a million years. They didn't change. What if the group of modern humans who are deathly opposed to change carry a particular Neanderthal gene?

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Neat-yeeter t1_jaask5q wrote

Well somebody’s never read Clan of the Cave Bear.

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bobhargus t1_jaayu4a wrote

seems like i have heard this several times over the last 30 years or so and its always described as "surprising"... i mean, have you ever met a man? it would be more surprising if there were NOT "frequent intermingling"

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KmartQuality t1_ja9a67w wrote

Is this before or after we started eating them?

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freekoout t1_ja9c0wo wrote

I think we ate each other equally. Most primates will become cannibals of the need arises. Not really cannibalism if it's another species, though, but you get my point. A neanderthal would gladly eat a homosapien if they had to, just like we would gladly eat them.

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KmartQuality t1_ja9fcq3 wrote

If I remember correctly cannibalism is usually ritualistic. You get to terrorize your victims and their families/tribes and also get to absorb their juju.

"Grocery store" cannibalism for calories is rare.

Is it cannibalism if we go out and hunt gorillas or chimps?

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freekoout t1_ja9ho75 wrote

As to your last point, I addressed that in my comment. As for your comment about "grocery store" cannibalism, you realize humanity and neanderthals went through an Ice Age? We had to eat what ever we could to survive, and humans/neanderthals from other tribes would've been free game. As for your ritualism comment, there has to be origins for rituals, and society and religion has to exist for rituals to exist. There's no evidence of structured society or religion in that time period. Cannibalism would've been a last resort survival tactic, not a prestigious event.

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KmartQuality t1_ja9lfz6 wrote

There's no evidence for lack of structured religion.

Of course they had religion. They talked...not grunted. They had opposable thumbs. They had tribes. They got weird. They defended their territories and attacked weaker people.

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gwaydms t1_jaa062v wrote

Both species engaged in ritual behavior of some sort. This may not constitute what we think of as "religion". But the root word in Latin means "that which binds", with the sense of bringing/keeping a community closer together. In this context, we can certainly put H. neandertalensis, as well as H. sapiens, ritual behaviors into the category of religion. They didn't necessarily believe in supernatural beings, but they pretty clearly believed in something beyond their tangible experience.

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freekoout t1_ja9ozro wrote

Okay, so you know how science works right? Facts aren't based on assumptions. But you apparently know more than the experts, so go ahead, give your version of events. I'll wait here for your sources.

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mirkociamp1 t1_ja9vsx3 wrote

Did we eat/they eat us? Could you give me some more information please? that seems fascinating

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