Simply did not work': Mating between Neanderthals and modern humans may have been a product of failed alliances, says archaeologist Ludovic Slimak

[admin]

"When two populations are close to one another but they are very distinct — maybe they can have a different language and different traditions, they are in neighboring territories — they are going to exchange their women."

Simply did not work': Mating between Neanderthals and modern humans may have been a product of failed alliances, says archaeologist Ludovic Slimak : Read more

 

[M.R. Mulders]

I find the article a bit strange in some of its conclusions. Specifically the exchange of women. While I found one study in Nature that stated male hybrids may have been less fertile, and have seen other articles place this as yet unconfirmed by other studies and thus requiring further research, there is one thing we most definitely know about our genetic exchange with Neanderthal:

Their mitochondrial DNA does not survive in the homo sapiens populations. You receive 100% of your mitochondria from your mother. That Neanderthal DNA survived in our population, but their mitochondria do not, does not completely confirm hybrids born from female Neanderthals and male sapiens were inviable, infertile, or infertile of female. But it would certainly open a path to alternate explanations to consider why there is no sapien DNA found (currently), among Neanderthal populations.

Either way, I don't think you can just leave out the possibility that only hybrids with a sapien mother being viable. Or at least, not mention the lack of mitochondrial DNA possibly refuting the theories posed.

That said, this is just an interview. It might well be in the book. This is just what kept rattling around in my head whilst reading the article. And regardless, it is a fascinating subject, which every expert will agree we still have much to learn about.

 

[Yvonne F]

Basic assumptions in this work need to be questioned. Not all recent societies of modern humans exchange "their women". In many, young couples live with the bride's family. Traditional Apache society is one example of many.

The wording also indicates to me that the author thinks of human societies as being equivalent to the males, who have these female possessions to make alliances with.

Modern humans have tremendous variation in sex and gender arrangements and power structure; trying to generalize to tens of thousands of years ago based upon biases prevalent in some parts of academia (not all!) is just not good science.

The author could examine all possible cases of gender/sex arrangements with respect to the genetic data, instead of focusing on this outdated, limited, stereotypically male-centered one.

 

[worldwidepop.com]

Basic assumptions in this work need to be questioned. Not all recent societies of modern humans exchange "their women". In many, young couples live with the bride's family. Traditional Apache society is one example of many.

The wording also indicates to me that the author thinks of human societies as being equivalent to the males, who have these female possessions to make alliances with.

Modern humans have tremendous variation in sex and gender arrangements and power structure; trying to generalize to tens of thousands of years ago based upon biases prevalent in some parts of academia (not all!) is just not good science.

The author could examine all possible cases of gender/sex arrangements with respect to the genetic data, instead of focusing on this outdated, limited, stereotypically male-centered one.

As a Navajo I find your criticism brilliant and representative of the type of insight the author lacks. This article is typical of fluff science. No one well educated in anthropologyand sociology would proffer the article published here.

 

[Bagwoman]

Didn't work? Well I'm here. With near 3% Neanderthal DNA so evidence that it did. As for exchange their women??? What??

 

[MMMitchell]

Ouch! The expression “their women” keeps males representative of human beings, implies ownership, & keeps women in secondary status to men. Please, please, please double-check your audience assumptions.

 

[LEVI_DRACO]

I often thought about why the genes only went one way......then the answer dawned on me...have you ever seen a Neanderthal female?? They weren't easy on the eyes. So it's no wonder the genetics were only shared one way..lol

 

[JamesWWIII]

Ouch! The expression “their women” keeps males representative of human beings, implies ownership, & keeps women in secondary status to men. Please, please, please double-check your audience assumptions.

Yes, we wouldn't want to potentially insult any Neanderthal women who might be reading this article.

The horror!

 

[Lou Sassole]

Basic assumptions in this work need to be questioned. Not all recent societies of modern humans exchange "their women". In many, young couples live with the bride's family. Traditional Apache society is one example of many.

The wording also indicates to me that the author thinks of human societies as being equivalent to the males, who have these female possessions to make alliances with.

Modern humans have tremendous variation in sex and gender arrangements and power structure; trying to generalize to tens of thousands of years ago based upon biases prevalent in some parts of academia (not all!) is just not good science.

The author could examine all possible cases of gender/sex arrangements with respect to the genetic data, instead of focusing on this outdated, limited, stereotypically male-centered one.

Well, the so called "outdated" and "stereotypically male centered one" is the correct one. In every major civilization across time, daughters were married off in order to unite civilizations, tribes, clans, etc. The notion that there are tremendous variations is sex and gender (a made up term) is ridiculous. It is indeed "good science" as it is in our nature, men have always and will always lead while women follow. The very minute portions of academia that say otherwise simply pretend that there is another option, where in reality there isn't. The minute amount of academics that share your views are almost always indoctrinated by feminism and push for a gyno-centric society. Meanwhile if you read their work it can truly be considered "not good science"

 

[Lou Sassole]

Ouch! The expression “their women” keeps males representative of human beings, implies ownership, & keeps women in secondary status to men. Please, please, please double-check your audience

Women are indeed secondary status to men. Women played no role in the development of civilization except for breeding and marrying them off to unite tribes, clans, etc. To pretend otherwise is to deny fact and reason. Your feminist views did not come into play until the most recent century and even then they only exist because MEN allow them to.

 

[Lou Sassole]

As a Navajo I find your criticism brilliant and representative of the type of insight the author lacks. This article is typical of fluff science. No one well educated in anthropologyand sociology would proffer the article published here.

Except the Navajo and many other Indians married off their daughters in order to unite tribes. So your argument is moot.

 

[Lou Sassole]

Basic assumptions in this work need to be questioned. Not all recent societies of modern humans exchange "their women". In many, young couples live with the bride's family. Traditional Apache society is one example of many.

The wording also indicates to me that the author thinks of human societies as being equivalent to the males, who have these female possessions to make alliances with.

Modern humans have tremendous variation in sex and gender arrangements and power structure; trying to generalize to tens of thousands of years ago based upon biases prevalent in some parts of academia (not all!) is just not good science.

The author could examine all possible cases of gender/sex arrangements with respect to the genetic data, instead of focusing on this outdated, limited, stereotypically male-centered one.

Nowhere in this article did they say "all" but it is certainly true that "most" did.

 

[Richard Soule]

Very interesting, I believe the author has made some assumptions that are incorrect.
I agree the efficiency of Homo sapiens and the creativity of Neanderthals are characteristics you can see in the tools(Spot on).That gave advantages to these offspring.
The differences in the DNA can be explained by the birthing process. Neanderthal women were more robust ( larger bone structure)and would have had wider hips. Larger birthing canals. Homo sapiens women would have had smaller birthing canals more (narrow hips). This explains the difference as Homo sapiens females would have died during the birthing process with Neanderthal males. Neanderthal women would have given birth and passed on those traits with Homo sapiens males. Biological differences not behavior, culture differences reduced the numbers of Neanderthals in breeding. She missed an important fact that really explains the genetic anomalies. Archiac introgression was limited to Male Homo sapiens and female Neanderthal. Neanderthal male and female Homo sapiens breeding resulted in mortality for the female and offspring resulting in reduced Neanderthal DNA and ultimately extinction.

 

[Shiree]

Very interesting, I believe the author has made some assumptions that are incorrect.
I agree the efficiency of Homo sapiens and the creativity of Neanderthals are characteristics you can see in the tools(Spot on).That gave advantages to these offspring.
The differences in the DNA can be explained by the birthing process. Neanderthal women were more robust ( larger bone structure)and would have had wider hips. Larger birthing canals. Homo sapiens women would have had smaller birthing canals more (narrow hips). This explains the difference as Homo sapiens females would have died during the birthing process with Neanderthal males. Neanderthal women would have given birth and passed on those traits with Homo sapiens males. Biological differences not behavior, culture differences reduced the numbers of Neanderthals in breeding. She missed an important fact that really explains the genetic anomalies. Archiac introgression was limited to Male Homo sapiens and female Neanderthal. Neanderthal male and female Homo sapiens breeding resulted in mortality for the female and offspring resulting in reduced Neanderthal DNA and ultimately extinction.

I just signed up to say the same thing. How big was a newborn Neanderthal baby's head trying to fit out of a Homo sapiens woman's pelvis? Probably didn't end well for either of them. A Neanderthal mother having a baby fathered by a Homo sapiens would have fared a lot better

 

[Richard Soule]

Very interesting, I believe the author has made some assumptions that are incorrect.
I agree the efficiency of Homo sapiens and the creativity of Neanderthals are characteristics you can see in the tools(Spot on).That gave advantages to these offspring.
The differences in the DNA can be explained by the birthing process. Neanderthal women were more robust ( larger bone structure)and would have had wider hips. Larger birthing canals. Homo sapiens women would have had smaller birthing canals more (narrow hips). This explains the difference as Homo sapiens females would have died during the birthing process with Neanderthal males. Neanderthal women would have given birth and passed on those traits with Homo sapiens males. Biological differences not behavior, culture differences reduced the numbers of Neanderthals in breeding. She missed an important fact that really explains the genetic anomalies. Archiac introgression was limited to Male Homo sapiens and female Neanderthal. Neanderthal male and female Homo sapiens breeding resulted in mortality for the female and offspring resulting in reduced Neanderthal DNA and ultimately extinction.

What I find telling from this study is there provides evidence that Neanderthal may have been more intelligent than Homo sapiens. Creativity of Neanderthal vs efficiency of Homo sapiens suggests Homo sapiens were inclined to the hive mentality (group thinking). In contrast, Neanderthal created a variety of tool sizes utilizing a broader individualized thinking. Homo sapiens with Neanderthal DNA may have benefited from a greater intellect.
The mating between Neanderthal male and Homo sapiens female resulted in mortality for the mother and offspring. This most certainly contributed in the decline and extinction of Neanderthal. A physiological schism that forever changed the Anatomical Modern Humans (AMH)as Homo sapiens dominate. Denisovan introgression with Homo sapiens females would have also resulted in their extinction . Leaving remnant DNA in AMH of the Denisovan. This distinction is significant in that we now know physiological differences in viable mating favored Homo sapiens males. A significant disadvantage for other larger male Homins mating with Homo sapiens females. The single greatest contributing factor to the fall of Neanderthal and Denisovan males.

 

[JD Lacy]

I find the article a bit strange in some of its conclusions. Specifically the exchange of women. While I found one study in Nature that stated male hybrids may have been less fertile, and have seen other articles place this as yet unconfirmed by other studies and thus requiring further research, there is one thing we most definitely know about our genetic exchange with Neanderthal:

Their mitochondrial DNA does not survive in the homo sapiens populations. You receive 100% of your mitochondria from your mother. That Neanderthal DNA survived in our population, but their mitochondria do not, does not completely confirm hybrids born from female Neanderthals and male sapiens were inviable, infertile, or infertile of female. But it would certainly open a path to alternate explanations to consider why there is no sapien DNA found (currently), among Neanderthal populations.

Either way, I don't think you can just leave out the possibility that only hybrids with a sapien mother being viable. Or at least, not mention the lack of mitochondrial DNA possibly refuting the theories posed.

That said, this is just an interview. It might well be in the book. This is just what kept rattling around in my head whilst reading the article. And regardless, it is a fascinating subject, which every expert will agree we still have much to learn about.

This article, and book, really help to bring obviously problematic assumptions to light to those, like you, not obsessing on a particular theory and trying to look at the bigger picture.

One of the fascinating things eclipsed by the shear surprise and obsessing related to potential cross-species mating is that the shared neanderthal and denisovan DNA is wonderfully diverse in its levels, ratios and types depending upon what region a person is from. This indicates that hybridization occurred everywhere or, alternatively, we should consider that estimating a date and location of introgression would be problematic for populations of isolated migrators and so we should consider the relic DNA may be ancestral.

It is not ancestral to the neanderthal species itself, hence the lack of our DNA in them, but it is ancestral relic DNA left from intermediate species that still mingled during and after speciation creating a diversity of relic DNA for hominids whose survival niche was migration to greener lands in dry times. When Svante Paabo took the job at Max Plank part of his goal was to cultivate the public excitement about neanderthals. The theory of interbreeding in Europe seemed an easy-to-prove pursuit but it never happened and the time and place of interbreeding turned out to be elusive. What he may have found is evidence of a much more interesting theory to blindly obsess about, which is, the genetic record of a speciation event of a species that was isolated but much less isolated than neanderthal and that survived by maintaining alliances based in trade with distant tribes of our own species. Migrators cross breeding with intermediate species 150 to 250 thousand years ago may produce the same shared DNA we see today.

Ancestral DNA is driven out when a population is less isolated and this may be why the San and Yoruba tribes lack neanderthal DNA entirely and the far away migrators have more. The statistical analysis that supported potential times of interbreeding has changed so these models of genetic probability may not be as solid as many presume, and probably not reliable for isolated migrating populations existing alongside intermediate species that are more closely related to neanderthal.

Consider the Jebel Irhoud fossils in Morocco. Classified as modern humans but they have those long neanderthal skulls indicating speciation was still in progress 315,000 years ago and there were many hominid types long after our divergence with our last common ancestor with neanderthal.

The picture may come more into focus as we get more DNA from fossils like this.

 

[Egon Acostia]

If this supposition were correct, then Neandertal mtDNA would exist. The daughters of the Neandertal mothers would have passed it on into the H. sapiens gene pool. That has apparently not happened, at least as far as global genomic sampling has progressed to date. Or perhaps it does exist and has been misidentified. That seems unlikely though, as all modern humans' direct lineages have been traced back to one woman, and one man, both H.sapiens, and each living in completely different time periods. There is no evidence of any Neanderthal Y-DNA or mtDNA left in the human gene pool. Perhaps some will yet be discovered in some remote area. The easiest way for the Neanderthal DNA to have made its way into the modern human gene pool would have been through male-Neanderthal/female-H.sapiens matings.