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How did we get 4% Neanderthal DNA?

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tl;dr at the bottom.

https://youtu.be/0uRCVyJ7-0c?t=54m20s

As a piggy back off of this thread, I just find this topic so damn fascinating, and I wanna talk about it.

As a side note: 6% of the human population also have Denisovan genes! Denisovans are another extinct homo species. But as Neanderthals are "white", "Middle Eastern" and "eastern Asian", I guess Denisovans are "brown". However, only Melanesians and aboriginal Australians have this 6% heritage in them.

Something that really pisses me off is that very early reconstructions of Neanderthals were racist. I remember this one reconstruction of what looked a really hairy black man, and there may have been worse ones; I don't know if this was before or after it was discovered how much bigger their cranial capacities were or just from the assumptions of how Erectus or other African homo species looked, but Neanderthals were pale - modern reconstructions are much different.

And that's just the thing, those who are of purely African descent, are the purest homo sapiens alive. And that makes sense, because it is believed that man originated in Ethiopa right? So if you're 100% black, you are 100% homo sapiens. Almost the rest of the world have at least 1-4% Neanderthal DNA. So I just wonder, it's just such a beautiful, charming, alluring, and ultimately fascinating thing to think about.

Many of us are fortunate to have grown up with a mother and a father. Notwithstanding the fact that literally none of us have experienced what it's like to live as hunter/gatherers with 0 sophisticated technology, but just imagine,

how it would be like being a little child, and looking up at your mother, who smiles at you, comforts you, loves you and protects you but is a Neanderthal, and you look up at your father who looks the same but yet different from your mother but loves you all the same. Did he have any love or affection for your mother? They are presumably together now raising you...two different species of people, not races, two different SPECIES are raising you.

I say races because in our reality, having parents of different races can be physically and psychologically different, but not intellectually different. Having parents of different species would make the offspring intellectually different because both parents have different capacities for intellect, which makes it the most fascinating of all. But we will never know.

Damn man I dunno. So, how did we get the 4%?

Here are some cool links to check out.

http://guardianlv.com/2013/12/neanderthal-debate-club-the-ancients-spoke-just-like-us-says-study/
http://listverse.com/2009/06/16/top-10-misconceptions-about-neanderthals/
http://www.techeblog.com/index.php/...y-in-modern-clothes-and-18-more-cool-pictures
http://www.rewiring-neuroscience.com/348/
http://www.sci-news.com/otherscienc...mo-species-interbred-modern-humans-01476.html

https://www.vox.com/2016/9/14/12887956/human-neanderthal-sex-love-genetics
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24476670
http://voices.nationalgeographic.com/2008/09/17/neanderthal_woman_is_first_rep/

A nice documentary on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=toBWYvtobH0&t=2997s

It's a bit outdated as the narrator says
there's no evidence of interbreeding or hybrids,
, but since then we have discovered the lapedo child in 1998, and a genome sequence in 2010 that solidified the theory.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/...neanderthals-humans-mated-interbred-dna-gene/

the doctor:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_D._Hawks

A lot of the responses in this thread have been rape. You have to remember though, that in order for the 4% to have been preserved in our DNA, our Neanderthal ancestors, those that were the mothers and fathers of the hybrid children and the children themselves, had to have been integrated into eventual human society because they survived to pass their Neanderthal genes on. If they had been born out of rape, I think them fitting into society wouldn't be as welcome. Just something to keep in mind.

My personal take is: Neanderthals were sophisticated enough to be culturally compatible to sapiens, so they probably had clans and tribes and shit, who had meetings to trade mates.

tl;dr

As the doctor in the video says, yes this question may seem obvious or silly at first, but there is a serious question behind it. Was it romantic? Or was it kidnapping or worse? Or was it just convenient sometimes?

So, how did we get the 4%?

What do you think?
 

WillyFive

Member
If modern (in terms of homo sapien scale) history is anything to go by, it's a combination of war (prisoners getting raped for ownership) and love (Romeo and Juliet).
 
It's a religious question, there will be no science based answer, merely faith.
Personally, I choose to think of it in a positive manner.
 

Occam

Member
Because male Neanderthals had sex with female homo sapiens.
And not all humans have any Neanderthal DNA, for instance Africans have none.
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
We as a species lived alongside the Neanderthals for a VERY long time before they died out. Its only natural that their would be cross breeding across the disparate tribes of humans and neanderthals.
 

Nabbis

Member
They were not different species if interbreeding was possible and produced progeny that could pass on their genes as well.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
The actual answer to this is known: people used to have sex with Neanderthals. Specifically, female humans and Neanderthal males.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
You never fucked a dumb chick?

Mitochondria are normally inherited exclusively from the mother and genome sequencing has revealed there is no Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA in humans.

This likely means that either Neanderthal females and Human males produced infertile offspring or no offspring at all.
 

Parch

Member
A few years ago there was a really good documentary on TV about Neanderthals and their demise. Today, the highest percentage of Neanderthal DNA in humans is in SW Europe, Spain and France. That's where they hung out most. The assumption that they were a violent race is untrue.

It's a good thing they were around and interbred. Neanderthal DNA is credited with providing health and immunity benefits that all humans possess today.
 

Angry Grimace

Two cannibals are eating a clown. One turns to the other and says "does something taste funny to you?"
A few years ago there was a really good documentary on TV about Neanderthals and their demise. Today, the highest percentage of Neanderthal DNA in humans is in SW Europe, Spain and France. That's where they hung out most. The assumption that they were a violent race is untrue.

It's a good thing they were around and interbred. Neanderthal DNA is credited with providing health and immunity benefits that all humans possess today.

Sub-Saharan Africans don't actually have Neanderthal DNA. The evidence shows an admixture of some other unknown type of hominid.
 

Nabbis

Member
This isn't quite the case.

Well, yeah, sure it's not always the case. But i find the claim being overblown in it's ramifications even if technically true by some definition. Modern understanding of epigenetics and bottlecap phenomenon can produce even more drastic difference in only a few generations. By few i mean only a single percentage of time it takes for what is assumed to be the diversification of one species into another.
 

Ether_Snake

安安安安安安安安安安安安安安安
Probably rape at first.

Then eventually the distinctions vanished so it became the usual mating. Same thing as we have seen iver and over again in history.
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
A few years ago there was a really good documentary on TV about Neanderthals and their demise. Today, the highest percentage of Neanderthal DNA in humans is in SW Europe, Spain and France. That's where they hung out most. The assumption that they were a violent race is untrue.

It's a good thing they were around and interbred. Neanderthal DNA is credited with providing health and immunity benefits that all humans possess today.

Neanderthals were probably more similar to us than most consider. They were known for treating their dead with respect and placing flowers on their graves for example. They made cave drawings much like ancient man as well. They weren't just giant dumb apes that kind of looked like people.
 

Reeks

Member
Well, yeah, sure it's not always the case. But i find the claim being overblown in it's ramifications. Modern understanding of epigenetics and bottlecap phenomenon can produce even more drastic difference in only a few generations.

How is it overblown? Sure, it's a small amount of genetic information that probably has little overall effect- but that's not the interesting part.. the interesting part is that it did occur. And do you mean genetic bottleneck?
 

Occam

Member
If you're going to say something like that, you should have read the OP.

I gave you the correct reply based on the latest research by Svante Pääbo, who is working at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v524/n7564/full/nature14558.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7117/abs/nature05336.html

Pääbo is the world's foremost expert in this field. If you actually care to learn more, read his book.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neanderthal_Man:_In_Search_of_Lost_Genomes
 
I gave you the correct reply based on the latest research by Svante Pääbo, who is working at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany.

https://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v524/n7564/full/nature14558.html
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v444/n7117/abs/nature05336.html

i never said you were wrong dude! wtf

edit: my point was that you didn't read my OP and assumed I didn't know that African humans are the purest. So if you're going to post something dismissive, instead of assuming you should have given me the benefit of the doubt, given me a chance and read the OP first.
 
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