Yes, that would be splendid. I think many of us have a basic grasp of DNA: enough to understand results from the likes of Ancestry and the Genographic project but tend to get a bit lost when things get more technical.
A deeply amateur opinion but what if these sequestered groups just weren't that curious? The two week trip to the other Neanderthal group was out of the question because they never wandered that far from home, they didn't need to. And, if they suffered the usual results of inbreeding, they were incapable of conceiving that something lay on the other side of the ridge. They lived in the eternal present. Stone Age children.
Certainly seems to be part of their group psychology, to not be so curious as homo sapiens. Certainly there are examples of humans acting the same way, Papua New Guinea is a good example. Some of the genetic differences between groups divided by just a river are greater than the genetic differences between the English and Sri Lankans
All I could think of was what a wise group of Neanderthals keeping separate from the sapiens. What a mad bunch we have turned out to be! I know it is a flippant remark but I could not help thinking it.
I don't know if the genetics will ever be clear enough to pinpoint which exact group early sapiens interbred with, but it is increasingly clear that mixing wasn't even and perhaps some crosses led to infertile offspring
Did the humans give you their women to the neanderthals and not receive any in return? I thought I read that the neanderthal genome survived in humans on the Y chromosome not the X but I'm unclear on the implications.
There's no maternal mitochondrial DNA from Neanderthals that has survived in modern humans, which means that only the offspring of male Neanderthals and female homo sapiens survived or became part of the surviving lineages from that time. There's def suggestions that the offspring of male sapiens and female Neanderthals could have been infertile.
The technicality of this article is way above my head, but I find it terribly interesting. Thank you.
Would some kind of 'cheat sheet' article be helpful, to break down some of the more technical jargon?
Yes, that would be splendid. I think many of us have a basic grasp of DNA: enough to understand results from the likes of Ancestry and the Genographic project but tend to get a bit lost when things get more technical.
Thanks in advance.
A deeply amateur opinion but what if these sequestered groups just weren't that curious? The two week trip to the other Neanderthal group was out of the question because they never wandered that far from home, they didn't need to. And, if they suffered the usual results of inbreeding, they were incapable of conceiving that something lay on the other side of the ridge. They lived in the eternal present. Stone Age children.
Certainly seems to be part of their group psychology, to not be so curious as homo sapiens. Certainly there are examples of humans acting the same way, Papua New Guinea is a good example. Some of the genetic differences between groups divided by just a river are greater than the genetic differences between the English and Sri Lankans
All I could think of was what a wise group of Neanderthals keeping separate from the sapiens. What a mad bunch we have turned out to be! I know it is a flippant remark but I could not help thinking it.
They probably knew how different we were immediately
Possibly a stupid question, but could it be possible that this group simply couldn’t breed or produce viable offspring with sapiens?
I don't know if the genetics will ever be clear enough to pinpoint which exact group early sapiens interbred with, but it is increasingly clear that mixing wasn't even and perhaps some crosses led to infertile offspring
Did the humans give you their women to the neanderthals and not receive any in return? I thought I read that the neanderthal genome survived in humans on the Y chromosome not the X but I'm unclear on the implications.
There's no maternal mitochondrial DNA from Neanderthals that has survived in modern humans, which means that only the offspring of male Neanderthals and female homo sapiens survived or became part of the surviving lineages from that time. There's def suggestions that the offspring of male sapiens and female Neanderthals could have been infertile.
The version I heard is that human Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA swept the neanderthals at some point.
So why did humans end up with the Y DNA from neanderthals and not the X?
Fifty thousand years? It boggles the mind that a group could be isolated for that long.
Those lengths of time never get easier to process, no matter how many times I read 50kya or 100kya I never fail to be amazed
Laws of natural selection.
'So we know from Claude Lévi-Strauss’ Elementary Structures of Kinship that the question of the reproduction of societies is not a question of love.'
I doubt it, but I do appreciate the offer.