5 things you probably didn't know about Neanderthals

Neanderthals had family sex, great eyes, and a terrible time hunting varmints Our thick-browed, extinct friends known as the Neanderthals have been all over the news lately. The latest find? Scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, have sequenced and published a high-quality Neanderthal genome taken from a toe bone found in a Siberian cave, reports the Associated Press. In celebration of the breakthrough, here are 5 fascinating things about Neanderthals that you may not have known: 1. They kept sex all in the family When scientists put a 100,000-year-old skull from China’s Nihewan Basin together, they found something curious on top of it — a hole. An uncovered "soft spot" should be rare, yet researchers have found 22 Neanderthal skulls with a similar defect, leading them to believe that "the simplest explanation is that small and unstable human populations forced our ancestors to inbreed," according to Smithsonian Magazine. Yes, inbreeding is normally linked to cognitive problems, but it's better than watching your species die out in the icy Pleistocene era. You know what they say: If you can't be with the one you love, breed with the one you're with.

Again our mad scientist are at it in the article they are contemplating bringing them back to life,what if one of the reasons they didn't make was because they were inbred?

Scientists think we could bring them back to life That genome data in Germany could come in handy if scientists ever want to bring a Neanderthal back to life. According to National Geographic, we could do it by embracing the Jurassic Park method: Tweak a human cell to match Neanderthal DNA, and implant it in a chimp or human mother. "Going from engineered cells to whole organism has been especially well established in mice, and [there's] no obvious reason why it would fail in other mammals," Harvard geneticist George Church tells National Geographic.

theweek.com...

If we do this what the heck are we gonna do we them keep them in a zoo??

Originally posted by Spider879
If we do this what the heck are we gonna do we them keep them in a zoo??

They weren't stupid. Indeed, their brains were slightly larger than ours. Further, you probably have between 2 and 4% Neanderthal genes in you. There's no reason to suppose a Neanderthal couldn't live a normal life today. Cut his hair and dress him in some jeans and you wouldn't hardly notice him if he were sitting across from you in the subway.

Originally posted by schuyler

Originally posted by Spider879
If we do this what the heck are we gonna do we them keep them in a zoo??

They weren't stupid. Indeed, their brains were slightly larger than ours. Further, you probably have between 2 and 4% Neanderthal genes in you. There's no reason to suppose a Neanderthal couldn't live a normal life today. Cut his hair and dress him in some jeans and you wouldn't hardly notice him if he were sitting across from you in the subway.

I donno about that they had a hard time hunting rabbits and other small animals plus we are not sure if they could vocalize words seems like a distinct disadvantage to me,yes we carry some of their genes but they weren't us.

If we do this what the heck are we gonna do we them keep them in a zoo??

That is an excellent question.

Would they be protected under human rights? Or would they live their lives as science experiments?

My opinion is that the idea doesn't sound ethical and maybe they should leave the past in the past.

S&F

reply to post by Spider879


Hi spider,
People have missed the significance of this new Hn data, aside from the new look into Hn genetics, the sample used came from Denisova cave, famous for its Denisovans.
So Neanderthals and their cousins the Denisovans both occupied the cave, but at different times.
As to the inbreeding, the altai region of siberia is very remote, even today, so its likely that these neandrthals were an isolated population, thus the level of inbreeding.

Originally posted by Spider879

Originally posted by schuyler

Originally posted by Spider879
If we do this what the heck are we gonna do we them keep them in a zoo??

They weren't stupid. Indeed, their brains were slightly larger than ours. Further, you probably have between 2 and 4% Neanderthal genes in you. There's no reason to suppose a Neanderthal couldn't live a normal life today. Cut his hair and dress him in some jeans and you wouldn't hardly notice him if he were sitting across from you in the subway.

I donno about that they had a hard time hunting rabbits and other small animals plus we are not sure if they could vocalize words seems like a distinct disadvantage to me,yes we carry some of their genes but they weren't us.

Neandethals limited attributes had nothing to do with intelligence, but everything to do with the extreme specialization of their body.
Over the several hundred thousand years they evolved they became very specialized hunters, with robust bodies to keep in the heat, a larger brain to ,a) keep the brain warm and 2) to house the larger visual processing portion of the brain. They were excellent hikers but terrible runners. Their shoulders didnt evolve for overhead movement so they couldn't throw anything effectively. Their larger eyes were an adaptation to living in the dense forest and its low light levels.
And way to much noise is made about their limited vocal range, as many aboriginal languages don't use the full range of vocal sounds were are capable of.

Originally posted by Spider879
Again our mad scientist are at it in the article they are contemplating bringing them back to life,what if one of the reasons they didn't make was because they were inbred?

It's ridiculous to think that they 'went extinct' because they were just an ecotype of humans. Going extinct is failing to reproduce, and the neanderthals did not go out like that. Plenty of them interbred with the much larger homo sapiens sapiens populations that arrived in their local area and so the 'Neanderthal' type just disappeared into the human genome.

There are also still plenty of people who have a phenotype which is suggestive of having some significant amount of Neanderthal DNA. It's kind of a joke, but probably kind of true that there are a bunch of them in the NHL.

Neanderthals were not a bunch of dumb, unhealthy inbreds. It's more likely they were on average significantly smarter than your average modern human. They were also most likely some pretty strong and healthy people on average; some of their women would kick your arse in most every sort of sport except maybe long distance running, if you happen to be good at that. Long distance running seems to be more of a homo sapiens sapiens thing.

Inbreeding brings out 'recessive' traits, but they also had natural selection putting strong pressure on them to be healthy. Serious weaknesses from inbreeding would prevent them from having more kids even if they were able to survive. Less serious deficiencies like bad eyesight or a weak throwing arm could still get them killed. A bad memory could mean they get lost or eat something they shouldn't or make some other mistake etc.

Hunting and gathering supports only very small populations of humans over a very large area. It's something like only 30 people over 20 or 30 square miles. So there just weren't all that many Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis compared to the booming Homo Sapiens Sapiens populations.

Originally posted by Spider879
If we do this what the heck are we gonna do we them keep them in a zoo??

Honestly, that's sick, dude. They're just people. And they aren't going to want to live in caves and sit around campfires all day just because they are neanderthals. And they aren't going to only be able to speak in grunts etc.

I would be against cloning them because they would probably all die from common colds, the flu, etc just like so many of the Native Americans did. Other than maybe dogs, domesticated animals came way way after them, and domesticated animals are where most of the devastating plagues came from. Most likely they would have relatively defenseless immune systems, given what is out there now. They wouldn't be defenseless because they were weak; they'd be defenseless because they were unprepared, being maybe 15 or 30 or 60 thousand years behind the competition.

But if they could somehow survive, some of them might turn out to be some brilliant people, University PHD types.

It might be ok If science waits until after nanotechnology can augment immune systems, so that they don't have to live in sealed 'bubble boy' environments. A mad scientist might also try to splice in the DNA for some of the immunity they would need.

All of the above responses are reasonable positions, yes to date they lived longer than us who according to the Doom's Day clock is 5 min to midnite after only 200,000 yrs give or take,we with all our smarts may not make it.and yes they had adapted well to their environment, but how does one exchange complex thought without language,yes they could survive by non verbal communication as anyone who had under gone S.E.R.E training can attest to,but that is only of limited use introducing a new complex idea would have been difficult.

11andrew34
Honestly, that's sick, dude. They're just people. And they aren't going to want to live in caves and sit around campfires all day just because they are neanderthals. And they aren't going to only be able to speak in grunts etc.

Sick but true it has happened before www.environmentalgraffiti.com... or as daryllyn said

Would they be protected under human rights? Or would they live their lives as science experiments?