
A high-coverage Neandertal genome from Chagyrskaya Cave - diodorus
https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/06/15/2004944117
======
throwaway4666
>Analyses of their genomes showed that they contributed genetically to
present-day people outside sub-Saharan Africa

This is wrong. Recent analyses
([https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)30059-3](https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674\(20\)30059-3))
have shown Neanderthals have _also_ contributed to Sub-Saharan DNA. Maybe the
authors weren't aware of the latest findings at the time of writing and no one
ever thought of correcting that part.

~~~
rossdavidh
Or, because that is a new finding, using (by the authors' own description) a
"novel" method of deducing it, they just aren't convinced yet. It is a tricky
business to do, and especially without any human-but-0%-Neanderthal sample to
compare against. Maybe the authors of the Cell paper have done it, but it
wouldn't totally shock me if the rest of their field is not convinced.

~~~
throwaway4666
Well if the paper made it to Cell at least two other people in the field are
convinced.

~~~
rossdavidh
Technically it would just mean that at least the reviewers were convinced it
was important work which should get looked at by the rest of the field, i.e.
worth publishing. I'm not saying it isn't. I'm just saying that even things
which get published in major publications like Cell don't always hold up, and
a major revision of the understanding prior to that article is probably more
likely than most to be a case of that.

Although, for my part, I find it entirely plausible that if sapiens interbred
with neanderthals in Europe, some of that found its way back into Africa. But
it is not a major miss of some sort in the parent article to not take that as
demonstrated yet.

------
londons_explore
Imagine the furore if someone manages to make this genome into a living
creature... Will they get a passport? Will they get the vote? Will any
children be allowed to be called humans?

~~~
throwaway4666
The distinction between Neanderthals, Denisovans and _Homo sapiens sapiens_ is
more or less a legacy from a time where we didn't know how fuzzy the
definition of 'species' was. For all intents and purposes all three are the
same species of full-fledged humans and there's scant evidence humans from
either denomination would even treat each other differently.

~~~
rossdavidh
Well there are plenty of other cases where we are completely comfortable
calling them distinct species, even though we know they can interbreed. The
term "species" is certainly fuzzier than we were taught in school in the 70's,
but it's not as if biologists have stopped using the concept.

~~~
catalogia
Ring species are an interesting case to consider, in which A and B can
interbreed, and B and C can interbreed, but A and C cannot. Gene transfer
between A and C remains possible, but indirect.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_species)

