
Our Neanderthal Complex - pmcpinto
http://nautil.us/issue/18/genius/our-neanderthal-complex
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carsongross
Given that europeans consist of up to 5% or more Neanderthal genetic stock,
it's increasingly untenable to look at the Neanderthal as some sort of
"other".

They is us.

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duaneb
Well then why bother discussing pre-homo sapien speciation at all?

EDIT: To put it another way, you wouldn't compare a modern european to a
neanderthal and call them part of the same people. The neanderthals still had
large differences with other populations.

~~~
carsongross
I'm not saying it isn't worth discussing pre-homo sapien speciation at all,
I'm saying that the vague idea that the Neanderthals are some "other thing"
from our genetic heritage (as compared with, say, Cro-Magnon) has become less
tenable as genetic analysis has advanced.

The story of Neanderthal is, for many of us, partly the story of us.
Genetically, some of us have the equivalent of a great-great grandparent that
was Neanderthal.

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DanBC
Here's a grauniad article with a few more details of the research that is
driving the changing attitudes.

[http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/23/neanderthals-...](http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/mar/23/neanderthals-
and-me-go-back-a-long-way-alice-roberts)

~~~
bobgrumman
I'm really confused now. I read the article but don't follow it. I've read
that we and chimps share over 90% of our genes. Therefore oughtn't we and
Neanderthals share more genes than that? Certainly more than 2.4%.

My guess is maybe it's 2.4% of the genes that human beings have and
chimpanzees do not? Can anybody help me out on this?

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squozzer
I believe in evolution but one question has always bothered me - when a social
animal is born with a mutation (even one that is unquestionably superior),
wouldn't the other members of e group kill or shun her?

This question may sound far-fetched unless you're non-white or a ginger.

~~~
todd8
No

Most mutations wouldn't be obvious. They might affect metabolism or some
enzymatic pathway. (Isn't it curious that Junior likes cow's milk?) These seem
unlikely to be discriminated against. Even mutations affecting visible
features might be gradual and require the accumulation of many mutations over
generations and generations to become pronounced. (Height, skull size,
dentition)

Some features might be due to a single mutation and could be pronounced and
obvious in new members of a group. Red hair might be one of these mutations,
and perhaps some red headed children were spurned or killed or discriminated
against by their group. But this wouldn't easily eliminate red hair. It is
caused by a recessive gene so carriers of a single gene won't be redheads
themselves. If two non-redheaded carriers of the gene have 4 children on
average three will carry the red hair gene but only one will have red hair
because they carry two of the genes. I find red hair attractive, and
apparently so did our ancestors: red hair was not eliminated from the gene
pool.

Curiously, humans have evolved to retain juvenile features. This neoteny, as
it is called, has resulted in smaller jaws, flatter faces, hairless bodies,
larger eyes, and other features. Selection for these traits may be due to our
instinctive desire to care for infants.

Likewise mutations in the other direction, smaller head to body ratio, etc.,
could very well have suffered from negative selection pressures as you have
raised in your question.

I think these speculations are interesting and the answers are not obvious.
Why, for example, has a trait such as mental illness, clearly having a
negative impact on survival, not been eliminated? Is it just so tricky to get
a brain assembled into a mind that there are inevitable difficulties? Or is it
caused by interactions with viruses during development that are evolving in
competition with us? What about nearsightedness? I wouldn't have been a very
good hunter of distant game. Why hasn't myopia been eliminated as a trait? Is
it because as I age I can still read without reading glasses? Were there
elderly nearsighted arrowhead makers, able to do close work despite age
related presbyopia, trading their skillfully made arrowheads for food?

One additional observation. Your question mentions non-whiteness, suggesting
that more pigmented skin is a mutation. It appears that it is just the
reverse. Human evolution started in Africa where pigmentation would have been
important because of the more intense sunlight. Lack of pigmentation would be
a disadvantageous mutation. So the more accurate question is why would anyone
even have light skin? The answer I've heard is that for humans groups that had
migrated out of Africa to latitudes that had weaker sunshine, lighter skin
allowed for better absorption of the weaker sunlight for the production of
vitamin D.

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pcrh
This is a model of how a Neanderthal man would look today:
[http://i.imgur.com/96DCsQt.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/96DCsQt.jpg)

From the German Neanderthal Museum:

[http://www.neanderthal.de/en/](http://www.neanderthal.de/en/)

~~~
carsongross
Here's a more realistic version:

[http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8528971.ece/alt...](http://www.independent.co.uk/incoming/article8528971.ece/alternates/w620/Andrea-
Pirlo.jpg)

~~~
pcrh
_Apparently_ Italians have more Neanderthal DNA than most...

[http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone...](http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0059781)

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bobgrumman
I came into this with very little background, so forgive an ignorant question
about something that must be very complex, but what does "Europeans consist of
up to 5% or more Neanderthal genetic stock?" 5% of Europeans are Neanderthals?

