Genetic research confirms that non-Africans are part Neanderthal

[Ichingcarpenter]

Some of the human X chromosome originates from Neanderthals and is found exclusively in people outside Africa, according to an international team of researchers led by Damian Labuda of the Department of Pediatrics at the University of Montreal and the CHU Sainte-Justine Research Center. The research was published in the July issue of Molecular Biology and Evolution.

"This confirms recent findings suggesting that the two populations interbred," says Dr. Labuda. His team places the timing of such intimate contacts and/or family ties early on, probably at the crossroads of the Middle East.

Neanderthals, whose ancestors left Africa about 400,000 to 800,000 years ago, evolved in what is now mainly France, Spain, Germany and Russia, and are thought to have lived until about 30,000 years ago. Meanwhile, early modern humans left Africa about 80,000 to 50,000 years ago. The question on everyone's mind has always been whether the physically stronger Neanderthals, who possessed the gene for language and may have played the flute, were a separate species or could have interbred with modern humans. The answer is yes, the two lived in close association.

"In addition, because our methods were totally independent of Neanderthal material, we can also conclude that previous results were not influenced by contaminating artifacts," adds Dr. Labuda.

Dr. Labuda and his team almost a decade ago had identified a piece of DNA (called a haplotype) in the human X chromosome that seemed different and whose origins they questioned. When the Neanderthal genome was sequenced in 2010, they quickly compared 6000 chromosomes from all parts of the world to the Neanderthal haplotype. The Neanderthal sequence was present in peoples across all continents, except for sub-Saharan Africa, and including Australia.

"There is little doubt that this haplotype is present because of mating with our ancestors and Neanderthals. This is a very nice result, and further analysis may help determine more details," says Dr. Nick Patterson, of the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard University, a major researcher in human ancestry who was not involved in this study.


http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2011-07/uom-grc071411.php

[dmallind]

1. interesting. No expert here but wasn't Neanderthal ancestry nixed a while back though? nt

[Ichingcarpenter]

2. Neanderthal genes 'survive in us' BBC

Many people alive today possess some Neanderthal ancestry, according to a landmark scientific study.


The finding has surprised many experts, as previous genetic evidence suggested the Neanderthals made little or no contribution to our inheritance.
The result comes from analysis of the Neanderthal genome - the "instruction manual" describing how these ancient humans were put together.
Between 1% and 4% of the Eurasian human genome seems to come from Neanderthals.
But the study confirms living humans overwhelmingly trace their ancestry to a small population of Africans who later spread out across the world.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/8660940.stm

[d_r]

3. I think I read that red hair comes from neanderthal dna

[dmallind]

8. I think I was thinking of this kind of article.

http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Abstracts/Goodwin_00.html

Obviously I am not qualified to make the call here, and the OP link is far more recent. Entirely subjectively I am more likely to assume that multiple homind species developed and interbred. The single-species genus in direct lineal descent from 4+ million years ago seems a bit like special pleading to me, but again my bias is worth precisely bugger all. It IS nice to see new data that suggest interbreeding though.

[d_r]

10. interesting

it isn't my field at all, but I think it is interesting stuff.

[eShirl]

4. huge k&r!!!!!

[meow mix]

5. which part?

just curious.

[patrice]

6. So,is that what you'll hear commonly referred to as "the missing link", or would that be

"a missing link".

It'd be fun to map language development to this in search of "the Mother Tongue".

[starroute]

7. A recent story suggested we picked up disease resistance from the Neanderthals

It's a New Scientist story from a month ago -- which means that it may soon get chopped down to where you can only read the first few paragraphs unless you're a subscriber. But it's still all there now.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21028174.000-breeding-with-neanderthals-helped-humans-go-global.html

WHEN the first modern humans left Africa they were ill-equipped to cope with unfamiliar diseases. But by interbreeding with the local hominins, it seems they picked up genes that protected them and helped them eventually spread across the planet. . . .

But what wasn't known is whether the interbreeding made any difference to their evolution. To find out Peter Parham of Stanford University in California took a closer look at the genes they picked up along the way.

He focused on human leukocyte antigens (HLAs), a family of about 200 genes that is essential to our immune system. It also contains some of the most variable human genes: hundreds of versions - or alleles - exist of each gene in the population, allowing our bodies to react to a huge number of disease-causing agents and adapt to new ones. . . .

When Parham compared the HLA genes of people from different regions of the world with the Neanderthal and Denisovan HLAs, he found evidence that non-African humans picked up new alleles from the hominins they interbred with.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

9. Auel was a visionary

and she writes damn good books.

[Odin2005]

12. I read "Clan of The Cave Bear" in high school. Great book.

[Odin2005]

11. Why is anyone suprised? Humans will hump anything that moves.

[patrice]

14. Ever seen Quest for Fire . . . ?

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082484/

[Kennah]

17. Explains why there is alligator, cat, and snake DNA in my family

[patrice]

13. It occurs to me that Chomsky's Transformational Grammar tools might be able

to do the kinds of language development mapping I referred to earlier. This isn't my field either, but the possibilities are kind of provocative given the stuff that is going on in cognitive science and AI neural mapping.

[hty7645]

15. wow, very interesting.

[laconicsax]

16. Rackets take note: Africans are 'pure-blooded' H. Sapiens. n/t

[Orsino]

18. Embrace your Neanderthal heritage!

'Cause it sure as hell embraced you.

[Warpy]

19. I find it extremely comforting

that we interbred them out of existence instead of merely slaughtering them.

The forensic reconstructions of Neanderthal skulls make them look very human, not at all like the grotesqueries of the 1950s. It's preposterous to think there was no sexual contact with them.

Previous research had turned up 4% of the human genome as likely being Neanderthal. We know they were fair skinned with red hair.

Likely there were other subgroups of hominids in other regions and interbreeding occurred with them, too.

Face it, we're mutts.