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A trend that continues to this day tbh
How do we know it wasn’t the other way around?
a paper came out recently. it’s also possible that male humans and female neanderthals made non viable babies.
There is a few different potential reasons as well as sexual preference.
Genetic incompatibility - the interspecific cross could only occur one way.
Genetic bottlenecks in the neandertal lineage. A high inbred coefficient could have decreased the neandertal females overall fertility (high deleterious alleles load). This could also cause a rapid reduction in the percentage of neandertal DNA in a mixed population.
Maternal behavior - Neandertals females might not have cared for hybrid offspring appropriately. This could be for anything from milk production requirements to differences in physiological developmental rates.
I think the idea of there being health issues in certain types of mixed families is super interesting because that almost certainly would have been noticed and lead to certain cultural practices or taboos within both species’ societies.
If I had to guess the successful crosses were potentially much healthier than either parent line. Heterosis (hybrid vigor) would likely be pretty extreme in genetic lines that has been isolated by 300,000+ years of time. Of course the degree of fertility was likely lowered due to genetic distance. Once the initial cross was made however, back-crossing to either species by the hybrid would likely be much easier.
Many of those ancient stories about individuals with super strength and size etc could have likely been based upon these crosses.
The evidence is showing neadertals never truly died out. Their smaller population bred back into the modern humans who came later.
Keep in mind heterosis isn’t always the result of hybridization and even then the magnitude of isolation doesn’t always positively correlate. Outbreeding depression can also be the result, increasingly so when two groups are more genetically distant or when one group is already subject to heavy inbreeding depression, as the neanderthals were thought to be.
Out-breeding depression primarily results in a decrease of fertility and infant mortality. So although it is occasionally observed in surviving offspring, in general it is much lower probability.
Also the neandertal crossing was deleterious it would be much lower percentage in modern humans. It also would not have come from multiple crossing events.
Just to preface, I’m a scientist: micro- and molecular biology. I’m not saying to take what I say as gospel, just giving context that I might know things. Sometimes.
Outbreeding depression has more possible implications than fertility decrease and infant mortality increase, entirely dependent on the heritable traits responsible for the depression effects. While the probability of persistent outbreeding depression seen in subsequent generationa would be lower due to traits subject to higher selective pressure, like increases in early infant mortality, the overall probability of outbreeding depression itself isn’t influenced post facto by its results, just its persistence.
Given we don’t know the original extent of neanderthal/human interbreeding, what we’re seeing now COULD be the “much lower percentage” you mention and still could come from multiple events. In fact, if these crosses resulted in stronger depression effects, I’d argue a greater number of crossings would be one factor behind the persistence of some genes today.
Genetic incompatibility - the interspecific cross could only occur one way.
This could be human male-neanderthal female (HMNF) coupling didn’t result in fertile offspring right? Could it also be that HMNF (coupling) didn’t result in fertile female offspring, but did have fertile male offspring?
Usually these issues are caused by mitochondrial DNA not nuclear DNA. Mitochondrial DNA is only passed on from the female. So if there is an incompatibility, it’s usually completely lethal to any offspring.
So a HMNF coupling could not have been possible because of the neanderthal’s female mitochondrial DNA.
Two ways.
First, sex chromosomes. In mammals, sex is determined by the sex chromosomes - males have XY, females XX. If interbreeding was equal between the sexes of both species, this would be reflected in the frequency of neanderthal genes on each chromosome in the current human population, but it’s more heavily skewed toward the Y chromosome than we’d expect if equal pairing was true. This suggests a higher proportion of successful male neanderthal/female human offspring.
Second, mitochondrial DNA. While genomic DNA in a sexually-reproducing species is a mix between the parents, in most mammals the inherited mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) is purely maternal. This is because only the egg’s mitochondria typically survive, though on rare occasion paternal mitochondria are also passed on. There is no known existent neanderthal mtDNA in the human population. This suggests either female neanderthal/male human crosses didn’t happen much and/or didn’t often produce offspring capable of further reproduction.
Of course, there are many other explanations for all of these. These are just amongst the simplest possible options, and in population genetics, it’s not uncommon that the simplest answers are frequently correct.
I thought this was referencing modern dating at first 🙄
Neanderthals were more peaceful than Homo Sapiens.
We don’t actually know that. Homo Sapiens is on the whole a peaceful species, but we have a few assholes that like to kill and subjugate.
Just because our assholes outlived their assholes, doesn’t mean that they were any less assholes on average than we are/were
hunter gatherers vs agriculturers say otherways. Mass of graves and the murdering entire family lines and clans and villages go back as far as humankind goes back. Homo sapiens are no different than any other animal—opportunistic killers like cows and horses are.
Yep, the relative lack of heterogeneity in the Y-chromosome compared to mtDNA is somewhat testament to that too, but those mass grave sites are late stone age. Neanderthals predate those sites by a large margin, so it’d be hard to say that they didn’t necessarily follow the same brutal history against their own kin
Clan of the cave bear vibes
As a modern male, cannot confirm
Did they have bigger
dicksor something?self censoring? on the libre internet? heresy
self censoring is based, don’t listen to these fools suppressing your free speech on censoring yourself for your own personal reasons
You’re allowed to say dick on the internet
You are also allowed to say
dickif you feel like.
No idea how you pronounce that though.Coughing while saying it!
What’s with that
dicks?
Context?
Human genome contains significant contribution from Neanderthals. Because of the location of the neanderthal genes in our genome it can only have come from male Neanderthals.
I don’t get it either. Is the model labelled neanderthal known for acting like a neanderthal?
Unga bunga bang bang
my neanderthal ginger genes still work like this in the gay community
And that’s why we have romantic fantasy novels
So, all those cartoons depicting cavemen dragging a woman by her hair were on to something. Time to write some caveman on modern woman smut!
Check out Beforeigners - there is some prehistoric romance atuff there:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8332130/
(and the series are generally interesting)Removed by mod
Wtf
