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February 15, 2005
No Neanderthal in Our Blood, But Did Our Ancestors Try?
John Noble Wilford has an enjoyable article in the New York Times on a very simple question. Did Neanderthals and Homo sapiens mate? There was an symposium on Neanderthals at New York University. Some of the big names in the field participated. Dr. James C. M. Ahern, a paleoanthropologist at the University of Wyoming raised the question at the conference
Various participants reviewed the morphological evidence, the growing genetic evidence and the issue of hybridization in other mammals. Questions, like, "why are there two species of Chimpanzee in the world to day?" were debated. In bottom line: its very unlikely that they successfully bred. However, I thing Ian Tattersall likely had the final word
Dr. Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History was not entirely joking when he suggested that few genes were exchanged because "no self-respecting Neanderthal female would fancy a Homo sapiens male.
Posted by Duane Smith at February 15, 2005 8:47 PM | Read more on Paleoanthropology |
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