My cousin did a DNA test the other month and was embarresed about having a much highter amount of Neandertal DNA than the average european, but I told them about all the cool things I learned about them on this channel, like they were intelligent, and looked after the sick and it made my cousin feel a lot better about it.
Ack. A new form of racism emerges. "Your neanderthal DNA is *how* high? Wow. How unevolved of you." I'd be thrilled to learn I had a higher percentage. I grew up reading the Jean Auel books in the 80's and even convinced my friends to play Clan of the Cave Bear with me. Many of the ideas of the books haven't held up to modern research but she was one of the first to popularize the humanistic depiction of Neanderthals.
I don’t think people really realise how closely related we are to each other. The fact that we could not only mate and produce viable offspring with them, but that those kids could go on and continue the breeding speaks volumes about how closely we were related !
Be careful. The ability to produce viable offspring between two closely related species is not an on/off switch. It is gradual. Even with mules, ligers or tigons that usually are thought to be infertile you get animals that can reproduce. Very rarely but those cases exist. As long as we don't know how reproduction rates were between Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis I don't think we can make any judgment just from the fact that they had viable offspring.
@@yvonneplant9434 You can't avoid thinking that if Hollywood wanted to do a remake of Quest for Fire, John Fetterman could go to the casting call. The guy has a massive head with brow ridges and a neck that just blends into his shoulders.
If you're looking at the latest in scientific research and news then you're going to do so bad on your exam :p Your book was probably written 10-20 years ago with only minor updates for a new publish date.
I wish there were more visuals (movies /animation) on early human like species. Its fascinating to imagine people roaming, surviving and encountering “others”
The problem is the person doing this video has no idea about the subject! NEANDERTHALS DID GET THEIR Ys FROM HUMANS THEY GOT ALL THEIR DNA FROM HUMANS! Humans never passed it on to them they always had it from they where humans!
the branches themselves are really a bundle of threads, formed of individuals and their offspring, splitting and remerging into groups within groups as humans spread around. if we could see that whole web it would be absurdly and beautifully complex
everything else Ive seen though is that for the amount of neanderthal dna we have, there was very little actual intermixing. some did occur, but it seems like it affected them much more than it affected us. the vast majority of neanderthals remained a seperate species that went extinct (most likely by being outhunted or directly hunted), they did not simply merge into the homo sapiens species.
@@nao_chan_ h. sapiens had a much larger population, lived in larger groups and reproduced quicker, so the % of remaining Neanderthal DNA matches at least the order of magnitude of population size difference
@@nao_chan_ - Not so little: 2.4% (typical, it may be higher in some populations, even slightlyy above 3%) means the equivalent to a great-great-great-grandparent. It was selected against in some aspects (reproductive ones especially) but for in some others, notably a variant for keratin, which is probably behind straight hair, as the ancestral type in H. sapiens is clearly the African and other tropical "woolly hair" or thinly curled hair. That means that, if you have straight hair (and surely also wavy and even widely curly hair like mine), you owe that to that "great-great-great-grandpa" (or "grandma") Neanderthal. There's even one X-chromosome haplotype, the B006, which is probably of Neanderthal legacy.
I wonder if way back, some very small bands of early humans, exploring Eurasia, fell on hard times in the unfamiliar territory, and got “adopted” into the local groups of Neanderthals for survival, eventually taking brides and husbands, and changing the Neanderthal genome forever. 🤔
It's certainly possible. There are many stories of lost or struggling colonists in the Americas or Australia getting adopted into local tribes/clans and eventually becoming part of the society. The indigenous Ainu people of northern Japan are similar, having a DNA mix-up consisting of genes from Eastern Asians, Pacific Islanders, and even from later Dutch colonists.
@@Zaxares but neanderthals were much harsher on each other than we are, their family groups weren't friendly to each other, killing and eating together when meat was scarce, so it must be something truly unique to have groups collade and not end up in massacre, I'd say a regular female stealing would make some sense.
@@melodi996 Not necessarily. Eons recently did a video about this showing that there was evidence Neanderthals did actually have fairly complex social lives and structures and they did care for sick or handicapped individuals. I'm not sure if there's solid proof showing that they were far less friendly to rival families or clans (although it's certainly likely. Homo Sapiens certainly have a long and infamous history of doing some very nasty things to rivals), but my guess is that Neanderthals were very similar to us in terms of temperament. Some tribes were friendly and welcoming, others were harsh and cruel. It would be unfair to label all of them as being barbaric or savage any more than it would be to label all modern humans as being greedy and warmongering. @GPlumbob It is, yes. I don't know if we've yet found conclusive proof of it, but that is the prevailing theory.
@@melodi996 That notion of brutal neanderthals comes from the way higher testosterone. Like, its not totally off the roof, but it was enough to make basically any neanderthal bulkier than any "normal" homo sapiens, and jeah, well, we do have our conceptions of the testosterone riddled part of "man"kind :P If you ever grew up or were part of a highly toxic, male centric group, you know its not impossible to be "adopted", its "just" rough af. But jeah, just some more stuff added to what @Zaxares said :D
It’s wild how modern humans are kind of a genetic mosaic of all of our ancient ancestors… like we didn’t so much as “beat out” other populations of humans as absorb them, so to speak.
Honestly, if you put any evolutionary transition under the microscope as much as we've done to our own recent evolutionary history, you'll probably see similar patterns as the boundaries between populations blur over time. It's just that we're paying a lot of attention to our own history, but also all this happened so recently that it's still very well preserved in the fossil record. At the end of the day, though, it's probably just what it looks like when two species split. There's some interbreeding during the split before the two populations fully diverge. It's to be expected.
Just a point on terminology; Neanderthals, Denisovans, and a lot of other species are 'human', so it's not that 'human' chromosomes and DNA were shared with Neanderthals, it's that *H. sapiens* chromosomes and DNA was shared with other human species, in this case that other human species being Neanderthals.
They are both "homonids". Neanderthals may have had "Human - as in Homo sapien" characteristics, but are not themselves Humans; they are Homo neanderthalensis.
@@Ekaustonian Within anthropology, it's generally considered that everything from *Homo erectus* to us is "human". Indeed, *H. erectus* is commonly referred to as, "The first human." What defines a 'human' is a set of physical and behavioral traits, not what specific species it is. It used to be though that *H. sapiens* were the only species to have these traits, so we defined 'human' by them, but we now know that Neanderthals, *H. erectus*, and others exhibit these traits. This led to two options, one was to redefine what being 'human' meant, but that would go against the long history of using these traits and measures, so the second was adopted, including all of the *Homo* genus species that demonstrate these traits under the 'human' umbrella.
@@Ekaustonian Based on how Homo was originally set up, "hominin" should be used synonymously with "human". Edit: replaced hominid with hominin as the former is used for family Hominidae not genus Homo!
@@Ekaustonian Neanderthals are considered to be human. Some consider the early **Homo** species like **H. habils** to be the first humans. Most consider **H. erectus** to be human.
Agreed 💯 they are interpreting this in a way to support their theory . This actually supports the fact that we are all humans with some separations and misunderstood genetic patterns .
That cover picture is too funny. 'It was a forbidden love, a love between two species. In the forest their eyes met and a fire blazed. They both knew it was wrong but nothing could keep them apart. 'No. Stop. I have to go back to the cave and gnaw on hides.' 'I jus' can't quit you, cave-cave-girl.' Their doomed romance would change the course of evolution.'
We get the Neanderthal DNA from the men, not the woman. So it is much more likely that the neandertal men took or ''won'' over the Homosapien woman. As we know, Neandertals were much more adapted to the European climate and were much bigger in body, stronger, and probably smarter. The oldest tools, instruments, paintings, and much more were made by Neandertals. So I would be more like, 'come into my cave, djungel girl'
Interaction between closely related human species is so interesting. There is even a ghost lineage that started the hypothesis that an archaic human lineage interbreed with the ancestors of west africans. I am from Somalia, a country in the horn of africa so i often wonder if this is the case for myself.
My wife is from a N African country. Her whole family thinks they are Arab. She took a DNA test and is 98% N African..... People kill each other over racial violence over there but everyone looks the same.... Makes me wonder how many people are actually Arab and N African.
@@kevinsuggs1 my wife is Libyan and her father's DNA is similar to your wife's - and he still lives in Libya and doesn't tell anyone about those results because he is very proud of his Arab heritage and really bigoted.
My understanding is that the most non-Sapiens descended population can be found in some villages in the west and that is highly local. But then again there could be data missing in some countries. Morocco is like 6% ghost lineage and some villages are more like 20% IIRC.
What we don’t know about the history of humans could fill several hundred large books. So much is lost and unknown, undiscovered, and/or forgotten. To say we know the history of humans is akin to saying, “we know all there is to know about what conditions are beyond the edge of the universe”.
Sounds like we both came from the same ancient species and each went their own way for thousands of years only to meet up later after each had started to evolve differently
Yeah, like, every generation had it's Mozes, treading in to the Red Sea and stretch out his hand to split the waters - though not mentioning the Egyptians, as the pyramids were still another 100k yrs away. Seriously, much depended on how friendly the environment close by and on the Arab land bridge was to migrating early humans. Without suitable prey or food plants, or vegetation unsuitable for hunting & collecting, they wouldn't go. Plus circumstances for home land source populations had to be pretty favourable so that a certain level of overpopulation could grow to fuel a migration flow.
It's understandable why palaeoanthropologists compare pre-Holocene human existence to Star Trek instead of something more familiar like Middle-Earth. Humans kept boinking the unfamiliar people right off the bat. LOL
If that's true, then why don't we see all these William Shatner offspring throughout the universe? Or do we need to wait a few more millennia until our timeline catches up to his?
Im glad you showed the homo sapiens with dark skin. So often we see fair skin in illustrations showing ancient homo sapiens, when If I remember correctly it only became a dominant trait in Eurasia between 12 and 8 thousands years BC.
You said it before I did Lol. According to physical remains, according to genetic DNA. The first modern human beings aka Homo Sapiens came from Africa and they would have had dark skin. So Yes! I would appreciate it more if they were represented more in that way. Absolutely.
@@andreanarine8179 it does sound strange, doesn't it? If the two populations had the same Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA, why do we consider them separate species in the first place?
If I recall correctly, I seem to remember that there are some parts of the world that can have as much as 5% of their genome being made of Neanderthal or denisovan. My question is is how much of the Neanderthal or denisovan genome exists within the human genome? Like for example if you took a gene sample of every single human on the planet and picked out the Neanderthal and or denisovan bits could you in theory reconstruct an entire genome?
There's no point Jurassic Park-ing it up like that when we already have some complete genomes from fossils (since hominids lived so much more recently than dinosaurs). Look up "the Neanderthal Genome Project."
My question is with all the Neanderthal DNA we can get, Both from fossils and preserved in modern human DNA, Could we make a whole Neanderthal? Even if we don't have a complete genome, Surely we could substitute missing parts with Homo Sapiens DNA, Considering we're similar enough to interbreed with them, Or atleast were some thousands of years ago.
It's all just academic constructs anyway, all the labels we apply to hominids are just sloppy ways to try to label people that are all closely related and all of it is still rooted in really nasty eugenic theories of the 19th century.
We have just developed the tools necessary to research ancient gene flows. We already know that repeated waves of migration seems to be our thing, leading to complicated genetic mosaics instead of orderly clearly delineated gene pools. Give us a couple of decades to figure out the details.
@@eljanrimsa5843 Yeah, the problem is that genetic markers can get us just so far. Most hominid fossils have no reliable DNA traces of the living creature, and using genetic regression can only give us clues about our direct ancestors and not about any parallel branches that might have existed out there.
Just asking, but could it be that Denisovans were the original Neanderthals and what we have been calling Neanderthals all this time have been an ongoing hybrid species of Denisovans and Homo Sapiens?
I doubt it, because if that were the case it would be pretty obvious from DNA. I assume the reason they say "denisovan-LIKE Y-chromosome" is because it is not the denisovan Y chromosomes, but instead a version that is as similar and different to the denisovan chromosome as you would expect.
My understanding is that we have enough DNA for fairly solid estimates of the time frame for the splits between Homo sapiens/Neanderthals/Denisovans, and H. sapiens diverges hundreds of thousands of years before the other two diverged from each other. I don't think there's any evidence for the kind of ongoing, consistent gene transfer that would be needed to classify Neanderthals as a hybrid species rather than their own distinct group. They would have been interbreeding amongst themselves most of the time, with only very occasional contributions from related human species. With that said, recently some evidence has been found of yet another human group that's genetically partway between Neanderthals and Denisovans. We have no identified fossils, but we have some genetic evidence in certain human populations. The current (very tentative) theory is that this group lived in and around the Indian subcontinent, and H. sapiens picked up some DNA from them during their migrations around the coast of the Indian Ocean. UA-camr Stefan Milo just did a video on this called "The crossroads of human evolution" if you're interested.
I always wonder how much of this is sampling bias, that we just got a local group that happen to have more human Y chromosomes. It could also be that as the Neanderthal died out the surviving remnants were surrounded by more H Sapiens and therefore had more contact.
They don't explain how many of the Neanderthal remains we've recovered have been sequenced, but at 5:57 he says that this doesn't appear to be limited to just a few lineages in a few places. So we must have sequenced samples from distant-enough locations to make sampling bias unlikely.
Most samples of sequensed genome for Neanthertals are from indiviulals that would not have been living at the same time. The samples are also from locations as fare apart as what is today Spain and Russia. This means that when we find something that is consistant in all the samples it means it was widely distributed over time in the populations.
All this hybridization between humans and Neanderthals back then reminds me of hybridization between wolves and coyotes today: closely related species, whose hybrid offspring are nevertheless fertile, and go back to leave gene introgression in their parent populations. You see the same thing with bison and cattle, too. Might even be adaptive. So interesting!
@Cancer McAids We don't know how easy sapiens and neanderthals reproduced. We just know that it was possible, but many offspring might have been infertile, or had other health issues.
@@minutemansam1214 it’s possible that Neanderthals and H Sapiens would’ve been right on the borderline between whether they were different species or not. Maybe some Neanderthals had just enough genetic similarity to create fertile offspring with Sapiens, but others were too genetically different to do so.
@@cancermcaids7688 depends on the species concept that you're using... the common one we learn at school is this, but there is also the the genetic species concept which can still potentially interbreed, and a morphological species concept, which again can potentially interbreed
I was taught in biological anthropology class that both Homo sapiens sapiens and the Neanderthals (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) are subspecies of archaic Homo sapiens, so perhaps the amount of interbreeding that happened isn’t as much as people think.
We're barely able to overcome perceived 'racial' differences well enough to not kill each other, but these guys could look at a hottie from another entire species, put on a Marvin Gaye CD, and say "Baby, let's get it on." 🥰
Mate, if you’ve lived all your life In a greater tribal population of 150 people...Any new incomer is gonna look like gold dust to you no matter their not before seen darker skin colour, especially with their trendy short skirts and narrow waists they brought from warmer climes. Not to mention their exotic language sounds!
@@winterroadspokenword4681 Of course! Just as we Europeans were impressed by the first Arab conquerors when they put the first boot on European soil more than 1300 years ago. And we've been dealing with them ever since. It took us 700 years to reconquer Spain. It may be that simple biology plays a role, but whether the culture of the locals also allows it is a completely different question. With a lead of 200,000 years, it is very likely that the Neanderthals probably developed music and other cultural things such as jewelry and the like earlier than we did. And that's why a much more developed social order could prevent something like that. And something else is added. Children of mixed breeds would be very easy to spot and could very quickly be eliminated from the reproductive process.
@@kudjoeadkins-battle2502 No its not. We literally have historic sources as old as detailed writing that are racist. Clearly you are a poorly educated teacher. Its sad that people like you are teaching young people that racism is "600 years old" Clearly you never read Herodotus.
Astounding information... The plot thickens with each new discovery! The Nobel prize for medicine this year -- which went to the great Svänte Pääbo -- was awarded none to soon!!
Loved this episode! I'm often wondering about the interactions between human populations before the Neanderthal/ Denisovan extinction. How did Neanderthal groups differ from Homo sapiens? How different were their languages/ dialects? How did two or more groups overcome the barriers of culture/language that had been established? So many things yet to discover :)
The earliest fossil evidence for homo sapiens in Africa that I know of dated to 315,000 years ago. Those remains were found in what is now, Morocco. This find would seem to indicate that homo sapiens go back further than 300,000 years. Is this a correct assumption?
Random question spurred by some of the graphics used in the video - is there any evidence to suggest that neanderthals, or any other hominids beside anatomically modern humans, wore clothes? I read that humans first started consistently wearing clothes about 40,000-170,000 years ago, which we (think we) know because that's roughly when headlice and pubic lice diverged into two species.* Given that Neanderthals existed for much or most of that time, I would love to know whether they adopted clothing before us, at the same time as us, or after us - perhaps even because of us. *Some people think that humans wearing most or all of the time might coincide with a major global cooling caused by the eruption of a supervolcano ~70,000 years ago, but obviously a lot more evidence is needed to establish that claim. If true, then it would certainly make it a lot more likely that other hominids, like denisovans and neanderthals, would've had to adapt similar practices.
Ive heard people say that even with their adaptations they would not have survived the cold without clothing, also I belive they have also found secondary evidence for clothing like leather scrapers but i'm really reaching far back into my memory and could be misremembering sorry this probably didnt help you at all lol
The denisova cave contained the oldest known sewing needle, and its associated with the Denisovan population. It was dated to 50 kya, so that's recent enough that they could've picked up the skill from ancient human populations, but if I recall, there was no noticeable homo sapiens DNA found in the remains there. That's obviously not conclusive, but it does seem more likely that there would be cultural flow between the populations much more readily if the groups were inter-marrying than the idea that ancient humans would take the time to teach clothing-making to our other ancient relatives but take no action towards coupling with them.
No evidence, really... it all decays... I wonder if humans and clothes are an instinct for decorating the body as a primary drive. Nest building is an ape instinct (beds/nests), so could clothes be a decoration instinct? Clothes can be tools or decorations. Weather changes, and humans in hot environments (tropical or dry) often might wear clothes, but all humans have some for of body decoration. (Fun hypothesis I've played with but not tested)
@@jonni2317 Well there is some indirect evidence from study of parasitic insects/ eg Fleas, Lice( which live in clothes) headlice and pubic lice. Its a different angle, a bit gross though. According to a study in Nature, head lice diverged from body lice 170,000 years ago. Thus you can infer clothing began to be worn at that time, possibly.
Denisovans : 5 very small bone fragments found in a Siberian cave have morphed to a claimed broadly ranged human cousin. This illustrates just how hugely assumptive the art of anthropology is.
And what happened to Homo heidelbergensis? Like neanderthals they were adapted to the cold climate in Eurasia. And possibly they lived in Africa too. So the oddities found in neanderthals could be explained by their predecessors.
I was surprised to find this PBS segment unsatisfactory, for several reasons. One has been mentioned, that we were all the same species, which is why we could interbreed. It isn't that hard to say "modern human" in recognition of that. Also, our Neanderthal cousins were around for WAY LONGER than we modern humans thus far. They must have had some significant evolutionary advantages to survive ice ages and climate change. To assume that their smaller populations (as far as we know so far) resulted in their disappearance is one possibility. Adverse geological or climatological changes or a killer virus or bacterium are possibilities that were not considered. This just felt neither very deeply researched nor assembled. Disappointing.
I always wondered if the extinction of the neanderthals is not really just a matter of admixture and genetic loss due to smaller and more fragmented populations. When populations are separated, they start to diverge. Wenn they are getting into contact again (connected by the more mobile and numerous h. sapiens groups), the accumulated genetic specifities are likely to be sorted out again.
How to be sure that the whole Y-chromosome pool was replaced in Neanderthals? According to the paper (at least the abstract, I don't have access to the whole paper) only 3 Neanderthal samples were studied. Maybe, this replacement cannot be considered to be significant at the species level. In fact, considering that only 2 Denisovan samples were sequenced, I am not even convinced that such a replacement did not happen in Denivovans as well.
One thing I wonder is, did those ancient neanderthals, denisovans and sapiens realize that they were different kind of human? Like, was their behavioral and outer appearance different enough for them to assume that they were not the same?
My daughter and I have Neanderthal DNA. I was born in Germany, from a german mother and a polish father. My daugther was born in South Africa, her father is dutch/french.
English gives a bad sentiment to " neanderthals met humans " In broad number of languages neanderthals met sapiens, but they were both humans already. With label " human " being applied to all species in homo genus. It is more in line with other naming schematics we use in biology and highlight how closely related we were. Way closer than some " breeds" of animals we currently study. Humans met humans, even before there was only one human species
I did a DNA analysis a few years ago, and one of the sites I uploaded my data to showed that not only did I have an extraordinarily large percentage of Neanderthal DNA, but also Denisovan DNA. This piqued my interest in this whole study of ancient humanity. Otherwise, I am 100 percent Northern Hunter/Gatherer. My blood matches up with most archaeological digs in Europe, and for some reason, one of the archaeological sites in Argentina has DNA that matches up with mine. I guess my people tended to get around!
I wouldn't trust the commercial for-fun (because that's what they really are) sites as authoritative. If you find something interesting there and you really want to know you should get a real lab to do a test, which of course will be very expensive - because it *is* expensive to do the job right.
I wouldn't believe commercial tests lol. If you went back 30 generations (1000 years) you would have 1 billion ancestors. And double that each generation.
Denisovans mostly show up in East Asian descended groups. There was an additional cross in southeast Asia that many Pacific groups are descended from. These are also the ancestors of many native American groups. This is why there is a theory that South American natives came from Pacific ocean crossings, rather than the Bering strait.
So, in other words, what some people thought was a "separate species," Neanderthal, was really already a mixed breed of modern human and archaic human ; and Denisovans are just archaic humans who interbred less with modern humans, but still also interbred with us. But, since all non-Africans have Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry, they aren't just species that we co-existed with. They are part of our genetic heritage. They are OUR ANCESTORS too. And so what is a species, if you can interbreed with them and have physiologically fully functional children with them?
Biologists ask this question since they understood that the old definition works only for horses and donkeys. Afaik, Ernst Mayr has given the best answer so far to this question.
Kinda wondering if the other species died out or if they all just kinda became indistinguishable and those of us with more Neanderthal or Denisovan DNA are what is left, not just Sapiens gene pool "contamination" (I do not mean that in a negative way). Probably reasons that is wrong but I wish I knew them if so.
Other human specie died out maybe because of breeding with us, maybe our gene is much stronger. If you notice when they examine our DNA there is stil traces of other human species in our gene today.
I always believed that the reason why so few hybrids were found (and that we eventually replaced the Neanderthals) was a mule kind of a situation, that female Neanderthal x homo sapiens male gave offspring that was more or less predisposed to live than male Neanderthal x sapiens female. But with BOTH mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome DNA coming from modern humans, that little theory of mine goes out of the window....
Isn’t the definition of species that they don’t/can’t interbreed? If Sapiens and Neanderthals interbreed, why are they classified as different species?
Also, lol, humans do not rank among the great apes as the content provider mistakenly asserts. (It's too bad he botched his lovely chart.) If humans were apes, apes would be humans, which simply is not the case. Apes and humans cannot interbreed. So while there ARE four great apes, as he stated, they are the chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas of Africa as well as the orangutan of Sundaland (now modern Sumatra and Borneo as touches their habitat). There are those who argue that bonobos are just "little chimpanzees," as though they're not a separate species. The two, however, cannot interbreed, so looks can be deceiving. They are distinct species. Four great apes. We ain't one of em. :)
@@thomasraywood679 I have problems with some of the things you've said here. It is undeniably true that humans are great apes. Throughout your comment, you have shown a great lack of understanding when it comes to how phylogeny and taxonomy work. This is most clearly demonstrated by your quote, "If humans were apes, apes would be humans..." This is directly analogous to saying, "If lions are cats, cats would be lions," or "If tuna were fish, fish would be tuna." You are confusing groups with species, which are definitionally different terms. Also, the four different great ape species you've listed can't interbreed with each other either (you even acknowledge this in your comment), so does that make them not great apes either? This is all just so confusing. I have two questions I'd like you to answer; what are humans if we aren't great apes, and what specifically makes the four species you listed members of the great apes and not humans?
@@evanpimley5933 Your compulsion, well, no, your feeling compelled, no, your decision to make the point you made is an understandable one. I too am of the sort who routinely pulls people up, when they use language which seems either off or not particulalry useful. But the language you cite, in this case, while understandably off putting, is merely a reflection of the considerable thought I've put into the matter, not only as regards how unfortunately muddled the classification system is but, as importantly, why it is that we should not think of our 'grand ancestor' as an ape. Given, however, what it is that you're basing your assertions on, and given naturally the impossibility that you could think my, yes, private assessment of things might have the power to temper or sway your views, by all means you are not out of order to have said what you said. I rather enjoyed it. It's just that this in not what I see as the venue for launching into an extensive rundown of my broader thoughts on the matter. I apologize primarily for that, but also for having said more than I should have. If I may though, you might enjoy the wonderful conversation I've had with Jason Born in this thread, if you've the time and inclination to run that down.
They weren't Humans. They are both "homonids". Neanderthals may have had "Human - as in Homo sapien" characteristics, but are not themselves Humans; they are Homo neanderthalensis.
@@Ekaustonian I believe the discussion is more about if we should call Neanderthals humans because we wouldn't see them as different from humans if we saw a Neanderthal in real life.
My Hypothesis is that we interbred with Neanderthals, but there were so many more of us then them so that we ultimately greatly absorbed them into ancient Homo Sapiens.
Prehistory. Most of what you want to know is the Mousterian culture, which is basically the same for a very long time. It's all stone tools, local variants but very similar. However there're some more interesting details. For example in Italy it has been documented that they removed the nicest feathers from some birds (eagles and crows I believe) surely to use as decoration. Odd that we don't see many depictions of Neanderthals wearing feathers because they did. Also they seem to have used magnesium based body paint (grey color). Most intriguing is when they were influenced by Sapiens-made Upper Paleolithic tech and some of them shifted to it but in their own unique style: the Chatelperronian.
So, human boinking with Neanderthals started a lloonngg time ago, at least a quarter million years ago. Next question: Why was the population of Neanderthals so small? One possibility: The home cave housed only close family relations, so there was a lot of incestuous boinking leading to a lot of still-births which would not show up in the fossil record. Yeah, I know, I have boinking on my mind. But it IS feasible. If it turns out that the home range of the local home cave rarely intersected with that of the neighbors, then the probability of healthy pregnancies may have been equally rare. That would stall population growth.
Super interesting content. It’s a mind stretch to think about those very long spans of time, and the small changes that brought about significant changes in the human population.
A little hard to follow, but wow, digging up the past can blow your mind. It would be intriguing to live outside of time, and to overcome what may be it's merely superficial sequence.
I realize that is a deficiency in language and not a Sapiens bias, but a comparison between "Humans" and "Neanderthals" seems silly to me. Neanderthals share a large portion of our DNA, had large brains, complex culture and many other "Human" characteristics. As Sapiens and Neanderthalis were able to interbreed in the wild and produce viable, fertile offspring, by some scientific definitions we ARE the same species. I personally believe ever since Erectus, we are all different subspecies of "Humans". Human isn't an accurate scientific term, and in a video like this one especially I think it would be better to always use the concretely defined species names of Sapiens and Neanderthal, and avoid an inaccurate word like human.
It can be used in two senses: (1) all Homo sp. and the narrow one of (2) modern humans. I also noticed that but I understood he was using in the second narrower sense. As you say there's no strict definition of what is "human", especially when looking at archaics.
I've always wondered... Could the mythological giants from all around the world have their origin within these ancient encounters? Specially since the relationships were rather dynamic and beyond a mere confrontation, such as certain Norse or even Native American Demi-gods like Red Horn and Thor being half-giants! Could be fascinating to see another team-up with Storied!
I had two commercial DNA tests and then ran the data through several analyzers. Learned a lot. One odd bit was that I have "giantism" genes(?) I am mostly Norwegian. My maternal uncle was 6'4" as was my father, and my son's father was 6'1", but my son and I are of average height. 🤷♀️
The word "giant" is a weird mistranslation from Germanic mythology. The word they used meant "devourer" or to consume. A giant was not necessarily large, they were spirits and so "shapeshifters".
So three different humanoid species yet they are breeding and getting viable offspring. So how are they a different species then? And perhaps the Neanderthal and Human branches should be more blurred. We’re there situations when we couldn’t get viable offspring?
@@Bialy_1 - That's easy to prove because haploid lineages (Y-DNA and mtDNA) do not recombine, so they produce neatly hierarchical trees. However, if you look carefully at what they're saying, they don't say it was H. sapiens but older people related to H. sapiens. Our species did not coalesce before c. 200,000 BP (Omo 1 is the oldest known modern human). Even if we accept that Lupumbian could be the oldest H. sapiens culture, it's not older than 230,000 BP.
Definitely the Neanderthal heritage related to reproduction, incl. the X chromosome, was selected against after the admixture. However other genes (notably keratin, surely leading to straight hair) were selected for instead.
@@Bialy_1 you're meaning came from Sapiens right? I don't know this for sure, but I know we have sequenced Sapien DNA from many different periods of time. If there had been a drastic change where the Sapien y chromosome suddenly got a lot closer to the Denisovan y chromosome (which we have sequenced) and thus the Neanderthal Y, they would have hopefully mentioned it in this video.
Simply put, if animals are in the same genus and closely enough related, they may be able to reproduce despite being seperate species. Examples would include ligers, pizzlies-which are polar bear/grizzly hybrids that actually do occur in nature, and coyote-dog hybrids to name a few
Mass Comparisons with sapiens human male DNA of the same time period and modern humans pretty much excludes that possibility. We know they didn't have the same DNA otherwise they would be clones of each other. They recently also found an intact neanderthal Y chromosome in Spain, so we know now they are different, we just don't have enough individual DNA sequences to construct a whole genotype because that requires thousands of intact genomes to be statistically relevant.
I was watching a different science channel which stated that they now believe that there were actually two species of neanderthals which existed in different time periods. The earlier one related to the denisovans died out while a later group evolved out of a lineage more related to us modern humans. This would lead to the findings mentioned in this video.
From 23and me they call me a Neanderthal Homo Sapien high breed from the Levant or Levantine, I have 78% more Neanderthal than people their database, I am also a rare H16 haplogroup I am a female, your information is very interesting
It's interesting how we homo sapiens took over the world instead of our cousins neanderthals and denisovans very sad our cousins never took off the world with us it would have been interesting to see if they would stand their regions and environments or would they migrate with us and maybe evolve into new species that would be pretty cool and maybe make their own States and cultures this is basically a giant what if question but it's very interesting and fascinating to think about
A lot of people alive today have Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestors. They might not be a separate and unique species in 2022 but millions of their children are still here.
@@perceivedvelocity9914 yeah honestly I feel like the guy saying that doesn’t fully grasp how it all works. If we all had societies we would absolutely absorb into one race regardless.
Its not exactly known if sapiens took over the world, or if the neanderthals bred themselves out. In our written history there has been several conquering peoples who interbred with the conquered and bred themselves out. Nature seems to have a way of balancing out the aggressive tendencies through the mother's lineage. At least for humans.
Bjorn Kurten, a famous anthropologist, wrote two novels about Neanderthals meeting modern humans. Spoilers. In his novels Neanderthals disappeared, in part, because they found modern humans so attractive. He also had the hybrids have (1) hybrid vigour; but (2) the hybrids were sterile, like mules. He wrote these novels long before DNA analysis.
@Cancer McAids In his novels Neanderthals were strongly attracted to make babies with modern humans because, compared to their big brow ridges, modern humans had neotenous faces. That is, compared to them, we retained adorable child-like faces, into adulthood. In addition he has modern human vocal tracts able to make more different kinds of sounds, so modern human speech "sounded like bird songs", where Neandertal speech was more guttural, fewer vowels. Scientific American's book review section had a long serious comparison of Kurten's books, with those in the then very popular "Clan of the Cave Bear" series. It noted that, while Jean Aeul (sp?) the author of that very lucrative series, had included accurate research on what was then known about flint-knapping and other Neandertal technology, she got the consciousness of the people entirely wrong. The heroine of those books was a modern human orphan, adopted by Neandertals. The reviewer said that while the technology seemed accurate, that heroine had the consciousness, the attitude, of a 20th century Valley Girl. I too thought Aeul's novels were trash. She had the heroine's adopted Neandertal Grandfather figure, get dreams with racial visions, inherited from his Neadertal forefathers. Neandertal's had (slightly) larger brains than modern humans. Auel had that extra brain real estate squandered on (somehow) encoding these racial memories. Not only did this strike me as a poorly thought out notion, it seemed to hint that Aeul might have been a closeted racist.
What I love about this most is that just 15 years ago, there was an argument that the species "homo sapiens" is about 250,000 years old. Apparently we are much older than that.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #1 НАЧАЛО ПУТЕШЕСТВИЯ [Новый сезон] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/380Q7gLWGvk/mqdefault.jpg)
My cousin did a DNA test the other month and was embarresed about having a much highter amount of Neandertal DNA than the average european, but I told them about all the cool things I learned about them on this channel, like they were intelligent, and looked after the sick and it made my cousin feel a lot better about it.
the oldest known musical instrument on earth is a neanderthal flute :)
You're the real MVP
Ack. A new form of racism emerges. "Your neanderthal DNA is *how* high? Wow. How unevolved of you."
I'd be thrilled to learn I had a higher percentage. I grew up reading the Jean Auel books in the 80's and even convinced my friends to play Clan of the Cave Bear with me. Many of the ideas of the books haven't held up to modern research but she was one of the first to popularize the humanistic depiction of Neanderthals.
Did you tell him that he's more likely to be stronger and have thicker bones and joint surfaces too ? That should appeal to a guy 😁
@@CorwinFound likely be the other way around when you account for the African sentiments.
I don’t think people really realise how closely related we are to each other.
The fact that we could not only mate and produce viable offspring with them, but that those kids could go on and continue the breeding speaks volumes about how closely we were related !
Be careful. The ability to produce viable offspring between two closely related species is not an on/off switch. It is gradual. Even with mules, ligers or tigons that usually are thought to be infertile you get animals that can reproduce. Very rarely but those cases exist.
As long as we don't know how reproduction rates were between Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalensis I don't think we can make any judgment just from the fact that they had viable offspring.
@@7inrain You are basing your argument on "VERY RARELY". Now how often is very rarely?
Don't forget most of the freaks in jars at a Ripley's Believe it or Not exhibit are from Texas ranchers molesting their sheep when drunk.
@@yvonneplant9434 Yes. And you are always welcome to ignore what anyone writes in the comments.
@@yvonneplant9434 You can't avoid thinking that if Hollywood wanted to do a remake of Quest for Fire, John Fetterman could go to the casting call. The guy has a massive head with brow ridges and a neck that just blends into his shoulders.
I have a bio-anthropology exam tomorrow focusing on human evolution and I can't tell if watching this is procrastinating or not lol
If you're looking at the latest in scientific research and news then you're going to do so bad on your exam :p Your book was probably written 10-20 years ago with only minor updates for a new publish date.
Some column A and some column B.
Sounds like studying to me
Tell how was the exam when you finish
@@madcow3417 Science is ever changing I don’t understand why school don’t focus on the current discoveries as well as the past theories and studies.
I wish there were more visuals (movies /animation) on early human like species. Its fascinating to imagine people roaming, surviving and encountering “others”
There are no humanlike species
I presume you would like the visuals to show them interbreeding, right?
didnt happen
@@yupok318 What do u mean?
The problem is the person doing this video has no idea about the subject! NEANDERTHALS DID GET THEIR Ys FROM HUMANS THEY GOT ALL THEIR DNA FROM HUMANS!
Humans never passed it on to them they always had it from they where humans!
Coprolite might not be my favourite fossil but it's a solid number 2.
Clever 💩
@@petuniasevan But lost on most people, who have no idea what coprolite is (there's a Coprolite Street in my town).
@@frankhooper7871 Let me guess - it's the sh.ttiest part of town?
@@cathjj840 it's marred by skid marks all up and down the lane
I'm definitely stealing that.
I may not get an opening to use it right away, but I will use it.
edit: I've used it. Thanks Michael!
So instead of a cleanly branching tree, we have branches intertwined around each other like some trees & shrubs.
the branches themselves are really a bundle of threads, formed of individuals and their offspring, splitting and remerging into groups within groups as humans spread around. if we could see that whole web it would be absurdly and beautifully complex
everything else Ive seen though is that for the amount of neanderthal dna we have, there was very little actual intermixing. some did occur, but it seems like it affected them much more than it affected us. the vast majority of neanderthals remained a seperate species that went extinct (most likely by being outhunted or directly hunted), they did not simply merge into the homo sapiens species.
@@nao_chan_ h. sapiens had a much larger population, lived in larger groups and reproduced quicker, so the % of remaining Neanderthal DNA matches at least the order of magnitude of population size difference
kudzu.
@@nao_chan_ - Not so little: 2.4% (typical, it may be higher in some populations, even slightlyy above 3%) means the equivalent to a great-great-great-grandparent. It was selected against in some aspects (reproductive ones especially) but for in some others, notably a variant for keratin, which is probably behind straight hair, as the ancestral type in H. sapiens is clearly the African and other tropical "woolly hair" or thinly curled hair. That means that, if you have straight hair (and surely also wavy and even widely curly hair like mine), you owe that to that "great-great-great-grandpa" (or "grandma") Neanderthal. There's even one X-chromosome haplotype, the B006, which is probably of Neanderthal legacy.
I wonder if way back, some very small bands of early humans, exploring Eurasia, fell on hard times in the unfamiliar territory, and got “adopted” into the local groups of Neanderthals for survival, eventually taking brides and husbands, and changing the Neanderthal genome forever. 🤔
It's certainly possible. There are many stories of lost or struggling colonists in the Americas or Australia getting adopted into local tribes/clans and eventually becoming part of the society. The indigenous Ainu people of northern Japan are similar, having a DNA mix-up consisting of genes from Eastern Asians, Pacific Islanders, and even from later Dutch colonists.
@@Zaxares Isn’t that the prevailing hypothesis about Roanoke now?
@@Zaxares but neanderthals were much harsher on each other than we are, their family groups weren't friendly to each other, killing and eating together when meat was scarce, so it must be something truly unique to have groups collade and not end up in massacre, I'd say a regular female stealing would make some sense.
@@melodi996 Not necessarily. Eons recently did a video about this showing that there was evidence Neanderthals did actually have fairly complex social lives and structures and they did care for sick or handicapped individuals. I'm not sure if there's solid proof showing that they were far less friendly to rival families or clans (although it's certainly likely. Homo Sapiens certainly have a long and infamous history of doing some very nasty things to rivals), but my guess is that Neanderthals were very similar to us in terms of temperament. Some tribes were friendly and welcoming, others were harsh and cruel. It would be unfair to label all of them as being barbaric or savage any more than it would be to label all modern humans as being greedy and warmongering.
@GPlumbob It is, yes. I don't know if we've yet found conclusive proof of it, but that is the prevailing theory.
@@melodi996 That notion of brutal neanderthals comes from the way higher testosterone. Like, its not totally off the roof, but it was enough to make basically any neanderthal bulkier than any "normal" homo sapiens, and jeah, well, we do have our conceptions of the testosterone riddled part of "man"kind :P
If you ever grew up or were part of a highly toxic, male centric group, you know its not impossible to be "adopted", its "just" rough af. But jeah, just some more stuff added to what @Zaxares said :D
It’s wild how modern humans are kind of a genetic mosaic of all of our ancient ancestors… like we didn’t so much as “beat out” other populations of humans as absorb them, so to speak.
Just like Svante Pääbo said
@@kittyelgato4246 lol who?
@@kittyelgato4246 he won the nobel prize this year
Honestly, if you put any evolutionary transition under the microscope as much as we've done to our own recent evolutionary history, you'll probably see similar patterns as the boundaries between populations blur over time. It's just that we're paying a lot of attention to our own history, but also all this happened so recently that it's still very well preserved in the fossil record. At the end of the day, though, it's probably just what it looks like when two species split. There's some interbreeding during the split before the two populations fully diverge. It's to be expected.
@@Andy_Babb I like how you asked instead of I dunno, doing a google search
Just a point on terminology; Neanderthals, Denisovans, and a lot of other species are 'human', so it's not that 'human' chromosomes and DNA were shared with Neanderthals, it's that *H. sapiens* chromosomes and DNA was shared with other human species, in this case that other human species being Neanderthals.
They are both "homonids". Neanderthals may have had "Human - as in Homo sapien" characteristics, but are not themselves Humans; they are Homo neanderthalensis.
@@Ekaustonian Within anthropology, it's generally considered that everything from *Homo erectus* to us is "human". Indeed, *H. erectus* is commonly referred to as, "The first human."
What defines a 'human' is a set of physical and behavioral traits, not what specific species it is. It used to be though that *H. sapiens* were the only species to have these traits, so we defined 'human' by them, but we now know that Neanderthals, *H. erectus*, and others exhibit these traits.
This led to two options, one was to redefine what being 'human' meant, but that would go against the long history of using these traits and measures, so the second was adopted, including all of the *Homo* genus species that demonstrate these traits under the 'human' umbrella.
@@Ekaustonian Based on how Homo was originally set up, "hominin" should be used synonymously with "human".
Edit: replaced hominid with hominin as the former is used for family Hominidae not genus Homo!
@@Ekaustonian Neanderthals are considered to be human. Some consider the early **Homo** species like **H. habils** to be the first humans. Most consider **H. erectus** to be human.
Agreed 💯 they are interpreting this in a way to support their theory . This actually supports the fact that we are all humans with some separations and misunderstood genetic patterns .
That cover picture is too funny. 'It was a forbidden love, a love between two species. In the forest their eyes met and a fire blazed. They both knew it was wrong but nothing could keep them apart. 'No. Stop. I have to go back to the cave and gnaw on hides.' 'I jus' can't quit you, cave-cave-girl.' Their doomed romance would change the course of evolution.'
When two species fight for the genus Homo, two lost souls learn to love and eventually spook unsuspecting future Homo Sapiens who bought a DNA kit
Robot boy..I’m just wondering if you read a lot of romance novels……
We get the Neanderthal DNA from the men, not the woman. So it is much more likely that the neandertal men took or ''won'' over the Homosapien woman. As we know, Neandertals were much more adapted to the European climate and were much bigger in body, stronger, and probably smarter. The oldest tools, instruments, paintings, and much more were made by Neandertals. So I would be more like, 'come into my cave, djungel girl'
@@raeelsley2984 - I was waiting for a torn-shirt Fabio to look off into the distance while the wind fluffs his hair.
Caucasians all have neanderthal genes. Explains why most of them have a subconscious fear of melaninated people
Interaction between closely related human species is so interesting. There is even a ghost lineage that started the hypothesis that an archaic human lineage interbreed with the ancestors of west africans. I am from Somalia, a country in the horn of africa so i often wonder if this is the case for myself.
My wife is from a N African country. Her whole family thinks they are Arab. She took a DNA test and is 98% N African..... People kill each other over racial violence over there but everyone looks the same.... Makes me wonder how many people are actually Arab and N African.
@@kevinsuggs1 Maghreb as a whole is about 80% North African, so there is probably very few people who are actually Arab.
@@kevinsuggs1 my wife is Libyan and her father's DNA is similar to your wife's - and he still lives in Libya and doesn't tell anyone about those results because he is very proud of his Arab heritage and really bigoted.
My understanding is that the most non-Sapiens descended population can be found in some villages in the west and that is highly local. But then again there could be data missing in some countries. Morocco is like 6% ghost lineage and some villages are more like 20% IIRC.
Very cool. Ty
What we don’t know about the history of humans could fill several hundred large books. So much is lost and unknown, undiscovered, and/or forgotten. To say we know the history of humans is akin to saying, “we know all there is to know about what conditions are beyond the edge of the universe”.
Sounds like we both came from the same ancient species and each went their own way for thousands of years only to meet up later after each had started to evolve differently
Exactly
Yawn......
Yeah, that was what Darwin was saying in the Origin of Species. All humans, archaic humans, and all apes evolved from the same ancient individual.
@@robertgotschall1246 is that book still worth a read even with how much more we know compared to then? Another words does it feel dated
@Andrew If he doesn’t want it, I’ll take it.
Please, please, please release more episodes of the podcast. I would listen to these on my daily walks and I’m missing them.
Yes..... I thought I was the only one. Please your podcasts make working a godawful job bearable..... no... actually enjoyable.
I think of Out of Africa not so much as a few waves but more like a river that opened/closed every few seasons
Yeah, like, every generation had it's Mozes, treading in to the Red Sea and stretch out his hand to split the waters
- though not mentioning the Egyptians, as the pyramids were still another 100k yrs away.
Seriously, much depended on how friendly the environment close by and on the Arab land bridge was to migrating early humans. Without suitable prey or food plants, or vegetation unsuitable for hunting & collecting, they wouldn't go.
Plus circumstances for home land source populations had to be pretty favourable so that a certain level of overpopulation could grow to fuel a migration flow.
I was thinking the same thing watching this.
It's understandable why palaeoanthropologists compare pre-Holocene human existence to Star Trek instead of something more familiar like Middle-Earth. Humans kept boinking the unfamiliar people right off the bat. LOL
Ancient homo sapiens meeting other humans: "We'll bang, okay?"
@@akechijubeimitsuhide from my understanding of animals and ancient humans, that "Okay?" part probably wasn't necessary....
Tolkien was raised in Apartheid South Africa. He had some biases...
You nailed it my friend. some talk a bout war and football. War is new and foot ball very new. High five my friend.
If that's true, then why don't we see all these William Shatner offspring throughout the universe? Or do we need to wait a few more millennia until our timeline catches up to his?
Im glad you showed the homo sapiens with dark skin. So often we see fair skin in illustrations showing ancient homo sapiens, when If I remember correctly it only became a dominant trait in Eurasia between 12 and 8 thousands years BC.
You said it before I did Lol. According to physical remains, according to genetic DNA. The first modern human beings aka Homo Sapiens came from Africa and they would have had dark skin. So Yes! I would appreciate it more if they were represented more in that way. Absolutely.
Seen thumnal had to click. Hue man.
@@charlesspeaksthetruth4334 they were not modern
I have lit never seen 1 example of early humans with light skin idk where you be looking at though
@@fightfannerd2078 modern humans aka Homo Sapiens.
This absolute Gigachad had a one night stand and replaced the Y chromosomes of an entire species
all of his sons were gigachads as well
Better conqueror than even Genghis Khan.
@@xa-xii7981 *Neandhis Khan.*
Sounds quite ridiculous. The more reasonable explanation is that homo-sapiens adapted in temporary isolation and they aren't different species.
@@andreanarine8179 it does sound strange, doesn't it? If the two populations had the same Y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA, why do we consider them separate species in the first place?
If I learnt anything from this , it’s that they really loved that sketch of the male and female youngens looking at each other
It's a great sketch
The information from Eons just keeps getting more interesting.
Thank you and keep it coming!
If I recall correctly, I seem to remember that there are some parts of the world that can have as much as 5% of their genome being made of Neanderthal or denisovan. My question is is how much of the Neanderthal or denisovan genome exists within the human genome? Like for example if you took a gene sample of every single human on the planet and picked out the Neanderthal and or denisovan bits could you in theory reconstruct an entire genome?
i have heard 30% and 60% recently
@@nmarbletoe8210 nifty
There's no point Jurassic Park-ing it up like that when we already have some complete genomes from fossils (since hominids lived so much more recently than dinosaurs). Look up "the Neanderthal Genome Project."
My question is with all the Neanderthal DNA we can get, Both from fossils and preserved in modern human DNA, Could we make a whole Neanderthal? Even if we don't have a complete genome, Surely we could substitute missing parts with Homo Sapiens DNA, Considering we're similar enough to interbreed with them, Or atleast were some thousands of years ago.
@@nmarbletoe8210 that sounds absurdly high, could you tell me the source?
Human evolution is such a messy affair. I increasingly believe we may never fully sort it out.
DNA will sort it out. But people need to stop spreading debunked discredited theories like out of Africa.
It's all just academic constructs anyway, all the labels we apply to hominids are just sloppy ways to try to label people that are all closely related and all of it is still rooted in really nasty eugenic theories of the 19th century.
That is the wonderful thing about science- there's always more questions
We have just developed the tools necessary to research ancient gene flows. We already know that repeated waves of migration seems to be our thing, leading to complicated genetic mosaics instead of orderly clearly delineated gene pools. Give us a couple of decades to figure out the details.
@@eljanrimsa5843 Yeah, the problem is that genetic markers can get us just so far. Most hominid fossils have no reliable DNA traces of the living creature, and using genetic regression can only give us clues about our direct ancestors and not about any parallel branches that might have existed out there.
The Mitochondria is the power house of the cell.
ATP
True
It’s also the genetic ghost of maternal bloodlines.
It is a separate life form that drives multicellular animals around like a mech suit.
@@bbirda1287 cell phones... cellular organisms
Just asking, but could it be that Denisovans were the original Neanderthals and what we have been calling Neanderthals all this time have been an ongoing hybrid species of Denisovans and Homo Sapiens?
Those were my exacts thoughts! I’m surprised that this theory was not addressed in the video. Seems kind of obvious.
I suspect there could be differences between Denisovans and Neanderthals that aren't due to Sapiens interbreeding.
@@nealjroberts4050 It would be wonderful if the video addressed any of this. I've been curious about this theory for years now.
I doubt it, because if that were the case it would be pretty obvious from DNA. I assume the reason they say "denisovan-LIKE Y-chromosome" is because it is not the denisovan Y chromosomes, but instead a version that is as similar and different to the denisovan chromosome as you would expect.
My understanding is that we have enough DNA for fairly solid estimates of the time frame for the splits between Homo sapiens/Neanderthals/Denisovans, and H. sapiens diverges hundreds of thousands of years before the other two diverged from each other. I don't think there's any evidence for the kind of ongoing, consistent gene transfer that would be needed to classify Neanderthals as a hybrid species rather than their own distinct group. They would have been interbreeding amongst themselves most of the time, with only very occasional contributions from related human species.
With that said, recently some evidence has been found of yet another human group that's genetically partway between Neanderthals and Denisovans. We have no identified fossils, but we have some genetic evidence in certain human populations. The current (very tentative) theory is that this group lived in and around the Indian subcontinent, and H. sapiens picked up some DNA from them during their migrations around the coast of the Indian Ocean. UA-camr Stefan Milo just did a video on this called "The crossroads of human evolution" if you're interested.
I absolutely love the human evolutionary "tree" sciences. Certainly hope to see more!
why "tree"? What you implying?
I always wonder how much of this is sampling bias, that we just got a local group that happen to have more human Y chromosomes. It could also be that as the Neanderthal died out the surviving remnants were surrounded by more H Sapiens and therefore had more contact.
They don't explain how many of the Neanderthal remains we've recovered have been sequenced, but at 5:57 he says that this doesn't appear to be limited to just a few lineages in a few places. So we must have sequenced samples from distant-enough locations to make sampling bias unlikely.
@@abydosianchulac2 Facts.
Most samples of sequensed genome for Neanthertals are from indiviulals that would not have been living at the same time. The samples are also from locations as fare apart as what is today Spain and Russia. This means that when we find something that is consistant in all the samples it means it was widely distributed over time in the populations.
Yeah you are kinda right. I would love to know what the locations of the used skeletons where at where they where found.
Anyone else ever get a little bit sad when, at the end of the list of pateons, we don't hear, "and Steve!"
*sad Steve noises*
Yeah ...
I always wondered how well our ancestors and other humans got along
well apparently well enough that they start shagging each other
There was probably a lot of friction lol but obviously they worked through it.
All this hybridization between humans and Neanderthals back then reminds me of hybridization between wolves and coyotes today: closely related species, whose hybrid offspring are nevertheless fertile, and go back to leave gene introgression in their parent populations. You see the same thing with bison and cattle, too. Might even be adaptive. So interesting!
@Cancer McAids We don't know how easy sapiens and neanderthals reproduced. We just know that it was possible, but many offspring might have been infertile, or had other health issues.
@@minutemansam1214 it’s possible that Neanderthals and H Sapiens would’ve been right on the borderline between whether they were different species or not. Maybe some Neanderthals had just enough genetic similarity to create fertile offspring with Sapiens, but others were too genetically different to do so.
@@cancermcaids7688 depends on the species concept that you're using... the common one we learn at school is this, but there is also the the genetic species concept which can still potentially interbreed, and a morphological species concept, which again can potentially interbreed
0:55 Gigachad is that you!? 😭
Yesss
Gigachadis Antecessor
Do not mistake with Gigachadis Moderni, the one we know today
@@bruhman5385yyyehegegegsss
I was taught in biological anthropology class that both Homo sapiens sapiens and the Neanderthals (Homo sapiens neanderthalensis) are subspecies of archaic Homo sapiens, so perhaps the amount of interbreeding that happened isn’t as much as people think.
A sample size of 3 is a pretty weak basis for "all Neanderthals"
It's amazing what we keep learning, thank you for sharing this with us, great video!
We're barely able to overcome perceived 'racial' differences well enough to not kill each other, but these guys could look at a hottie from another entire species, put on a Marvin Gaye CD, and say "Baby, let's get it on." 🥰
Mate, if you’ve lived all your life In a greater tribal population of 150 people...Any new incomer is gonna look like gold dust to you no matter their not before seen darker skin colour, especially with their trendy short skirts and narrow waists they brought from warmer climes.
Not to mention their exotic language sounds!
@@winterroadspokenword4681 Of course! Just as we Europeans were impressed by the first Arab conquerors when they put the first boot on European soil more than 1300 years ago. And we've been dealing with them ever since. It took us 700 years to reconquer Spain. It may be that simple biology plays a role, but whether the culture of the locals also allows it is a completely different question. With a lead of 200,000 years, it is very likely that the Neanderthals probably developed music and other cultural things such as jewelry and the like earlier than we did. And that's why a much more developed social order could prevent something like that. And something else is added. Children of mixed breeds would be very easy to spot and could very quickly be eliminated from the reproductive process.
Racism is fairly new. Less than 600 years old.
@@zxcbxfjyj423 I teach history. Tell me where I’m wrong?
@@kudjoeadkins-battle2502 No its not. We literally have historic sources as old as detailed writing that are racist. Clearly you are a poorly educated teacher. Its sad that people like you are teaching young people that racism is "600 years old" Clearly you never read Herodotus.
Wow, this explains the “muddle in the middle”!
I'm still heartbroken over not hearing "Steve" at the end of the list of patrons.
Astounding information... The plot thickens with each new discovery! The Nobel prize for medicine this year -- which went to the great Svänte Pääbo -- was awarded none to soon!!
*too soon
Loved this episode! I'm often wondering about the interactions between human populations before the Neanderthal/ Denisovan extinction. How did Neanderthal groups differ from Homo sapiens? How different were their languages/ dialects? How did two or more groups overcome the barriers of culture/language that had been established? So many things yet to discover :)
Easy enough: “Ayla” *Neanderthal Standard Sign Language for f$cking*
Clan of the Cave Bear is a torrid romance novel series, but its well researched and offers a reasonable picture.
The earliest fossil evidence for homo sapiens in Africa that I know of dated to 315,000 years ago. Those remains were found in what is now, Morocco. This find would seem to indicate that homo sapiens go back further than 300,000 years. Is this a correct assumption?
That's the perfect stereotypical paleontology professor blazer, I love it lol.
Needs patched elbows 👍🏻🤣
Random question spurred by some of the graphics used in the video - is there any evidence to suggest that neanderthals, or any other hominids beside anatomically modern humans, wore clothes?
I read that humans first started consistently wearing clothes about 40,000-170,000 years ago, which we (think we) know because that's roughly when headlice and pubic lice diverged into two species.* Given that Neanderthals existed for much or most of that time, I would love to know whether they adopted clothing before us, at the same time as us, or after us - perhaps even because of us.
*Some people think that humans wearing most or all of the time might coincide with a major global cooling caused by the eruption of a supervolcano ~70,000 years ago, but obviously a lot more evidence is needed to establish that claim. If true, then it would certainly make it a lot more likely that other hominids, like denisovans and neanderthals, would've had to adapt similar practices.
Ive heard people say that even with their adaptations they would not have survived the cold without clothing, also I belive they have also found secondary evidence for clothing like leather scrapers but i'm really reaching far back into my memory and could be misremembering sorry this probably didnt help you at all lol
The denisova cave contained the oldest known sewing needle, and its associated with the Denisovan population. It was dated to 50 kya, so that's recent enough that they could've picked up the skill from ancient human populations, but if I recall, there was no noticeable homo sapiens DNA found in the remains there. That's obviously not conclusive, but it does seem more likely that there would be cultural flow between the populations much more readily if the groups were inter-marrying than the idea that ancient humans would take the time to teach clothing-making to our other ancient relatives but take no action towards coupling with them.
No evidence, really... it all decays...
I wonder if humans and clothes are an instinct for decorating the body as a primary drive.
Nest building is an ape instinct (beds/nests), so could clothes be a decoration instinct?
Clothes can be tools or decorations.
Weather changes, and humans in hot environments (tropical or dry) often might wear clothes, but all humans have some for of body decoration.
(Fun hypothesis I've played with but not tested)
Yes, Neanderthals had a similar dress / culture to other hunter gatherer humans. They made art and tools. They dressed in skins ect.
@@jonni2317 Well there is some indirect evidence from study of parasitic insects/ eg Fleas, Lice( which live in clothes) headlice and pubic lice. Its a different angle, a bit gross though. According to a study in Nature, head lice diverged from body lice 170,000 years ago. Thus you can infer clothing began to be worn at that time, possibly.
Why wouldn't a simpler answer be that all Neanderthals were the result of crossbreeding the Denisovans with Sapiens?
Denisovans : 5 very small bone fragments found in a Siberian cave have morphed to a claimed broadly ranged human cousin. This illustrates just how hugely assumptive the art of anthropology is.
And what happened to Homo heidelbergensis? Like neanderthals they were adapted to the cold climate in Eurasia. And possibly they lived in Africa too.
So the oddities found in neanderthals could be explained by their predecessors.
just wrote my dissertation on neanderthal/amh interactions in mid-upper paleolithic europe 😊 love to see more discussion on the topic!
Why do Neanderthals show no sapien DNA but sapiens have neanderthal DNA?
Amazing how such a "tiny" discovery might possibly change our whole evolutionary timeline. Great work on this video, as always!
We "met" Neanderthals? We ARE them. Many of us, at least.
Top shelf presentation of the current state of rapidly evolving context!
Rapidly evolving context. I like that.
Everything we know is “way earlier than we thought”….
I was surprised to find this PBS segment unsatisfactory, for several reasons. One has been mentioned, that we were all the same species, which is why we could interbreed. It isn't that hard to say "modern human" in recognition of that. Also, our Neanderthal cousins were around for WAY LONGER than we modern humans thus far. They must have had some significant evolutionary advantages to survive ice ages and climate change. To assume that their smaller populations (as far as we know so far) resulted in their disappearance is one possibility. Adverse geological or climatological changes or a killer virus or bacterium are possibilities that were not considered.
This just felt neither very deeply researched nor assembled. Disappointing.
I always wondered if the extinction of the neanderthals is not really just a matter of admixture and genetic loss due to smaller and more fragmented populations.
When populations are separated, they start to diverge. Wenn they are getting into contact again (connected by the more mobile and numerous h. sapiens groups), the accumulated genetic specifities are likely to be sorted out again.
How to be sure that the whole Y-chromosome pool was replaced in Neanderthals? According to the paper (at least the abstract, I don't have access to the whole paper) only 3 Neanderthal samples were studied. Maybe, this replacement cannot be considered to be significant at the species level. In fact, considering that only 2 Denisovan samples were sequenced, I am not even convinced that such a replacement did not happen in Denivovans as well.
Keeps calling Cro-Magnons humans, implicitly saying Neanderthals and Denisovans weren't.
One thing I wonder is, did those ancient neanderthals, denisovans and sapiens realize that they were different kind of human? Like, was their behavioral and outer appearance different enough for them to assume that they were not the same?
I mean for some time we humans couldn't do it to ourselves
imagine meeting a similar hominid species and thinking...
"I'd tap that."
They were much more alike back then, and yeah, many people are happy to tap, tap, tap...
@@smurfyday they would be less alike, if they hadn't interbred, yet.
Humans are curious, and something new vs more of the same? :P
How did aids enter the human world?
@Beef Supreme Unrealisticaly small estimaion... people were traveling all the time back then...
@@kellysouter4381 Blood to blood contact with SIDS-infected apes during hunting. Your insinuation is insipid.
That's crazy....so they really WERE humans if the offspring were fertile they were human
I'd been wondering why no European men alive today had inherited the Neandertal Y chromosomes. I never considered this could be the answer.
My daughter and I have Neanderthal DNA. I was born in Germany, from a german mother and a polish father. My daugther was born in South Africa, her father is dutch/french.
English gives a bad sentiment to " neanderthals met humans "
In broad number of languages neanderthals met sapiens, but they were both humans already. With label " human " being applied to all species in homo genus.
It is more in line with other naming schematics we use in biology and highlight how closely related we were. Way closer than some " breeds" of animals we currently study.
Humans met humans, even before there was only one human species
Yes, I fully agree.
Annunaki modify those genes
Let's get it on
Ah, baby, let's get it on
Let's love, baby
Let's get it on, sugar
Let's get it on, woo hoo
Interesting I love this channel !!!!! Knowledge is infinite
I did a DNA analysis a few years ago, and one of the sites I uploaded my data to showed that not only did I have an extraordinarily large percentage of Neanderthal DNA, but also Denisovan DNA. This piqued my interest in this whole study of ancient humanity. Otherwise, I am 100 percent Northern Hunter/Gatherer. My blood matches up with most archaeological digs in Europe, and for some reason, one of the archaeological sites in Argentina has DNA that matches up with mine. I guess my people tended to get around!
I wouldn't trust the commercial for-fun (because that's what they really are) sites as authoritative. If you find something interesting there and you really want to know you should get a real lab to do a test, which of course will be very expensive - because it *is* expensive to do the job right.
@@tohaason Any particular reason you feel this way?
I wouldn't believe commercial tests lol. If you went back 30 generations (1000 years) you would have 1 billion ancestors. And double that each generation.
@@kincaidwolf5184ok what does that have to do with anything?
Denisovans mostly show up in East Asian descended groups. There was an additional cross in southeast Asia that many Pacific groups are descended from. These are also the ancestors of many native American groups. This is why there is a theory that South American natives came from Pacific ocean crossings, rather than the Bering strait.
They didnt wanna pay taxes
When you're here because 23&me said you had Neanderthal DNA
Same - 5%
@@down-to-earth-mystery-school im 2%
So, in other words, what some people thought was a "separate species," Neanderthal, was really already a mixed breed of modern human and archaic human ; and Denisovans are just archaic humans who interbred less with modern humans, but still also interbred with us.
But, since all non-Africans have Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestry, they aren't just species that we co-existed with. They are part of our genetic heritage. They are OUR ANCESTORS too.
And so what is a species, if you can interbreed with them and have physiologically fully functional children with them?
Biologists ask this question since they understood that the old definition works only for horses and donkeys. Afaik, Ernst Mayr has given the best answer so far to this question.
Kinda wondering if the other species died out or if they all just kinda became indistinguishable and those of us with more Neanderthal or Denisovan DNA are what is left, not just Sapiens gene pool "contamination" (I do not mean that in a negative way). Probably reasons that is wrong but I wish I knew them if so.
Other human specie died out maybe because of breeding with us, maybe our gene is much stronger. If you notice when they examine our DNA there is stil traces of other human species in our gene today.
I always believed that the reason why so few hybrids were found (and that we eventually replaced the Neanderthals) was a mule kind of a situation, that female Neanderthal x homo sapiens male gave offspring that was more or less predisposed to live than male Neanderthal x sapiens female. But with BOTH mitochondrial DNA and Y chromosome DNA coming from modern humans, that little theory of mine goes out of the window....
you may be onto something
Yeah the discovery of more than Mitochonrdrial DNA shows the interbreeding was very much two way.
Isn’t the definition of species that they don’t/can’t interbreed? If Sapiens and Neanderthals interbreed, why are they classified as different species?
Also, lol, humans do not rank among the great apes as the content provider mistakenly asserts. (It's too bad he botched his lovely chart.) If humans were apes, apes would be humans, which simply is not the case. Apes and humans cannot interbreed. So while there ARE four great apes, as he stated, they are the chimpanzees, bonobos, and gorillas of Africa as well as the orangutan of Sundaland (now modern Sumatra and Borneo as touches their habitat). There are those who argue that bonobos are just "little chimpanzees," as though they're not a separate species. The two, however, cannot interbreed, so looks can be deceiving. They are distinct species. Four great apes. We ain't one of em. :)
@@thomasraywood679 I have problems with some of the things you've said here. It is undeniably true that humans are great apes. Throughout your comment, you have shown a great lack of understanding when it comes to how phylogeny and taxonomy work. This is most clearly demonstrated by your quote, "If humans were apes, apes would be humans..." This is directly analogous to saying, "If lions are cats, cats would be lions," or "If tuna were fish, fish would be tuna." You are confusing groups with species, which are definitionally different terms. Also, the four different great ape species you've listed can't interbreed with each other either (you even acknowledge this in your comment), so does that make them not great apes either? This is all just so confusing. I have two questions I'd like you to answer; what are humans if we aren't great apes, and what specifically makes the four species you listed members of the great apes and not humans?
@@evanpimley5933 Your compulsion, well, no, your feeling compelled, no, your decision to make the point you made is an understandable one. I too am of the sort who routinely pulls people up, when they use language which seems either off or not particulalry useful. But the language you cite, in this case, while understandably off putting, is merely a reflection of the considerable thought I've put into the matter, not only as regards how unfortunately muddled the classification system is but, as importantly, why it is that we should not think of our 'grand ancestor' as an ape. Given, however, what it is that you're basing your assertions on, and given naturally the impossibility that you could think my, yes, private assessment of things might have the power to temper or sway your views, by all means you are not out of order to have said what you said. I rather enjoyed it. It's just that this in not what I see as the venue for launching into an extensive rundown of my broader thoughts on the matter. I apologize primarily for that, but also for having said more than I should have. If I may though, you might enjoy the wonderful conversation I've had with Jason Born in this thread, if you've the time and inclination to run that down.
The years always keep getting pushed back. Eventually they will find that people evolved independently of each other.
Shouldn't we be referring to the modern humans as specifically "modern humans" or "sapiens" so that we don't imply that Neandertals weren't human?
They weren't Humans. They are both "homonids". Neanderthals may have had "Human - as in Homo sapien" characteristics, but are not themselves Humans; they are Homo neanderthalensis.
@@Ekaustonian I believe the discussion is more about if we should call Neanderthals humans because we wouldn't see them as different from humans if we saw a Neanderthal in real life.
My Hypothesis is that we interbred with Neanderthals, but there were so many more of us then them so that we ultimately greatly absorbed them into ancient Homo Sapiens.
I wonder what Neanderthal culture was like, Gods what id do to study that.
Prehistory. Most of what you want to know is the Mousterian culture, which is basically the same for a very long time. It's all stone tools, local variants but very similar.
However there're some more interesting details. For example in Italy it has been documented that they removed the nicest feathers from some birds (eagles and crows I believe) surely to use as decoration. Odd that we don't see many depictions of Neanderthals wearing feathers because they did.
Also they seem to have used magnesium based body paint (grey color).
Most intriguing is when they were influenced by Sapiens-made Upper Paleolithic tech and some of them shifted to it but in their own unique style: the Chatelperronian.
The earliest known musical instrument, a flute, was made by neanderthals
we know there worshipped the cave bear, so the oldest religion in the world is from the Neanderthal.
So, human boinking with Neanderthals started a lloonngg time ago, at least a quarter million years ago. Next question: Why was the population of Neanderthals so small? One possibility: The home cave housed only close family relations, so there was a lot of incestuous boinking leading to a lot of still-births which would not show up in the fossil record. Yeah, I know, I have boinking on my mind. But it IS feasible. If it turns out that the home range of the local home cave rarely intersected with that of the neighbors, then the probability of healthy pregnancies may have been equally rare. That would stall population growth.
Super interesting content.
It’s a mind stretch to think about those very long spans of time, and the small changes that brought about significant changes in the human population.
Question: How easy/difficult is it to cross from Africa to Spain via the Straight of Gibraltar via an unpowered boat?
They could walk, sea levels lower.
Its less than 10 miles so probably pretty feasible
@@jbrown8601 the last time Gibraltar was a land bridge was 5.3 million years ago, so before Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens
Tools found on Crete and bones found on Malta indicate that Neanderthals were very likely seafaring peoples.
@@nw932 Exactly my point. You don't need to go the long way if you've got a boat.
Now I just need X and Z and I can locate the stronghold
Coping mechanism for cavemen hybrids...enjoy.
Could become a category for IVF: women who are proud of their higher neanderthal dna seeking a donor also with higher levels,
A little hard to follow, but wow, digging up the past can blow your mind. It would be intriguing to live outside of time, and to overcome what may be it's merely superficial sequence.
I realize that is a deficiency in language and not a Sapiens bias, but a comparison between "Humans" and "Neanderthals" seems silly to me. Neanderthals share a large portion of our DNA, had large brains, complex culture and many other "Human" characteristics. As Sapiens and Neanderthalis were able to interbreed in the wild and produce viable, fertile offspring, by some scientific definitions we ARE the same species. I personally believe ever since Erectus, we are all different subspecies of "Humans". Human isn't an accurate scientific term, and in a video like this one especially I think it would be better to always use the concretely defined species names of Sapiens and Neanderthal, and avoid an inaccurate word like human.
I compare it to dogs, coyotes, and wolves. While they can interbreed as part of the genus Canis, they are separate species.
It can be used in two senses: (1) all Homo sp. and the narrow one of (2) modern humans. I also noticed that but I understood he was using in the second narrower sense. As you say there's no strict definition of what is "human", especially when looking at archaics.
@@bbirda1287 Well, dogs (as in domestic dogs) are the same species as wolves, Canis lupis.
Bcz u r silly. What else should they call them?
I think you meant Midichlorians.
Sincerly,
Qui-Gon Jinn
I've always wondered...
Could the mythological giants from all around the world have their origin within these ancient encounters?
Specially since the relationships were rather dynamic and beyond a mere confrontation, such as certain Norse or even Native American Demi-gods like Red Horn and Thor being half-giants!
Could be fascinating to see another team-up with Storied!
I had two commercial DNA tests and then ran the data through several analyzers. Learned a lot. One odd bit was that I have "giantism" genes(?) I am mostly Norwegian. My maternal uncle was 6'4" as was my father, and my son's father was 6'1", but my son and I are of average height. 🤷♀️
Neanderthals were not necessarily bigger than us, just bulkier. They would have averaged ~4-5 feet, whereas many humans average ~5-6 feet
no
The word "giant" is a weird mistranslation from Germanic mythology. The word they used meant "devourer" or to consume. A giant was not necessarily large, they were spirits and so "shapeshifters".
people think it's stories from fossils or bones. For example Cyclops from elephant cranium. Or dragons from dinosaurs or megafauna fossils
Where did they park their starships?
I'm really vibing to the music used in this video.
Another excellent episode!
So three different humanoid species yet they are breeding and getting viable offspring. So how are they a different species then? And perhaps the Neanderthal and Human branches should be more blurred. We’re there situations when we couldn’t get viable offspring?
The more important question is where is the prove that this chromosome-y came from humans?
@@Bialy_1 - That's easy to prove because haploid lineages (Y-DNA and mtDNA) do not recombine, so they produce neatly hierarchical trees. However, if you look carefully at what they're saying, they don't say it was H. sapiens but older people related to H. sapiens. Our species did not coalesce before c. 200,000 BP (Omo 1 is the oldest known modern human). Even if we accept that Lupumbian could be the oldest H. sapiens culture, it's not older than 230,000 BP.
Definitely the Neanderthal heritage related to reproduction, incl. the X chromosome, was selected against after the admixture. However other genes (notably keratin, surely leading to straight hair) were selected for instead.
@@Bialy_1 you're meaning came from Sapiens right? I don't know this for sure, but I know we have sequenced Sapien DNA from many different periods of time. If there had been a drastic change where the Sapien y chromosome suddenly got a lot closer to the Denisovan y chromosome (which we have sequenced) and thus the Neanderthal Y, they would have hopefully mentioned it in this video.
Simply put, if animals are in the same genus and closely enough related, they may be able to reproduce despite being seperate species. Examples would include ligers, pizzlies-which are polar bear/grizzly hybrids that actually do occur in nature, and coyote-dog hybrids to name a few
Question: How are we sure that they got our Y chromosomes instead of us getting theirs?
Mass Comparisons with sapiens human male DNA of the same time period and modern humans pretty much excludes that possibility. We know they didn't have the same DNA otherwise they would be clones of each other. They recently also found an intact neanderthal Y chromosome in Spain, so we know now they are different, we just don't have enough individual DNA sequences to construct a whole genotype because that requires thousands of intact genomes to be statistically relevant.
It will always be case, the more we learn the les we will know.
I was watching a different science channel which stated that they now believe that there were actually two species of neanderthals which existed in different time periods. The earlier one related to the denisovans died out while a later group evolved out of a lineage more related to us modern humans. This would lead to the findings mentioned in this video.
From 23and me they call me a Neanderthal Homo Sapien high breed from the Levant or Levantine, I have 78% more Neanderthal than people their database, I am also a rare H16 haplogroup I am a female, your information is very interesting
Awesome 👍
We need to find some Homo Erectus DNA to see if that's also in Neanderthals....AND Modern Humans......Some day we will find some.
It's interesting how we homo sapiens took over the world instead of our cousins neanderthals and denisovans very sad our cousins never took off the world with us it would have been interesting to see if they would stand their regions and environments or would they migrate with us and maybe evolve into new species that would be pretty cool and maybe make their own States and cultures this is basically a giant what if question but it's very interesting and fascinating to think about
A lot of people alive today have Neanderthal and Denisovan ancestors. They might not be a separate and unique species in 2022 but millions of their children are still here.
People with Neanderthal bloodlines run the world
Your moms a neanderthal lmao gottem
@@perceivedvelocity9914 yeah honestly I feel like the guy saying that doesn’t fully grasp how it all works. If we all had societies we would absolutely absorb into one race regardless.
Its not exactly known if sapiens took over the world, or if the neanderthals bred themselves out. In our written history there has been several conquering peoples who interbred with the conquered and bred themselves out. Nature seems to have a way of balancing out the aggressive tendencies through the mother's lineage. At least for humans.
Are Neanderthals even a separate species, or just a particularly distinct ethnic group?
Anybody else reminded by Sam O Nella’s “Sexy Neanderthal Theory”?
My man was out there at 100,000 BC trying to return to monke. Absolute legend.
Title should say *Modern* Humans. Neanderthals were also humans.
Modern humans are homo sapiens sapiens, and Neanderthals are homo neanderthalensis. We currently classify them as different species.
Ah but they're not
@@sayittomyfaceidareyou8629 They were human. Not Homo Sapien, but human. Wolf's and coyotes are both canines for example.
@@sayittomyfaceidareyou8629 ah but they are;
*Homo* Neanderthalensis.
@@kauswekazilimani3736 But humans are homo sapiens. What you're referring to are hominids.
Bjorn Kurten, a famous anthropologist, wrote two novels about Neanderthals meeting modern humans. Spoilers. In his novels Neanderthals disappeared, in part, because they found modern humans so attractive.
He also had the hybrids have (1) hybrid vigour; but (2) the hybrids were sterile, like mules.
He wrote these novels long before DNA analysis.
@Cancer McAids In his novels Neanderthals were strongly attracted to make babies with modern humans because, compared to their big brow ridges, modern humans had neotenous faces. That is, compared to them, we retained adorable child-like faces, into adulthood. In addition he has modern human vocal tracts able to make more different kinds of sounds, so modern human speech "sounded like bird songs", where Neandertal speech was more guttural, fewer vowels.
Scientific American's book review section had a long serious comparison of Kurten's books, with those in the then very popular "Clan of the Cave Bear" series. It noted that, while Jean Aeul (sp?) the author of that very lucrative series, had included accurate research on what was then known about flint-knapping and other Neandertal technology, she got the consciousness of the people entirely wrong.
The heroine of those books was a modern human orphan, adopted by Neandertals. The reviewer said that while the technology seemed accurate, that heroine had the consciousness, the attitude, of a 20th century Valley Girl.
I too thought Aeul's novels were trash. She had the heroine's adopted Neandertal Grandfather figure, get dreams with racial visions, inherited from his Neadertal forefathers. Neandertal's had (slightly) larger brains than modern humans. Auel had that extra brain real estate squandered on (somehow) encoding these racial memories. Not only did this strike me as a poorly thought out notion, it seemed to hint that Aeul might have been a closeted racist.
What I love about this most is that just 15 years ago, there was an argument that the species "homo sapiens" is about 250,000 years old. Apparently we are much older than that.
ths isn't surprising. what is surprising is that we all thought they were a separate species. it makes more sense now