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What advantages did the Neanderthal genes add (or take away)? The only way to really find out is to create a modern day living Neanderthal. There's probably de
by blisterpeanuts 11y ago
What advantages did the Neanderthal genes add (or take away)? The only way to really find out is to create a modern day living Neanderthal. There's probably decades of research to do before we can pull that off, but some day it will happen. We need more than just the genome, unfortunately.
We already know a surprising amount about Neanderthal humans. They were generally short, around 5'7"/170cm, but their bones and muscle attachment sites were larger, suggesting bigger and more powerful musculature.
Combine hereditary strength with a vigorous lifestyle during a brutal epoch, when both predators and prey were dangerous giants, and we are looking at a truly powerful breed of humans who are thought to have been many times stronger than modern Homo Sapiens humans.
It seems, though, that this great strength was not a useful enough trait to be passed on through interbreeding; the modern humans displaced H. Neanderthalensis after a few thousand years, and we definitely don't have the musculature they had, not even our Cro Magnon ancestors who were contemporary with them.
Their huge braincases are another mystery. They averaged 1600 cubic cm, versus 1400 for modern humans. Were the Neanderthals smarter? Or were their brains larger, as claims one scientist, to accommodate a larger optical center for their enhanced night vision?
Ah, what we would give to have a way to warp time and visit that bygone era!
- iamcurious 11y agoThey were generally short, around 5'7"/170cm Looking at this[1] list, I would call them average. Specially when nutrition was probably less than ideal then. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height#Average_height_around_the_world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_height#Average_height_ar...
- zamalek 11y agoThe other way to approach it is to create a modern human. If 3% out of 20% is Neanderthal per human it must mean that a perfect snapshot exists across multiple donors. Both are interesting but unlikely experiments.
- defen 11y ago> What advantages did the Neanderthal genes add (or take away)? The only way to really find out is to create a modern day living Neanderthal. There's probably decades of research to do before we can pull that off, but some day it will happen Do you want to create Khan? Because that is how you create Khan. If you're averaging a bunch of genomes to do this (e.g simple rank-based voting), and assuming most mutations are deleterious, you're probably going to end up with some sort of super-Neanderthal who is way smarter and stronger than the average human.
- kiba 11y agoFictional sources are not evidence in a debate or argument.
- defen 11y agoThe Khan part is a joke but the rest is serious. Nearly all mutations are unique and deleterious. So if you average them all out, you'll end up with an organism that is significantly more fit than average.
- PostOnce 11y agofables parables and other tales are simplifications and analogies that make boring or hard logic easier to grasp. The boy who cried wolf isn't about any particular real boy, but you don't need a real example to figure out that its not just possible but plausible. Must we always have a previous real example to govern the future? Some futures aren't necessarily repeats of history.
- rtl49 11y agoIt's possible these genes contributed no significant evolutionary advantage and their prevalence is just an accident of history. For instance, Genghis Khan's Y chromosome isn't found in a large percentage of Asian males because it confers a selective advantage, he just happened to be in a position to reproduce much more than most.