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The comments here are of especially low quality for some reason. Anyways, the article simply says that they found teeths with Neanderthal like roots, but Human

The comments here are of especially low quality for some reason. Anyways, the article simply says that they found teeths with Neanderthal like roots, but Human like shape. This can possibly be fossil evidence of interbreeding and thus hybrid. They haven't checked the DNA yet, but there's prior art in modern human DNA that show some 2% coming from Neanderthal. So the difference is we might now have fossil evidence as well as DNA that interbreeding was possible. There's no proof of any explanation of why Neanderthal and Human would have interbred. Or if that is the single cause of pure bred Neanderthals disappearing. The discovery doesn't even make any claim to it from what I could tell. Finally, there's a possibility the fossil isn't from a hybrid at all, but from some independently evolved specie or Neanderthal who developed Human like traits on their own. Though that seems less likely since they know the area the fossil comes from was connected to the rest of the continent.

edgyquant 6y ago
What explanation should there be? Humans and Neanderthals weren’t removed enough to really be different species so it’s likely that Humans and Neanderthals, while very distance cousins, may have considered each other attractive and even the same species (note that they definitely didn’t think about species back them, but you get what I mean) so us theorizing on why they would have interbred doesn’t make much since to be. Like most ancient cultures they probably had tribal fighting with the victor taking the women from the losing tribe.
- im3w1l 6y ago
  We prefer not to think so much about it, but it's a fact that people have sex with dogs and goats and primates.
  - bashinator 6y ago
    Neanderthals were humans. Sex with them would maybe have been weird, but certainly not bestiality. I don't understand why you're comparing it with that - please elaborate?
    - vmception 6y ago
      > but certainly not bestiality It really depends on what the ruler of the nearest Free City thought of that, not what we think of that
    - im3w1l 6y ago
      It's a response to "may have considered each other attractive and even the same species". I brought it up to explain that things happen between way more distant species, so those are unnecessary conditions.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - cutemonster 6y ago
        I'm thinking 1 or 2 percent neanderthal DNA sounds like a lot? Maybe making it a little bit necessary after all? (At the same time, who knows what was socially accepted back then, at various places)
    - tsimionescu 6y ago
      I see it as a good argument that we don't need some special evidence to believe early modern humans and Neanderthals would have had sex (though we do need more evidence to understand if they could actually produce viable offspring), since we can look at the sexual behavior of modern humans with much more distant species.
      - collyw 6y ago
        Doesn't most human DNA contain neanderthal DNA (with the exception of some Africans, from what I remember). Doesn't that imply viable offspring?
    - devmor 6y ago
      > Neanderthals were humans. What an ignorant statement. Neanderthals were a Hominid in the genera Homo that co-existed at some point with Homo Sapiens. Whether or not they were a subspecies of H. Sapiens or a separate species within the genera is an entire field of study. (i.e. Siberian Tiger and Bengal Tiger vs. Siberian Tiger and Lion) If it were as simple as your claim, this article and the research that is it's subject would not exist.
  - edgyquant 6y ago
    That’s definitely a possibility as well, though your right I wasn’t thinking about it.
- didibus 6y ago
  It's only since 2010 that there's evidence of interbreeding. So I don't know from where you're making all these assumptions. For a long time it wasn't known if they could interbreed, and it wasn't known if they did, or how common it would be. Now it is seemingly more plausible that they could and they did. Think about monkeys for example, it's not that common (though I think we're also realizing it might be more common than we first thought) for them to interbreed with other species of monkey.
  - AstralStorm 6y ago
    Monkey species are likely much more different from each other than these Homo branches were though. Including courtship behavior and general lifestyle. They might have been more similar in the past, but now they're well speciated.
    - idoubtit 6y ago
      As far as I know, we don't know anything about the "courtship behavior" of Neanderthal or Homo Sapiens circa -50k. And I doubt anyone can compare their "general lifestyle" with certitude. It doesn't mean these claims are wrong, just that they are not based on facts.
  - mcv 6y ago
    They're not unreasonable assumptions. Especially considering that there is evidence of interbreeding between homo sapiens and neanderthals. There's DNA evidence, and now there's fossil evidence. If they're genetically somewhat compatible, it seems likely that it would have happened, and not really a good reason why it wouldn't.
    - didibus 6y ago
      My problem was with saying: > What explanation should there be? Basically for every discovery of a possible human ancestry, we will need evidence of interbreeding, we can't just assume off course they all interbred. That's not science. So this evidence is relatively new, in 2010 we found modern humans have about 2% DNA, and now we found a fossil teeth that appears to have hybrid characteristics. My second issue is with people making assertions like: well off course probably they were tribal and at war with each other and would have a tradition of keeping the females of their enemies. Or off course they would have been attracted physically to each other. Etc. We can all make up whatever explanation we want to believe in, that does not make it true. We'll similarly need to slowly unravel evidence that points towards those explanations to get an accurate understanding. And I was simply saying this new teeth discovery gives us no insight into this. So it seems we still don't know why they'd have interbred, how common it was, if all occurrence could successfully lead to offspring, when it would have started to happen, etc.
acct776 6y ago
> There's no proof of any explanation of why Neanderthal and Human would have interbred. Serious question: do you happen to identify as asexual?
- dang 6y ago
  We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. Please don't make accounts to do that with. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - acct776 6y ago
    Have reviewed them again, for what is likely the dozen'th time - no objective problems. Could you share your subjective one? I was being serious, dang - did you read my comment in a positive light first?
  - collyw 6y ago
    that comment looks perfectly reasonable to me
    - dang 6y ago
      Ok, interpretations differ, but I don't think the median reader would find sudden, random questioning of another commenter's personal sexuality "perfectly reasonable". I think they'd find it egregious and aggressive. Also, when we we ban an account, it's usually because of a repeated pattern of behavior, not just one comment. Had it just been one comment, I'd have warned rather than banned.
      - acct776 6y ago
        Saying "seriously" meant, as a security professional, I have a very legitimate, passionate interest in social psychology - not that I wanted to poke fun at someone. We're all here to analyze and learn from each other - or....should be. Please don't mistake my curiosity for malice.
cheph 6y ago
> The comments here are of especially low quality for some reason. Is this not for each reader to judge individually? > There's no proof of any explanation of why Neanderthal and Human would have interbred. Not sure of the relevance of this.
ljf 6y ago
Some people have as much as 4 percent neanderthal DNA (according to 23andme I am one of them).
chiefalchemist 6y ago
> There's no proof of any explanation of why Neanderthal and Human would have interbred. Proof? It's everywhere. Nature is mostly highly organized and predictable, with flashes of randomness. Is this not evolution itself? DNA "accidents" that prove useful (or not) and become dominant (or not). At just 2%, that's within reasonable expectation for random. It could have been higher in certain isolated pockets/communities. Unfortunately, those combinations weren't beneficial or perished for some other random reason (e.g., flash flood), and that evidence is lost in undiscovered fossils.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

edgyquant 6y ago

What explanation should there be? Humans and Neanderthals weren’t removed enough to really be different species so it’s likely that Humans and Neanderthals, while very distance cousins, may have considered each other attractive and even the same species (note that they definitely didn’t think about species back them, but you get what I mean) so us theorizing on why they would have interbred doesn’t make much since to be. Like most ancient cultures they probably had tribal fighting with the victor taking the women from the losing tribe.

im3w1l 6y ago
We prefer not to think so much about it, but it's a fact that people have sex with dogs and goats and primates.
- bashinator 6y ago
  Neanderthals were humans. Sex with them would maybe have been weird, but certainly not bestiality. I don't understand why you're comparing it with that - please elaborate?
  - vmception 6y ago
    > but certainly not bestiality It really depends on what the ruler of the nearest Free City thought of that, not what we think of that
  - im3w1l 6y ago
    It's a response to "may have considered each other attractive and even the same species". I brought it up to explain that things happen between way more distant species, so those are unnecessary conditions.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - cutemonster 6y ago
      I'm thinking 1 or 2 percent neanderthal DNA sounds like a lot? Maybe making it a little bit necessary after all? (At the same time, who knows what was socially accepted back then, at various places)
  - tsimionescu 6y ago
    I see it as a good argument that we don't need some special evidence to believe early modern humans and Neanderthals would have had sex (though we do need more evidence to understand if they could actually produce viable offspring), since we can look at the sexual behavior of modern humans with much more distant species.
    - collyw 6y ago
      Doesn't most human DNA contain neanderthal DNA (with the exception of some Africans, from what I remember). Doesn't that imply viable offspring?
  - devmor 6y ago
    > Neanderthals were humans. What an ignorant statement. Neanderthals were a Hominid in the genera Homo that co-existed at some point with Homo Sapiens. Whether or not they were a subspecies of H. Sapiens or a separate species within the genera is an entire field of study. (i.e. Siberian Tiger and Bengal Tiger vs. Siberian Tiger and Lion) If it were as simple as your claim, this article and the research that is it's subject would not exist.
- edgyquant 6y ago
  That’s definitely a possibility as well, though your right I wasn’t thinking about it.
didibus 6y ago
It's only since 2010 that there's evidence of interbreeding. So I don't know from where you're making all these assumptions. For a long time it wasn't known if they could interbreed, and it wasn't known if they did, or how common it would be. Now it is seemingly more plausible that they could and they did. Think about monkeys for example, it's not that common (though I think we're also realizing it might be more common than we first thought) for them to interbreed with other species of monkey.
- AstralStorm 6y ago
  Monkey species are likely much more different from each other than these Homo branches were though. Including courtship behavior and general lifestyle. They might have been more similar in the past, but now they're well speciated.
  - idoubtit 6y ago
    As far as I know, we don't know anything about the "courtship behavior" of Neanderthal or Homo Sapiens circa -50k. And I doubt anyone can compare their "general lifestyle" with certitude. It doesn't mean these claims are wrong, just that they are not based on facts.
- mcv 6y ago
  They're not unreasonable assumptions. Especially considering that there is evidence of interbreeding between homo sapiens and neanderthals. There's DNA evidence, and now there's fossil evidence. If they're genetically somewhat compatible, it seems likely that it would have happened, and not really a good reason why it wouldn't.
  - didibus 6y ago
    My problem was with saying: > What explanation should there be? Basically for every discovery of a possible human ancestry, we will need evidence of interbreeding, we can't just assume off course they all interbred. That's not science. So this evidence is relatively new, in 2010 we found modern humans have about 2% DNA, and now we found a fossil teeth that appears to have hybrid characteristics. My second issue is with people making assertions like: well off course probably they were tribal and at war with each other and would have a tradition of keeping the females of their enemies. Or off course they would have been attracted physically to each other. Etc. We can all make up whatever explanation we want to believe in, that does not make it true. We'll similarly need to slowly unravel evidence that points towards those explanations to get an accurate understanding. And I was simply saying this new teeth discovery gives us no insight into this. So it seems we still don't know why they'd have interbred, how common it was, if all occurrence could successfully lead to offspring, when it would have started to happen, etc.

acct776 6y ago

> There's no proof of any explanation of why Neanderthal and Human would have interbred. Serious question: do you happen to identify as asexual?

dang 6y ago
We've banned this account for breaking the site guidelines. Please don't make accounts to do that with. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. They're here: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- acct776 6y ago
  Have reviewed them again, for what is likely the dozen'th time - no objective problems. Could you share your subjective one? I was being serious, dang - did you read my comment in a positive light first?
- collyw 6y ago
  that comment looks perfectly reasonable to me
  - dang 6y ago
    Ok, interpretations differ, but I don't think the median reader would find sudden, random questioning of another commenter's personal sexuality "perfectly reasonable". I think they'd find it egregious and aggressive. Also, when we we ban an account, it's usually because of a repeated pattern of behavior, not just one comment. Had it just been one comment, I'd have warned rather than banned.
    - acct776 6y ago
      Saying "seriously" meant, as a security professional, I have a very legitimate, passionate interest in social psychology - not that I wanted to poke fun at someone. We're all here to analyze and learn from each other - or....should be. Please don't mistake my curiosity for malice.

cheph 6y ago

> The comments here are of especially low quality for some reason. Is this not for each reader to judge individually? > There's no proof of any explanation of why Neanderthal and Human would have interbred. Not sure of the relevance of this.

ljf 6y ago

Some people have as much as 4 percent neanderthal DNA (according to 23andme I am one of them).

chiefalchemist 6y ago

> There's no proof of any explanation of why Neanderthal and Human would have interbred. Proof? It's everywhere. Nature is mostly highly organized and predictable, with flashes of randomness. Is this not evolution itself? DNA "accidents" that prove useful (or not) and become dominant (or not). At just 2%, that's within reasonable expectation for random. It could have been higher in certain isolated pockets/communities. Unfortunately, those combinations weren't beneficial or perished for some other random reason (e.g., flash flood), and that evidence is lost in undiscovered fossils.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]