4 ms·

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

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.
  - mcv 6y ago
    > 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. I totally agree there. Don't assume too much about circumstances and lifestyles that we don't know about. Although I think that line was mostly a list of speculative examples, and not intended as a definitive explanation. But given humans, it's not too crazy to assume some of them will have sex. And given that we've known for about 10 years that some humans (Europeans especially, I believe) have some small amount of Neanderthal DNA, clearly they did, and were at least somewhat interfertile.
saalweachter 6y ago
> It's only since 2010 that there's evidence of interbreeding. But Clan of the Cave Bear was published in 1980!
detritus 6y ago
Curious. I remember a friend's brother, who is a geneticist, lightly rubbing me about being part-Neanderthal when I was barely in university, which was a good 20+ years ago. (I'm a ginger, he's Mediterranean - joke's on him now we know that a smattering of Neanderthal genes weren't just for us Northern barbarians).

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.
- mcv 6y ago
  > 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. I totally agree there. Don't assume too much about circumstances and lifestyles that we don't know about. Although I think that line was mostly a list of speculative examples, and not intended as a definitive explanation. But given humans, it's not too crazy to assume some of them will have sex. And given that we've known for about 10 years that some humans (Europeans especially, I believe) have some small amount of Neanderthal DNA, clearly they did, and were at least somewhat interfertile.

saalweachter 6y ago

> It's only since 2010 that there's evidence of interbreeding. But Clan of the Cave Bear was published in 1980!

detritus 6y ago

Curious. I remember a friend's brother, who is a geneticist, lightly rubbing me about being part-Neanderthal when I was barely in university, which was a good 20+ years ago. (I'm a ginger, he's Mediterranean - joke's on him now we know that a smattering of Neanderthal genes weren't just for us Northern barbarians).