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fergus -> RE: Neanderthals never interbred with Homosapiens. (11/16/2006 9:32:44 AM)
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Lumpers and spliters. Ever since Neandthal man was discovered we have wondered what place he had. At first, he was supposed to be the 'missing link' in which we evolved from. Then - through carbon dating and other techniques - is was shown we existed along side of him. So some say that we are Homo Sapiens and that he was Homo Neaderthal. Those are the people that suggest we are different species. In this case, we could not 'interbreed'. It does NOT mean that we could not produce offspring. For instance, the horse and the donkey can produce an offspring. THe mule. But 80% of mules are infertile - therefore, although the horse and the donkey are close, they are not the same species. Same thing with cows and buffalo, and with tigers and lions. There are others who believe we could be the same species with different xenotypes - Homo sapiens sapiens and Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. This would mean that we were the same species (but different breeds) with the ability to interbreed and produce fertile off-spring. This is similar to dogs - who have different breeds with RADICALLY different appearance and traits, yet can interbreed and produce offspring. Okay, so here it is, in the first case - there might be isolated instances of a 'mixed' off-spring, but with no ability to continue to produce children, plus the possible cultural/physical/territorial differences, it would not make any significant impact. In the second case - if we assume it was true - then there might have been a subsumation of the neanderthal into cro-magnon man through enough interbreeding and contact - the 'pure' strains of neanderthal would have died out due to 'survival of the fittest' while the cro-magnon man might have lived on with a continued strain of the neanderthal genome. However - there just is not enough evidence in genetics or fossil records. I am inclinded to think that even if complete interbreeding were possible, that it was profoundly unlikely to happen in a significant way becasue the fossil evidence is just not there - except in some really isolated cases. fergus
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