MetaFilter posts tagged with neanderthal

no h?

kliuless — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 05:54:55 -0800

Twilight of the Neandertals - "Some 28,000 years ago in what is now the British territory of Gibraltar, a group of Neandertals eked out a living along the rocky Mediterranean coast. They were quite possibly the last of their kind [meanwhile] around 30,000 years ago, the number of modern humans who lived to be old enough to be grandparents began to skyrocket." (via) BONUS -Logarithmic timeline of the universe -Timeline of knowledge-representation -Homo sapiens to 10,000 BC -The Economic History of the Entire World -Cruel Windfall: How Wars, Plagues, and Urban Disease Propelled Europe's Rise to Riches -Slouching Towards Utopia: Twentieth Century Economic History

Fred, Barney and Betty Pending

Marisa Stole the Precious Thing — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 12:04:31 -0800

Meet Wilma, the first model of a Neanderthal based in part on ancient DNA evidence. The findings indicate that at least some Neanderthals had red hair, pale skin, and even freckles, adding to the relatively recent evidence that Neanderthals did not interbreed with humans (previously), might have been outbred into extinction by Homo sapiens, and were probably not as stupid as we thought.

Neanderthal-Human Babies

wantwit — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:24:42 -0800

Any admixture would have to be driven by male Neanderthals. Two years ago we discussed morphological evidence of nontrivial interbreeding. Since then Neanderthal DNA has been examined for genetic support for this model of human evolution, largely contradicting the belief in Neanderthal contribution to modern humanity. Indeed any contribution from the Neanderthal gene pool to the evolution of modern humans might be very rare and indeed it appears that the best candidate gene thus (MC1R) far likely was a result of convergent evolution. EXCERPT: It is now clear that the level of interbreeding between the two populations, if any, was so low that we are unlikely to find any neutrally evolving Neanderthal alleles in modern populations. However, it is possible that low levels of interbreeding could have led to the adaptive transfer of some alleles between species (introgression). Beneficial alleles can persist in interspecific hybrids even when the hybrids are less fit than either parent population as long as the hybrids are fertile [37]. As hybrids back-cross to a parent population, most introduced alleles will be lost to drift or to negative selection; some beneficial alleles, however, may be maintained in subsequent generations. Claims have been made for adaptive introgression from Neanderthals into populations of modern humans at the microcephalin [38] and the tau [39] loci. Some proponents of the multiregional model have gone so far as to suggest that adaptive introgression was a primary source of beneficial alleles during the evolution of modern humans [40]. While we regard this latter idea as unsupported by the available Neanderthal and human genome sequences, it is worth considering the possibility that a very limited amount of adaptive introgression has occurred. MC1R is a good a priori candidate for adaptive introgression. It is thought that light skin is favored in Europe as a compromise between the need for vitamin D synthesis and the need to prevent folate photolysis, both caused by UV radiation [41]. Several genes affecting skin color are known to have been positively selected in European populations [21,22], though studies of MC1R evolution have come to different conclusions [22,42,43]. Jolly has pointed out that the easiest way for early modern humans entering Europe to evolve light skin would be to acquire the necessary genes from Neanderthals rather than to evolve them de novo [44]. If the low-activity MC1R variant is positively selected in Europe, then MC1R presents a good opportunity to test for evidence of adaptive introgression from Neanderthals to modern humans. However, although Neanderthals and modern Europeans share a low-activity MC1R phenotype, the genotype is different (see above), which argues against significant adaptive introgression. The hypothesis could be tested more rigorously using Neanderthal sequence from other loci affecting skin color with a clearer signal of positive selection in Europeans.

Did Female Derring-Do Contribute To The Neanderthals' Demise?

amyms — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 18:29:57 -0800

Stone Age Feminism? Among Neanderthals, hunting big beasts was women's work as well as men's, so it's a safe bet that female hunters got stomped, gored, and worse with appalling frequency. And a high casualty rate among fertile women - the vital "reproductive core" of a tiny population - could well have meant demographic disaster for a species already struggling to survive among monster bears, yellow-fanged hyenas, and cunning Homo sapien newcomers. Via.

The End is at 2 o'clock

raaka — Sun, 06 Jun 2004 14:27:26 -0800

Size does matter. The size of your species' telomeres. Reinhard Stindl proposed a new theory for extinction -- the internal clock model. "It could explain the disappearance of a seemingly successful species, like Neanderthal man, with no need for external factors such as climate change."

skallas — Thu, 02 Aug 2001 17:50:10 -0800

Great, yet unsettling, CGI reconstruction of a Neaderthal child's head. (via robotwisdom)