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Re: Modern Neanderthals?
Bob Keeter (b_keeter@owens.ridgecrest.ca.us)
10 Oct 1996 13:38:07 GMT
nmm1@cus.cam.ac.uk (Nick Maclaren) wrote:
<snip>
>
>Not quite on this matter, has the vexed question of whether the
>Neanderthals died out or were bred out been settled yet? I.e.
>are we QUITE certain that we do not have some Neanderthal ancestry
>ourselves?
>
I dont think that the original question was intended to be
"Is there any Neanderthal DNA running around?" it was "Is
there bands of recognizable, primitive Neanderthals hiding
out in the Pamirs or Himalayas?". Personally I belive that
there might be more Neanderthal ancestory in people of
European extraction (myself included!) than we might imagine.
As for the original question, even if interbreeding were
the mechanism of Neanderthal demise, after 30k years of
blending, even if only under duress or at long intervals
as might occur with captives etc, the racial identity would
start to disappear and the bands would become simply
primative groups of H. sapiens sapiens with a lot of
Neanderthal ancestors. On the other hand, if you believe
that interbreeding was impossible, the gene pool would
have simply been too small and the band would disappear.
regards
bk
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