Note: To write
"Neanderthal" with the "h" is in the old german style,
because "thal" in Germany was the old word for "valley". To
write "Neandertal" without the "h" is the modern german
form of the word, because today (in the last century), in Germany
"valley" is written "tal". But because the different
authors use one or the other form, BOTH forms will be used here (according the
original authors used them.)
DNA Shows
Neandertals Were Not Our Ancestors
7-11-97, University
Park, Pa. –
A team of U.S. and German researchers
has extracted mitochondrial DNA from neandertal bone showing that the
neandertal DNA sequence falls outside the normal variation of modern humans.
"These results indicate that
neandertals did not contribute mitochondrial DNA to modern humans," says
Dr. Mark Stoneking, associate professor of anthropology at Penn State.
"neandertals are not our ancestors."
The research team includes Matthias
Krings, graduate student, and Dr. Svante Paabo, professor of zoology,
University of Munich; Dr. Ann Stone, postdoctoral fellow, University of
Arizona; Ralf W. Schmitz and Heike Krainitzki of Rhineland Museum, Bonn,
Germany; and Stoneking.
though they may have lived at the same
time, neandertals did not contribute genetic material to modern humans.
Since 1991, an interdisciplinary project
of the Rhineland Museum, headed by Schmitz, has focused on the neandertal-type
specimen. This specimen was found in 1856 near Dusseldorf, Germany. As a part
of this project, a sample was removed for DNA analysis.
The researchers used a method of
overlapping short strands of DNA to obtain a mitochondrial DNA sequence of 378
base pairs.
To begin amplification, the researchers
used two human primers -- small pieces of DNA that match the beginning of the sequence
to be amplified.
"The first two human primers we
chose worked," says Stoneking. "It turns out this was a lucky
choice."
To check that the amplified DNA was
really neandertal, the researchers prepared primers based on their extracted
sample and ran them on numerous human DNA samples.
"The neandertal primers did not
amplify any human DNA," says Stoneking. "Most human primers would
probably not work on neandertal DNA."
The researchers compared the neandertal
sequence with 2,051 human sequences and 59 common chimpanzee sequences. They
found that the differences in neandertal DNA occurred at sites where
differences usually occur in both humans and chimps.
When the researchers looked at the
neandertal sequence with respect to 994 human mitochondrial DNA lineages
including Africans, Europeans, Asians, Native Americans, Australians and
Pacific Islanders, they found the number of base pair differences between the
neandertal sequence and these groups was 27 or 28 for all groups.
"While neandertals inhabited the
same geographic region as contemporary Europeans, the observed differences
between the neandertal sequence and modern Europeans do not indicate a closer
relationship to modern Europeans than to other contemporary human
populations," says Stoneking.
Taken from: http://www.psu.edu/ur/NEWS/news/Neandertal.html
Excerpts from:
* Cell, Vol.90,
19-30, July 11, 1997
Neandertal DNA Sequences
and the Origin of Modern Humans
Matthias Krings, Anne
Stone,t Ralf W. Schmitz, Heike Krainitzki, Mark Stoneking, and Svante Pääbo
“1- Neandertals are a
group of extinct hominids that inhabited Europe and western Asia.
2- They coexisted with
modem humans... without contributing any genes.
Distributions of
pairwise sequence differences among humans,
the neandertal,
and chimpanzees.
X axis, the
number of sequence differences; Y axis, the percent of
pairwise
comparisons. Comparison of the distribution of 986 human lineages between
themselves (human-human), between the 986 lineages and the Neanderthal mtDNA
fragment (human-neandertal), and between the 986 human lineages and 16 common
chimpanzee lineages (human-neandertal). The
average number of differences among humans is 8.0 ± 3.0 (range 1-24), that
between humans and Neanderthals 25.6 ± 2.2 (range 24-34), and that between
humans and chimpanzees, 55.0 ± 3.0 (range 46-67). Thus, the average number of mtDNA sequence differences between modem humans
and the neandertal is about three times that among humans, but
about half of that between modern humans and modern chimpanzees.
3- Both pairwise
sequence comparisons and phylogenetic analyses (where the pressumptions have
errors of unknown magnitude associated with them) tend to place the neandertal
mtDNA sequence outside modern human mtDNA variation. (This
concluding remark) is also in agreement with assessments of the
degree of morphological difference between neandertal skeletal remains and
modern humans that would classify neandertals and modern humans as separate
species."
/////////////////////////////////////////////
http://personales.com/mexico/guadalajara/RV1960/2brains.gif
This
illustration, from Ian Tattersall's, The Last Neanderthal (208 pages “Rev
edition” (December 1999),Westview Pr., shows the brain extremities of Neandertals in comparison
to modern man.
Image of a
modern weightlifter's femur, on the right, contrasted with the thickness of a
neandertal femur on the left. This two pictures were taken by Erik
Trinkaus.
There
are two different varieties of neandertals: 'classical' and 'progressive'. The
morphology which we have been discussing is primarily that of 'classic'
neandertals, much like the ones in the photos above. 'Progressive' neandertals,
on the other hand, do not have as many strong features as the 'classic's' we
have been talking about. They had less pronounced brow ridges, less mid facial
projection, and they were more tall and gracile than the 'classic's. Their bone
structure was also not as robust as their counterparts. In fact, some believe
that 'progressive' could possibly represent (sterile, because of the
mtDNA fact) hybrids of neandertals and Homo sapiens.
Taken
from: http://sapphire.indstate.edu/~ramanank/index.html
Some of the “classic” neandertal morphology
characteristics are:
1. The skull is lower, broader, and elongated in contrast to
the higher doming of a modern skull.
2. The average brain size (cranial capacity) is larger than
the average modern human by almost 200 cubic centimetres.
3. The forehead is low, with heavy brow ridges curving over
each eye.
4. There is a slight projection at the rear of the skull
(occipital bun).
5. The cranial wall is thick compared to modern humans.
6. The facial architecture is heavy, with the mid-face and the
upper jaw projecting forward (prognathism).
7. The nose is prominent and broad.
8. The frontal sinuses are expanded.
9. The lower jaw is large and lacks a definite chin.
10. The body bones are heavy and thick and the long bones
somewhat curved.
Regarding the “progressive” or
“advanced” neandertals:
Their shape is sometimes explained as the result
of gene flow (hybridization) with humans. This hybridization
would lead, maybe, to sterile descendants. Those sites having ‘advanced’
Neandertals are:
·
Vindija Cave remains, Croatia
— twelve individuals.1
·
Hahnofersand frontal bone,
Germany — one individual., 2, 3
·
Starosel’e remains, Ukraine,
CIS — two individuals.4
·
Stetten 3 humerus, cave
deposits, Germany — one individual.5
·
Ehringsdorf (Weimar) remains,
Germany — nine individuals.6
Completing that hybrids, there are at least 107
individuals from five sites who are usually grouped with fossils of humans.
However, they are often described as ‘archaic moderns’ or stated to have
‘Neandertal affinities’ or ‘Neandertal features’. These five
sites are:
·
Oberkassel remains, Germany —
two individuals.7
·
Mladec (Lautsch) cave
remains, Czech Republic — minimum of 98 individuals.8, 9, 10
·
Velika Pecina Cave skull
fragments, Croatia — one individual.11, 12
·
Bacho Kiro Cave mandibles,
Bulgaria — two individuals.13
·
Pontnewydd Cave remains,
Wales — four individuals.14
"But
we now have instances in which Neanderthal types are found intermixed with, and
quite clearly contemporaneous with, men of completely modern type. This is true
of the discoveries on Mount Carmel in Palestine, which revealed a mixed
population that made any clear distinction between the two types impossible in
this instance (Howells, William, Mankind So Far, Doubleday Doran,
New York, 1945. Howells refers to the skull finds in the following terms:
"It is an extraordinary variation. There seems to have been a single
tribe ranging in type from almost Neanderthal to almost sapiens.")"
"Alfred
Romer observed in commenting on the collection of fossil finds from Palestine (Mugharet-et-Tabun,
and Magharet-es-Skuhl), "while certain of the skulls are clearly
Neanderthal, others show to a variable degree numerous neanthropic (i.e., 'modern
man') features" (Romer, Alfred, Man and the Vertebrates,
University of Chicago Press, 1948, pp.219, 221). Subsequently he
identified such neanthropic skulls as being of the general Cro-Magnon type in
Europe ‹ type of man who appears to have been a magnificent physical specimen.
He proposed later that the Mount Carmel people "may be considered as
due to interbreeding of the "dominant race" (Cro-Magnon Man)
with its "lowly predecessors" (as we know now: Neanderthal,
an hominid or humanoid, but not a human predecessor)."
"As
an extraordinary example of the tremendous variability which an early, small
isolated population at the periphery can show, one cannot do better than refer
to the finds at Choukoutien in China, from the same locality in which the
famous Pekin Man was found. These fossil remains came from what is known as the
Upper Cave, and consist of a group of seven people who appear to be members of
one family: an old man judged to be over 60, a younger man, two relatively
young women, an adolescent, a child of five, and a newborn baby. With them were
found implements, ornaments, and thousands of fragments of animals."
"A
study of these remains has produced some remarkably interesting facts, the most
important of which in the present context is that, judged by cranial form, we
have in this one family a representative Neanderthal Man, a "Melanesian"
woman who reminds us of the Ainu, a Mongolian type, and another
who is rather similar to the modern Eskimo woman."
"In
commenting on these finds, Weidenreich expressed his amazement at the range of
variation. Thus he wrote: "The surprising fact is not the occurrence of
paleolithic types of modern man which resemble racial types of today, but their
assemblage in one place and even in a single family considering that these
types are found today settled in far remote regions" "
"He
then proceeded to point out that the upper Paleolithic melting pot of
Choukoutien "does not stand alone." In Obercassel in the
Rhine Valley were found two skeletons, an old male and a younger female, in
a tomb of about the same period as the burial in Choukoutien. Weidenreich said,
"The skulls are so different in appearance that one would not hesitate
to assign them to two races if they came from separate localities." So
confused is the picture that he observed (Weidenreich, Franz, "Homo
Sapiens at Choukoutien," News and Notes, in Antiquity,
June, 1939, p.87)."
Taken
from: The Custance Library
References:
1. Ahern, J.C. and Smith, F.H., 1993. The transitional nature
of the late Neandertal mandibles from Vindija Cave, Croatia. American
Journal of Physical Anthropology, Supplement 16, p. 47.
2. Tattersall, I., Delson, E. and Van Couvering, J., (eds),
1988. Encyclopedia of Human Evolution and Prehistory, Garland Publishing,
New York, p. 241.
3. Stringer, C. and Gamble, C., 1993. In Search of the
Neanderthals, Thames and Hudson, Inc., New York, pp. 179–180.
4. Ref. 2, p. 56.
5. Oakley, K.P., Campbell, B.G. and Molleson, T.I., (eds), 1971.
Catalogue of Fossil Hominids, Trustees of the British Museum — Natural History,
London, Part II, p. 209.
6. Wolpoff, M. and Caspari, R., 1997. Race and Human
Evolution, Simon and Schuster, New York, pp. 177,182.
7. Boule, M. and Vallois, H.V., 1957. Fossil Men, The
Dryden Press, New York, p. 281.
8. Smith, F.H., Falsetti, A.B. and Liston, M.A., 1989.
Morphometric analysis of the Mladec postcranial remains. American Journal of
Physical Anthropology, 78(2):305.
9. Wolpoff, M.H. and Jelinek, J., 1987. New discoveries and
reconstructions of Upper Pleistocene hominids from the Mladec cave, Moravia,
CCSR. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 72(2):270–271.
10. Minugh, N.S., 1983. The Mladac 3 child: aspects of cranial
ontogeny in early anatomically modern Europeans. American Journal of
Physical Anthropology, 60(2):228.
11. Smith, F.S., 1976. A fossil hominid frontal from Velika
Pecina (Croatia) and a consideration of Upper Pleistocene hominids from
Yugoslavia. American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 44:130–131.
12. Ref. 5, Part II, p. 342.
13. Ref. 2, pp. 56,87.
14. Klein, R.G., 1989. The Human Career: Human Biological
and Cultural Origins, The University of Chicago Press, Chicago, pp.
236–237.
MORE NEANDERTAL INSIGHTS:
http://www.geocities.com/fdocch/new2.htm
Nephilim according to the studies of Ethelbert W. Bullinger:
http://www.geocities.com/fdocch/nephilim.htm
Neanderthal = Nephilim? (maybe the Neandertal can be considered
just one of the diverse breeds of the Nephilim):
http://www.geocities.com/fdocch/neander.htm
Adaptive Comparisons of Cave Animals:
http://www.geocities.com/kubyimm3/adap1.htm
