NEANDERTHAL MAN IN THE NEWS AGAIN

A friend emailed me the following article, wishing to bring it to my attention, and I thought this was significant enough to pass along, since it formed a component of research in Genes, Giants, Monsters, and Men.

All Non-Africans Part Neanderthal, Genetics Confirm

What interests me here is both the "contextual corroboration" and yet the precautionary note that must inevitably accompany it. In Genes Giants Monsters and Men I noted that the ancient Mesopotamian texts that seem to imply the genetic engineering of man indicated that the "divine" or "gods" component came from the male, and the "human" component from some sort of hominid female.

As the article points out, there is a haplogroup within the human x-chromosome of non-African humans that is, indeed, part Neanderthal, and this, broadly, would seem to fit the ancient stories...

...but only broadly, for there is another consideration to be borne in mind here, and that is that it is precisely because of the apparent genetic compatibility between homo sapiens sapiens and homo neanderthalensis that some scientists are questioning if they even represent two distinct species of the genus homo at all. The second problem to be faced and squarely acknowledged here is that this really says nothing in favor of the "Mesopotamian scenario" either, since any corroboration of that scenario would require the presence of some DNA not identifiably those of any terrestrial primate, including man. And, given the nature of the Mesopotamian legends, this is likely only to be found in human males.

What the article end up doing is merely not contradicting the Mesopotamian scenario, but nothing more. It remains to be scene if and when genetics will ever verify the other portion of it, and if we'll even be told.

But there is another possibility that looms in the article, and I hope you caught it. The Neanderthal genome has been sequenced, that is to say, an extinct species is now available to the whole panoply of the techniques of genetic science, and - in a real Jurrasic Park scenario - that includes cloning, a literal resurrection from the tombs of genetic death.  We are, in other words, one step closer again to the specter of making those ancient mythologies true, if not in ancient times, then in our own.

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Joseph P. Farrell

Joseph P. Farrell has a doctorate in patristics from the University of Oxford, and pursues research in physics, alternative history and science, and "strange stuff". His book The Giza DeathStar, for which the Giza Community is named, was published in the spring of 2002, and was his first venture into "alternative history and science".

7 Comments

  1. GrandpaNate on August 7, 2011 at 12:43 pm

    People just don’t understand the obvious: People came out of Africa and met the Neanderthals. They were both greatly impressed with their new friend’s knowledge. They visited, fed each other, hunted together, fished together, slept together and made babies together. And those babies, due to hybrid vigor, genetic enhancement and the combined knowledge of their dual ancestry, were healthier, smarter, more ambitious; simply more capable, than any peoples which had ever existed theretofore, upon this planet. They thrived, learned quickly, multiplied, and rapidly spread over the Earth. And I have little doubt that they took excellent care of their Neanderthal and African grand-parents as long as they were around. Proof; lies in the fact, that for hundreds of million years, humanity progressed at a snail’s pace, until the Neanderthal and Africans mated in Asia and Europe. From that point in history, in far less than a hundred thousand years, humanity progressed into our modern societies.



  2. jon on August 2, 2011 at 4:18 pm


  3. marcos anthony toledo on July 29, 2011 at 12:06 pm

    This strikes me as the nigger factor both red as well as black an a denial of Europeans as to who is in their family you forgot the Devenisovans are in the mix as well. Their is even a question as to how far east the Neanderthals into Eurasia settlements reached. May I give you a more recent example if you were to marry and have childern with a woman from a certain part of France you might fid your children with a purple spot at the bottom of their spine that is only know to be if their ancestry from the far east or the natives of the americas. also if you were to marry into a family in certain parts of Switzland and had to attend your father in law funeral you might find you participated a fueneral rite that can trace itself to Mongolia and by the the way Attila the Hun is a Hungreian nstional folk hero. So watch out who you fall in love with in Europe.



  4. MattB on July 29, 2011 at 2:53 am

    http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2011/07/29/3281254.htm

    A swell of modern humans outnumbered Neanderthals in Europe by nearly 10 to one, forcing their extinction 40,000 years ago, suggests a study of French archaeology sites.

    Scientists have long debated what caused the Neanderthals to die off rather suddenly, making way for the thriving population of more advanced Homo sapiens who likely moved in from Africa.

    The latest theory, published in the journal Science, is based on a statistical analysis of artefacts and evidence from the Perigord region of southern France, where lies the largest concentration of Neanderthal and early modern human sites in Europe.

    Researchers at the University of Cambridge found more sites where modern humans settled, larger settlement areas, greater densities of tools and bigger amounts of animal and food remains, suggesting Neanderthals were crowded out.

    Homo sapiens also likely had more elaborate social networks and possibly sharper brains, as evidenced by the stone tools, jewellery and artwork they left behind which was much more advanced than Neanderthal creations.

    Their arrival in such large numbers likely forced Neanderthals from their habitual settlements and into places where food and shelter were harder to find, says lead author Professor Paul Mellars of Cambridge University.

    “It was clearly this range of new technological and behavioural innovations which allowed the modern human populations to invade and survive in much larger population numbers than those of the preceding Neanderthals across the whole of the European continent,” he says.

    “Faced with this kind of competition, the Neanderthals seem to have retreated initially into more marginal and less attractive regions of the continent.”

    The last traces of Neanderthals, who had survived on the continent for some 300,000 years, have been uncovered in caves in modern-day Spain and Gibraltar.

    Mellars suggests a final death blow may have been delivered by a harsh cold snap, a theory that has been debated in the scientific community for many years.

    The Neanderthals’ extinction may have been “accelerated further by sudden climatic deterioration across the continent around 40,000 years ago,” he says.



  5. Tartarus on July 27, 2011 at 3:56 pm

    I think interbreeding with anatomically modern humans and Neanderthals proves that the two are in fact the same species, just as many scientists have been saying for years.
    The idea that the Neanderthals are a separate species is an outdated idea. The fact that certain scientists continue to cling to this idea simply shows that old pet theories are hard to get rid of.

    As physicist Max Planck once said: “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it”.
    This is already happening today, as we see can already see a newer generation of scientists supporting the idea that the Neanderthals were indeed just a sub-species of Homo sapiens, and not a separate species.



  6. Onagadori on July 27, 2011 at 3:23 pm

    Mr. Farrell,
    I wanted to point out something about this finding. As an amateur geneticist, there is a point I see in this story that may be easily missed. While the Neanderthal extraction is found on the X-chromosome of modern humans, there is no Neanderthal extraction in the MtDNA. This means that the Neanderthal extraction would have most likely entered H. sapiens through male Neanderthals who produced hybrid F1 daughters who then bred back into H. sapiens, thus carrying Neanderthal recombinant genes into the H. sapiens lineage on the X-chromosome. If a female Neanderthal had been the source, then we would most likely see that reflected in the MtDNA as well as the X-chromosome. Remember, males carry one X and one Y chromosome. We pass the Y to our sons and the X to our daughters, but we do not pass MtDNA to either.



  7. photios on July 27, 2011 at 8:09 am

    I think most human geneticists think that there was still some interbreeding compatibility with homo neanderthalis and homo sapiens sapiens. Given the out of Africa hypothesis, which seems pretty sound, they conclude that homo sapien sapiens interbreeded with homo neanderthalis, for a given period of time, in Europe and elsewhere.



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