On Mon, 3 Apr 2000 21:30:52 -0000 "glenn morton" <mortongr@flash.net>
writes:
> Hi Dave,
>
>
> I will post again what I think is some good evidence of Neanderthal
> interbreeding with modern humans. First off, the early Anatomically
> modern
> peoples, people who were very modern, showed a suite of Neanderthal
> characters which declined over time. One trait is the Horizontal
> oval
> mandibular foramen. Note the use of this with Vindija:
>
> "The human remains from Vindija level G1, are fragmentary and not
> extensive, but they clearly represent Neanderthals. This assessment
> is
> based on the presence of a true surpaorbital torus on Vi 308, the
> morphology
> of the Vi 307 zygomatic, the large size and shoveling pattern on the
> Vi 290
> incisor, and the retromolar space and horizontal-oval mandibular
> foramen on
> Vi 207." ~ Ivor Karavanic, and Fred H. Smith, "The Middle/Upper
> Paleolithic
> interface and the relationship of Neanderthals and early modern
> humans in
> the Hrvatsko Zagorje, Croatia." Journal of Human Evolution,
> 34(1998):223-248, p. 239
>
> The retromolar space is practically definitive of Neanderthal and
> only a
> couple of fossils outside of Europe have the horizontal oval
> (H-O)mandibular foramen. However, the early modern humans who
> invaded
> Europe from AFrica (where they didn't have the H-O mandibular
> foramen
> suddenly got it when they entered Europe? If there weren't any
> inbreeding,
> where on earth did they get this trait?
>
> Wolpoff and Caspari state:
>
> "The mandibular foramen, for example, is an opening on the inside
> of the
> vertical part of the mandible for the branch of the mandibular nerve
> that
> reaches the teeth. This is the uncomfortable spot a dentist tries
> to reach
> with a nerve block for the mandibular teeth. In the H-O form the
> rim of the
> opening has an oval shape with the long axis of the oval oriented
> horizontally. Alternatively, in the normal form the rim may be
> broken,
> along with its lower border, by an unbridged vertical groove. The
> broken
> rim is the usual form in living populations.
> "The horizontal-oval mandibular foramen is virtually unique to
> European
> fossils. It is found in almost no other remains, including Late
> Pleistocene
> Africans and the Skhul/Qafzeh sample, the putative alternate
> ancestors of
> the post-Neandertal Europeans. But the horizontal-oval foramen has
> a
> significant frequency in the subsequent post-Neandertal populations
> of
> Europe and only decreases to rarity in recent Europeans. The exact
> form of
> the foramen opening is an example of nonadaptive equivalents. It is
> important that the foramen be there (the nerve must enter the
> mandibular
> body), but it makes absolutely no difference which form its rim
> has." ~
> Milford Wolpoff and Rachael Caspari, Race and Human Evolution, (New
> York:
> Simon and Schuster, 1997), p. 296-297
>
> To believe as you suggest that all Neanderthal/human hybrids were
> sterile
> requires that one believe that simply being in Europe creates the
> genetic
> pattern for retromolar spaces and H-O mandibular foramens! I for
> one find
> it silly to believe that. And the clearly modern, Vogelherd men, men
> who
> created art, had a retromolar space! See Kate Wong, "Who Were the
> Neanderthals," Scientific American April 2000, p. 100. Once again,
> a modern
> human with a Neanderthal trait. Does being in Europe create these
> traits
> which don't exist in Africa? Interbreeding can account for
> it--sterility
> can't.
>
The foramen is your best evidence. But the incissor shape, if I recall
correctly, is also found in American Indians.
> Secondly, , we can't know which of the cases is with the
> Neanderthals with
> absolute certainty. It very well be that they were reproductively
> isolated
> from us and thus left no offspring. Likewise, like the American
> Indian in
> the US, their genes could easily have been swamped by invaders. This
> apparently happened with the original inhabitants of Europe prior to
> the
> Neolithic revolution. A recent study in Nature (ill et al,
> "Y-Chromosome
> Variation and Irish Origins," 404(2000):351) They studied the Y
> chromosome
> and found that certain genes show a cline from the Middle East to
> Ireland in
> which fewer and fewer of the natives were of the middle-eastern
> haplotype.
> What does this show? They say this:
>
> "This cline mirrors other genetic gradients in Europe and is best
> explained
> by the migration of Neolithic farmers from the Near East. When the
> surname-divided Irish data are appended to this cline, it continues
> to the
> western edge of Europe, with hg1--the putative pre-Neolithic western
> European variant--reaching its highest frequency in Copnnaught
> (98.3%)"
> Ibid.
>
> Just because the genes of the pre-neolithic Europeans were swamped,
> it
> doesn't mean we can say that they weren't human. And all this
> swamping took
> place in the past 6000 years. Think of the swamping that can take
> place in
> 30,000. I think we Christians are loathe to accept the Neanderthal
> as our
> equal for theological reasons--not because of the data.
>
> Third, Blond hair and blue eyes provides some protection from
> frostbite. The
> Inuit and other polar peoples protect themselves by means of more
> veins and
> arteries in their hands and feet. The only place that blond hair and
> blue
> eyes is found is in the former range of the Neanderthals. Why
> should we pay
> attention to this? Because the black african invaders (who were the
> first
> modern humans in Europe) would have been ill-equipped to handle the
> cold.
> Black soldiers in Korea had a higher frostbite rate than brunette
> Europeans
> who had a higher rate than blonds. The only real source for the
> skin and
> hair of the Europeans would have been intermarriage. Our African
> ancestors
> would have had black skin and at least in southern Europe, they
> should have
> retained it.
>
Here there is a logical problem. Premise 1: Blonds resist frostbite.
Premise 2: Neanderthals resisted frostbite, presumably. Therefore,
Neanderthals were blond. Invalid logically, with an added problem since
Inuit meet the problem differently.
As for skin color, what is the evidence that the most ancient Africans
were very dark skinned? I note that the Bushmen of southern Africa are
lighter than the central Africans. Also, as one moves north in Africa,
skins become lighter. One may well ask how great the selective pressure
would be on those exposed to the stronger insolation of equatorial
regions and those exposed to the more attenuated raddiation of northern
Europe. I note that in Asia also the northern Chinese are lighter than
the southern Chinese. Apparfently skin color could change during the
course of an African migration.
> This is no different than what has happened in Europe. The Benin
> type sickle
> cell anemia which comes from Nigeria and provides protection against
> malaria, has been incorporated into the European genes in Greece and
> Sicily
> (G. Schiliro et al, "Sickle Hemoglobinopathies in Sicily," American
> Journal
> of Hematology, 33(1990):81-85, p. 84) and Portugal (~ C. Monteiro,
> et al,
> "The Frequency and Origin of the Sickle Cell Mutation in the
> District of
> Coruche/Portugal," Human Genetics 82(1989):255-258, p. 255) and yet
> the
> Greeks, Sicilians and Portuguese retain the native ethnic
> characters. It
> would not be hard to envision the Neanderthals passing on to us,
> their blond
> hair which provides a protection from frostbite that the Africans
> would have
> had no reason to have. The only reason that the Portuguese retained
> their
> ethnic traits is because they are able to swamp all African Genes
> except for
> the sickle cell trait which has high selective pressure. Blond hair
> would
> have had a high selective pressure in glacial Europe.
>
This also is problematic, for there are, if I recall correctly, some 20
mutations that produce the sickling of thalassemia and sickle cell
disease. Since the heterozygote confers resistance to malaria, one
expects selection pressure on the gene where malaria is endemic, as it is
along the northern Mediterranean coast. It did not have to be transfered
from an African source, but could have arisen independently.
> Fourthly, animals that have been evolving along separate paths for a
> million
> years (coyote and dog) can still form viable offspring. (Carles
> Vila et al,
> "Multiple and Ancient Origins of the Domestic Dog," Science,
> 276(June 13,
> 1997):1687-1689, p. 1689) Since Neanderthals and sapiens were
> separated for
> only about 300,000 years what exactly is the problem?
>
> Fifthly, even if one excludes neanderthals, there is still the
> problem that
> the human genome shows evidence of insertions that are hundreds of
> thousands
> of years old. Wallace writes:
>
> "Regardless of the origin of the putative AD missense mutation
> mtDNAs, the
> nuclear CO1 and CO2 sequences reported in this study are interesting
> in
> their own respect. They were transferred from the mtDNA to the
> nucleus long
> after the hominid lineage separated from the chimpanzee and gorilla
> lineages. Because the time of insertion of the sequence into the
> nucleus is
> estimated to be about 770,000 years before present, the transfer of
> these
> sequences might have occurred in archaic Homo." Douglas C. Wallace,
> et al,
> "Ancient mtDNA sequences in the Human Nuclear Genome: A Potential
> Source of
> Errors in Identifying Pathogenic Mutations," Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci.,
> 94(1997):14900-14905, p. 14905
>
> Now if we have to deal with genetic events which are 700,000 years
> old, why
> are we worried about the Neanderthal?
>
> >
> > None of this answers the question of the extermination of
> Neanderthals,
> > whether it was ecological, where they were outcompeted or
> overheated by
> > climatic changes, or fratricidal, where they were deliberately
> killed. I
> > exclude their elimination by novel diseases, for that seems more
> likely
> > to decimate than to exterminate a population. I note the Black
> Death in
> > Europe and the introduction of measles and small pox into the
> Americas as
> > evidence.
>
> Neanderthals had huge noses (like my wifes Uncle Cecil) Some have
> suggested
> that as the climate warmed, they became great breeding grounds for
> disease.
> To me, the details of morphology clearly shows that there was
> interbreeding.
> If there was interbreeding, then we must deal with the Neanderthals
> as
> brothers.
>
I cannot disprove this. But I also have to note that the evidences you
cite are not convincing. That Neanderthal and modern man belong to the
same genus is clear. But this does not require that they belong to the
same species. Indeed, though _Canis lupus_, _C. latrans_ and _C.
familiaris_ seem to be interfertile, they also seem to be different
species.
As for big noses as breeding grounds for bacteria that anihilated a
population, I'll take that _cum multis granis salis_.
Dave
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