Red-headed Neanderthals? DNA says yes: study

[Lucinda]

CHICAGO (AFP) - Some of our cave-dwelling Neanderthal relatives probably had red hair and fair complexions, much like modern-day humans of Celtic origin, according to a study released Thursday.

The finding comes from the first such analysis of DNA evidence taken from Neanderthal fossils recovered from El Sidron in northern Spain and Monti Lessini, Italy.

An analysis of the DNA revealed that the ancient hominids carried a mutation in the MC1R gene that codes for a protein involved in the production of melanin -- a substance that gives skin its color and also protects skin against ultraviolet light...

Hofreiter said the number of red-headed Neanderthals was probably pretty small, possibly just one percent of the population.

But it was unlikely to have been tied to just a few ethnic groups and therefore red-heads might have been seen in any part of Europe or Asia where the ancient hominid lived...


http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20071025/sc_afp/scienceneanderthalsus_071025183936">MORE

[tridim]

1. I looove those redheads..

[Bucky]

3. Are you sure that's not just a picture of a neanderthal?

[Warpy]

2. I'm just waiting for evidence of interbreeding

because if it was even remotely possible, you can bet it happened.

Neanderthals have been found to have the genetic structure responsible for well developed language. They ritually buried the dead and cared for the handicapped among them.

They might very well be the best part of what we are.

[KittyWampus]

11. perhaps that's where the myth of Cain and Abel came from. Homo Sapien Sapien

killed of Neanderthaler brethren.

[Basileus Basileon]

13. I'd date the Cain and Abel myth to the neolithic, personally.

Homo Sapiens Sapiens replaced Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis with the dawning of the upper paleolithic; this included new tools but fundamentally similar food-production techniques (big-game hunting/scavenging and gathering in steppe environments). The mesolithic brought the bow and arrow as bigger game went extinct with climate change (and rising sea levels flooded previously-habitable areas, possibly leading to Great Deluge myths), and the neolithic brought farming. There is considerable evidence of warfare between mesolithic and neolithic communities; the neolithic ones, with the superior caloric production that crops gave, won out.

Early Hebrews were largely a seminomadic shepherding civilization, and were greatly distrustful of sedentary agriculture-based civilization; I see Cain and Abel as being metaphorical for that break. (Along similar lines, I would attribute the myth of Jacob and Esau to a similar cultural remembrance, in which the feast-or-famine lifestyle of the hunting society is eventually doomed to domination by the stable production of the agricultural.)

[KittyWampus]

19. your description of Early Hebrews as nomads vs. agriculture reminds me of Hopi v Navajo

Ranchers vs. Farmers :)

Guess that's an old story!

[Basileus Basileon]

20. Both old and universal.

After all, all that separates the development of various societies is their geography and what plants and animals they have around them. People are people :)

[Xithras]

22. There's a famous theory agreeing with just that, positing that Genesis is a cultural memory.

The theory went something like this: "Adam" doesn't actually represent the first man, but the first city founded by their culture. "Eve", the wife of Adam formed from his rib, is actually representative of the second formal city founded by that culture. It was formed when a portion of the "Adam" city migrated away and was therefore "formed from its body", and was subservient to its larger city.

Cain and Abel are representative of the two competing influences within their civilizations, and may be one of the oldest recorded stories of human warfare...the faint echo of a story about a herding culture and a farming culture fighting over bounty and the fact that prime herding spots also make prime farming spots.

[Basileus Basileon]

23. An interesting theory.

A little bit screwy with the Adam and Eve business, since (with modern exceptions, of course) cities are not "founded" by a culture but rather develop organically from the needs and excess production of farming communities. Perhaps "Adam" would then be a shared parent society, and "Eve" a splinter formed during the early neolithic expansion. They have (to an extent) a mutually intelligible dialect, and those between the two consider Adam to be the prime source of all human progress, and Eve subordinate born of Adam. Between the centers of both societies are many daughter societies of farmers and herdsmen, competing for primacy. The farmers, with their increased military capacity, are able to establish supremacy. The herdsmen are driven out--but from the perspective of their descendants, it was the farmers who left, since it is natural to consider your land of birth to be the center of everything, regardless of history.

[Xithras]

25. Not always. There is precedent for the Eve part.

While the "Adam" city would have grown organically ("from the Earth"...heh), there is evidence of the deliberate foundation of cities in early human societies. Once cities were established and food sources stabilized, populations had a tendency to grow. In the early world there was a LOT of empty space, and a number of human kingdoms dealt with this issue by recruiting settlers from the original city to leave and colonize a new city. In other words, city X has 5000 people and its resources can only support 5000, so we have 2000 (either by choice or order) travel to a new site and found a new city. This permitted population expansion, improved trade, and increased the wealth of everyone involved with both cities. Since increased wealth meant more taxes for the ruling class, it was beneficial for leaders to do this.

There's evidence for this type of expansionism in Sumeria, so it's entirely reasonable to postulate that it also occurred in the proto-semitic race that gave rise to everyone from the Arabs to the Sumerians and Jewish peoples. Interestingly, there is evidence that the proto-semitic homeland was on the Arabian peninsula, which dovetails nicely with the theory that "Eden" actually refers to a now lost river valley that once existed under the Persian Gulf. That wide and well-watered valley would have been the ideal place to found a new civilization, with fertile flat soil in the valley bottom surrounded by the shepherd paradise in the grasslands of the Arabian peninsula. The sea levels rose, "Eden" was lost beneath the sea, and the grasslands dried to the desert we see today.

The people of Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden :)

It's a theory that cannot be proven, but is entirely plausible given the history of the area and the known geological and climate conditions at the time these cultures first arose. The fact that the story of both Adam and Eve AND the great flood myth exist in numerous cultures around the region also indicates some kind of common history, and hints at a possible past event.

[Xithras]

12. mtDNA testing has already largely discounted it.

There's a few indications that it may have happened on a very limited scale, but tests of mitochondrial fossil DNA have already discounted the idea that Neanderthals were our ancestors in any large percentage. There may have been an occasional rare breeding, which would probably mean that some humans today have a tiny remnant percentage of Neanderthal DNA, but there is no way the majority of the human population experienced it. Unlike modern humans, who evolved and arose in our present form in Africa, Neanderthals evolved in Europe from homo Heidelbergensis, an earlier form that predates both our species. There is no evidence to suggest that they ever ventured into Africa any further than the Mediterranean coast. The human ancestors of modern day blacks and asians would have had almost no contact with them at all. That pretty effectively rules them out as potential ancestors for all of mankind.

[heidler1]

16. To me it's a cinch that it happened. The only way it might of worked out

is the offspring might of been sterile. That could have been a added sexual attraction for many pairs. However it seems like if sterility is 100% in these offspring the data appears to dispute the species difference.

[Bucky]

4. How interesting that modern pictures of them usually show them swarthy & dark haired.

By interesting I mean "damning" of course.

[Xithras]

9. Not quite true. Here's a recreation of a Neanderthal child.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Neanderthal_child.jpg

There are many modern recreations that show them as they
probably looked, which is fairly similar to humans. It's been
mentioned many times over the years that a Neanderthal could
walk down the street of any modern city, wearing modern
clothes, and not gain a second glance. Unless they shaved
their heads to display their cranial differences, most of us
wouldn't notice that they weren't human. Their skin colors,
similarly, would have been just as varied as ours is, ranging
from light brown to pale white.

They weren't human, but they were very close.

[Bucky]

18. Picture didn't come out

I think you mean this...
... charming muppet.

[Xithras]

21. He's a cute kid.

I wouldn't think twice about it if one of my kids dragged him home and introduced him as a new friend.

[Basileus Basileon]

15. Yeah, early Homo Sapiens Sapiens would have been much darker in skin tone.

The Neanderthals would have been adapted to a high-latitude climate, and so would likely be somewhat fair. Modern humans, on the other hand, were emigrants from the Middle East. Depictions of Neanderthals being swarthy and furry are largely the results of early-20th-century popular-science writers, who frankly didn't know shit; they also usually show them being knuckledragging and dull-looking, despite them having fine posture and being extremely athletic hunters.

[Bucky]

17. They might look a bit like Mark Warner

Not to be tacky or anything. But I always wondered if he wasn't a missing link.

[Xithras]

5. Really not all that surprising.

Humans and Neanderthals were very close genetically (the two species slit only a few hundred thousand years ago), and would have been exposed to the same evolutionary conditions. Pale skin and hair are beneficial to a species in the far northern climate zones. Since both Humans and Neanderthals lived in that same area, it makes sense that they would have similar traits.

By the way, before anyone asks: The reason the Inuit have darker skin is that they traditionally lived ON the snow much of the year. As any pale skinned snowboarder can vouch for, light skin and snow combine to produce some nasty sunburns. Darker skin helps to avoid that. The Neanderthal and the ancestors of modern caucasians evolved in the sub glacial areas...they lived around the edges of the snowfields, not on them.

[SoCalDem]

6. The original ginger-snaps

:)

[The Straight Story]

7. MMmmmmm Red Heads

:)

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

8. Raise your hand if you at first glance read that as "Red-state Neanderthals."

:hi:

[tabasco]

10. Neanderthals should have been the ones to survive.

They couldn't have fucked the planet any harder than us.

[Basileus Basileon]

14. They did their best.

No animal practices self-restraint; we're just the first to be unlimited by competition. Once we developed full language, there really wasn't any hope for anything else. It's something of a fortunate occurrence that we're able to project our protective social emotions (guilt, shame, responsibility) to abstractions so well, otherwise we'd certainly doom ourselves entirely. As it stands, we've got a fighting chance.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

24. If you look at the geographical distribution of Neanderthals, it's almost

exactly where people with blond to brown hair. pale skin, and blue eyes are found, namely Europe and the Middle East.

In a northern area that is dark much of the year, being light-skinned helps a person get sufficient Vitamin D. If there were Neanderthal/Cro-Magnon hybrids and the two species were close enough so that the offspring would not be sterile, then they would have had an advantage in the survival stakes, because of their lighter coloring and their "hybrid vigor."

Wouldn't it be ironic if the features that the Nazis touted as being traits of a "master race" were actually indications of Neanderthal ancestry? :evilgrin:

[kineneb]

26. oh, goody

you mean somewhere back in the family tree we had a Neanderthal? I match your description. Makes one pause to think of the possibilities.

[kittykitty]

27. Red headed, tartan wearing mummies were found in China.

They were found in China’s desert 3,000 years ago. I think it was on Nova on PBS some years ago. What were they doing there??? I don't think they were Neanderthals. Maybe descendants of them, though.