Are the Basque Neanderthals?

Answer 1

Some scientits called Robert J Sawyer has published a book "Hominids" , a fictional account of an interaction between Sapiens humans and Neanderthals, but drawing on the latest scientific research about Neanderthals.

This research included studies of DNA extracted from bones of Neanderthal remains. The account mentions five months of painstaking work to extract a 379-nucleotide fragment from the control region of the Neanderthal's mitochondrial DNA, followed by use of a polymerase chain reaction to reproduce millions of copies of the recovered DNA.

This was carefully sequenced and then a check made of the corresponding mitochondrial DNA from 1,600 modern humans: Native Canadians, Polynesians. Australians, Africans, Asians, and Europeans. Every one of those 1,600 people had at least 371 nucleotides out of those 379 the same; the maximum deviation was just 8 nucleotides.

But the Neanderthal DNA had an average of only 352 nucleotides in common with the modern specimens; it deviated by 27 nucleotides. It was concluded that Homo sapiens and Neanderthals must have diverged from each other between 550,000 and 690,000 years ago for their DNA to be so different.

But you are not obliged to believe his conclusions and some people do not. Most Scientist think that Basques are -on the basis of genetic studies on Y chromosome DNA haplogroups and X chromosome microsatellites- the most direct descendants from prehistoric Western Europeans.

Answer 2

Neanderthal, Cro-Magnon Are Men

EVOLUTION OR VARIATION? "...a Neanderthaler is a model of evolutionary refinement. Put him in a Brooks Brothers suit and send him down to the supermarket for some groceries and he might pass completely unnoticed. He might run a little shorter than the clerk serving him but he would not necessarily be the shortest man in the place. He might be heavier-featured, squattier and more muscular than most, but again he might be no more so than the porter handling the beer cases back in the stock room." EVOLUTION, Time-Life Nature Library.

LARGER BRAIN, William Howells, Harvard, "The Neanderthal brain was most positively and definitely not smaller than our own; indeed, and this is a rather bitter pill, it appears to have been perhaps a little larger." MANKIND SO FAR, p.165

"FULLY HUMAN," Mat Cartmill, Duke U., Pres., Amer. Asso. of Phys. Anthropology, "I tend to think they [Neanderthals] had fully human language. After all, they had larger brains than those of most modern humans, made elegant stone tools, and knew how to use tools." Discover, 11/98, p.62

MODERN CAME FIRST, O. Bar-Yosef, Peabody Museum, Harvard, B. Vandermeerch, U. Bordeaux, "Modern Homo sapiens preceded Neanderthals at Mt. Carmel. ...modern looking H. sapien had lived in one of the caves some 50,000 to 100,000 years ago, much earlier than such people had been thought to exist anywhere. ...The results have shaken the traditional evolutionary scenario, producing more questions than answers." Scientific American, p.94, 4/1993

Answer 3

The Neanderthal species is extinct; there are no living Neanderthals. However, traces of their genetic makeup has been found in many homo sapiens (..us) populations.

Answer 4

No, but i heard the Ukranians were brutes....