Do you believe that the red hair gene comes from Neanderthals?

Question

A study was conducted in the U.K. in 2001 which determined that the gene that causes red hair + freckles in people is a very old gene (dating 50,000 - 100,000 years).
Modern man (Cro-Magnons) didn't come about until approximately 40,000 years ago, so it is believed that the red hair gene comes from Neanderthals. What are your thoughts on this?

I think it's possible, especially because Neanderthals lived in a very cold environment (Ice Age Europe). Red heads are pale, and pale skin is associated with cold environments. I could easily picture Neanderthals being pale and having red hair.

Answer 1

no serious scientist could say, that modern humans and neanderthals never intermixed. They could only say, that surveys, this far, have no evidence for such an occurence. but as they were conducted on a very tiny bit of the dna (mtDNA, most notoriouisly) this surveys have no wight for this kind of assumption. they are nothing more than a hint so far. as you are reading this, some scientist are sequencing the genome of the neanderthal. (they hope have the whole genome by 2008).if they succeed and the validity of their research is confirmed, we will be able to shed some more light on the question of intermixing of these two human kinds. but we will haave to bear in mind, that we are comparing with the genome of only one individual of the neanderthals.

the medias tend to simplify the facts to the points to present them in a false light. we can not reject the hypothesis of the neanderthals and modern humans intermixing today.

As far as i remember, the assumption, that this red hair-gene (it's called ginger-gene, i think). is a "gift" from our neanderthal cousins is far fetched and merely based on a synchronicity. with the help of a so called molecular clock, the scientist tracked back the age of this gene to an age, when neanderthals were still around and concluded, that it must have come from that from this fact. That's all. Methodically that's very weak. modern humans did also exist at that time, so it could be inherent of the modern humans too. today, it is most parsimonious explanation and thus the most probable. however, as stated above, intermixing can't be refuted. If we do not, by chance, find the ginger-gene in the neanderhtal-genome, we may never know if it came from the neanderthals or not.

Answer 2

That sort of evidence is pretty circumstantial. Red hair can come about through co-evolution in different species. Roan horses, red pandas, Irish setters, and some humans all carry genes for red hair, but that doesn't mean that they rely on the inheritance of the same mutation from the same founder. It is also possible that the common forbearers of both Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon already had the gene.
Your premise is possible, but very much unproven and difficult to prove.

Answer 3

neanderthals and homo sapien sapiens (humans) never crossed bloodlines, there is no way that the red hair gene came from neanderthals.

it is true that neanderthals did co-exist with homo sapiens (our ancestors) for a few million years, however new DNA evidence has proven that their genes are so different that even if they had mated with a homo sapien, a child could not have been conceived.

had it been possible for a hybrid child to have been born, that child would not have had the ability to carry on the new bloodline. even in cats, hybrid lion-tigers (aka the Liger) cannot carry on the hybrid bloodline, it is natures way of keeping the bloodlines clean.

red hair and light skin is basically caused not only by climate, but by the process of natural selection, just like the entire evolutionary process, and even today in our eye color, hair color, and blood type.

Answer 4

Until the mid-1900s, many scientific theories of race held that all people of a specific racial designation had characteristic physical features that varied little from person to person. Example: two Australian Aborigines have distinctly blonde hair, a characteristic once thought to be restricted to the so-called Caucasian races. Anthropologists now know that all human populations have significant physical and biological variability, sometimes greater than the differences between racial groups.

Answer 5

Im redhead and are a Swede and in no way heard of this with the aid of fact the years in first/2d grade have been a redhead could be a tag for the ha ha. yet so ought to freckles and an unusual schoolbag. Bút I even have considered good Us stand-united statesridicule the old. "ha ha so slow he's ha ha" ..."seem she ought to kick back AGAIINNN HO HO HO" this is unusually grotesque. the pink hair is a gene right here in northwest-north europe. Many danes are redheads, ask your self how they try the morons?

Answer 6

the best info I have so far is that the Neanderthals did NOT pass any DNA to us. As much as I would like to believe otherwise.

Also, we all have a common ancestor in Africa like 50K YA, so yeah, all the light skinned people came later, like 40K or 30K YA when they got light skin for getting more sun to make vitamin D

Answer 7

the majority of our genes came from our ancestors - BUT the Neanderthal line died out and they are not our ancestors

they did ( of course ) have the same ancestors as us so they probably had all of the hair colors that we do - not just one

Answer 8

I have red hair and you must be mistaken. the bible says the universe is only 6000 years old!! Science is a conspiracy against god!!!

seriously though, as a guy with a genetics background, i am fascinated with the idea. i just cant find the name of the gene to research it on NCBI.nih.gov...

Answer 9

yes