Who here thinks its possible that Cro-Magnons& Neandertals cross-mated in Western Europe in order to produce..

Question

the Modern Homo Sapiens of today (appx.30,000 years ago)?

Recent archeological evidence has determined that Neandertal and Homo Sapiens are 99.9% genetically identical, while Cro-Magnon is 100% identical. Neandertal disappeared 25,000 years ago, Cro-Magnon disappeared 10,000 years ago.
Where did they go?
Mysteriously, Caucasian Homo Sapiens appeared in Western Europe within the past 10,000 years...Hmmmm!
I invite you to think outside of the box a little...

I mean, look at horses, donkies and zebras, they can all mate and produce offspring, and they're not 100% genetically identical...

The primary difference between Cro-Magnon & Homo Sapiens is that Cro-Magnon were physically stronger than Modern Homo Sapiens, and had larger skulls, while Neandertals were shorter, stockier and hairier than modern humans...

Aren't we (Caucasian Europeans) kind of in-between?

Neandertals, who inhabited Western Europe at least between 25-100,000 years ago, buried their dead (and with flowers), as well as hunted large mammals in groups, which required a certain amount of speech...

Cro-magnon entered Europe 40,000 years ago from the Black Sea Region/Turkey, and disappeared 10,000 years ago by somehow merging genetically with modern-day Europeans...

I read recently, that the Neanderthal DNA sample which examined appx.10 years ago had more extreme DNA than 95% of the current human population of today...Which implies that 5% of the nearly 7 Billion people walking the earth today, have more extreme DNA from the mainstream population, than a 25,000 year old Neanderthal...That's 1 out of 20 people you meet, or nearly 350 million humans...Hmmm!

In Marine52's link, it said that a Cro-Magnon/Neanderthal Hybrid skeleton was found in 1999...and Cro-Magnon DNA is 100% identical with "Modern Man"...Hmmm!

Consider this...Cro-Magnon & Neanderthal because of their different appearance, could have had wars. This would be one explanation as to why certain burial sites contained the remains of both tribes!

Answer 1

The research at this time is in question as to what the relationship is between Neanderthal and modern man. As to Cro-Magnon man and Neanderthal that is virtually impossible to say. The attached excerpt showa a high probability of another scenario that I think is exciting and at best all that can be said is that research is on going.

NEANDERTHALS, MODERN HUMANS, AND DNA RESEARCH

Creationists defend the view that Neanderthals were nothing more than Homo sapiens—man. Evolutionists disagree, based mainly on studies of Neanderthal DNA. The July 11, 1997 issue of the journal Cell contained an article by Krings, et al., titled “Neanderthal DNA sequences and the Origin of Modern Humans” (Krings, et al., 1997). In that article, Dr. Krings and his coworkers explained how they successfully extracted mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA—which resides in the cell’s mitochondria or “energy factories”) from the humerus (right arm bone) of the original Neanderthal fossil discovered in 1856. The scientific team doing the research, led by Svante Pääbo of the University of Munich, chose to search for mtDNA rather than nuclear DNA, due in large part to the fact that whereas there are only two copies of DNA in the nucleus of each cell (one from each parent), there are 500 to 1,000 copies per cell of mtDNA. Hence, the possibility was much greater that some of the ancient mtDNA might have been preserved. Unlike nuclear DNA, mtDNA is passed on in an unchanged form from a mother to her offspring; the father’s mtDNA is left behind. Thus, since changes in mtDNA are the result of mutations rather than genetic mixing, evolutionists believe that mtDNA is a more accurate reflection of evolutionary history.

At the conclusion of their research, the scientists who were involved suggested that fewer differences in the mtDNA exist between modern humans, than exist between modern humans and the Neanderthal specimen. Based on those differences, evolutionists have suggested that the Neanderthal line diverged from the line leading to modern humans about 550,000 to 690,000 years ago, and that Neanderthals became extinct without contributing any genetic material to modern humans through intermarriage. As Marvin Lubenow explained:

The implications are that the Neandertals did not evolve into fully modern humans, that they were a different species from modern humans, and that they were just one of many proto-human types that were failed evolutionary experiments. We alone evolved to full humanity (1998, 12[1]:87).

When the first Neanderthal fossil was discovered, the creature was classified as Homo neanderthalensis, and as such was considered a separate species within the genus Homo. However, when additional evidence became available (in 1964) to suggest that Neanderthals were, in fact, humans, the Neanderthals were reclassified as Homo sapiens neanderthalensis (i.e., a sub-species of humans), and modern humans were given a sub-species designation as well—Homo sapiens sapiens. Now, there is a clamoring among evolutionists—based on the mtDNA evidence—to return to the original H. neanderthalensis designation. In his 1999 book, The Human Inheritance, Bryan Sykes of the Institute of Molecular Medicine at Oxford University, wrote:

The mitochondrial DNA pattern of the Neanderthal does indeed show that human mtDNA diversity was much greater in the past, and allows a calibration of the divergence time of the Neanderthal pattern from that characterising modern humans of about 600 ka [thousand years ago—BT]. Gene divergence precedes population and species divergence, but this figure is certainly compatible with interpretations from the fossil record that the Neanderthal lineage separated from our own at about 300 ka. Equally, it is incompatible with suggestions that Neanderthals were either uniquely ancestral to recent Europeans through evolution, or were partly ancestral through hybridisation (pp. 43-44).

In his 2000 book, Genes, People, and Languages, Luigi Cavalli-Sforza, professor emeritus of genetics at Stanford University and director of the International Human Genome Project, commented:

There is a considerable difference between the mtDNA of this Neandertal and that of practically any modern human. From a quantitative evaluation of this difference it was estimated that the last common ancestor of Neandertal and modern humans lived about half a million years ago. It is not quite clear where those common ancestors lived, but modern humans and Neandertal must have separated early and developed separately, modern humans in Africa and Neandertals in Europe. The results of mitochondrial DNA show clearly that Neandertal was not our direct ancestor, unlike earlier hypotheses made by some paleoanthropologists (p. 35).

We beg to differ! The results of mtDNA research do not “show clearly that Neandertal was not our direct ancestor.” Truth be told, a closer examination of the mtDNA research shows that it is not all it has been cracked up to be. The Krings study compared various DNA sequences from 1669 modern humans with one Neanderthal. Statistically, this not only is insignificant, but also incorrect. As Lubenow wrote in regard to this mtDNA research:

Statistics has been used to cloud the relationship between Neandertals and modern humans. It is improper to use statistical “averages” in situations where many entities are being compared with only one entity. In this case, 994 sequences from 1669 modern humans are compared with one sequence from one Neanderthal. Thus, there is no Neanderthal “average,” and the comparison is not valid (1998, 12[1]:92, emp. added).

The original study showed that the Neanderthal individual had a minimum of 22 mtDNA substitution differences when compared to modern humans. Yet mtDNA substitution differences among modern humans range from 1 to 24. As Lubenow correctly noted:

That means that there are a few modern humans who differ by 24 substitutions from a few other modern humans—two substitutions more than the Neanderthal individual. Would not logic demand that those few modern humans living today should also be placed in a separate species? To state the question is to reveal the absurdity of using such differences as a measure of species distinctions (12[1]:92).

Furthermore, as Maryellen Ruvolo of Harvard has pointed out, the genetic variation between the modern and Neanderthal sequences is within the range of substitutions within other single species of primates. She concluded: “...[T]here isn’t a yardstick for genetic difference upon which you can define a species” (as quoted in Kahn and Gibbons, 1997, 277:177). Geneticist Simon Easteal of Australian National University, noting that chimpanzees, gorillas, and other primates have much more intra-species mtDNA diversity than modern humans, wrote: “The amount of diversity between Neanderthals and living humans is not exceptional” (as quoted in Wong, 1998, 278[1]:32). In an article in Scientific American titled “Ancestral Quandary: Neanderthals Not Our Ancestors? Not So Fast,” Kate Wong observed: “The evolutionary history of mtDNA, a lone gene, is only so informative.” She then went on to quote geneticist Alan R. Templeton of Washington University, who admitted: “You can always construct a gene tree for any set of genetic variation. But there’s a big distinction between gene trees and population trees” since a population tree comprises the histories of many genes (278[1]:30). D. Melnick and G. Hoelzer of Columbia University even went so far as to state: “Our results suggest serious problems with the use of mtDNA to estimate ‘true’ population genetic structure...” (1992, p. 122). Why is this the case? Luigi Cavalli-Sforza himself admitted that “...the mitochondrial genome represents only a small fraction of an individual’s genetic material and may not be representative of the whole” (Mountain, et al., 1993, p. 69).

In an article titled “Recovery of Neandertal DNA: An Evaluation,” Marvin Lubenow (1998, 12[1]:95) offered several different alternative interpretations for the mtDNA data which have been used to suggest that Neanderthals and humans do not belong in the same species. Among those were the following.

1. Perhaps the single individual from whom the mtDNA was extracted was from a small, isolated group of Neanderthals. After all, the Neander Valley in Germany (where the fossil was discovered in 1856) is one of the northernmost Neanderthal sites, close to ice-age glaciers. Of the 345 Neanderthal individuals discovered thus far, only 14 are from Germany, and 12 of them were far to the south of where this individual was found.

2. Perhaps Neanderthals did, in fact, contribute to the modern gene pool, but their sequences disappeared through random genetic loss, selection, or both. Biochemist John Marcus has suggested that the human race could have had much greater mtDNA sequence variation in the past but, being genetically stronger, ancient humans were able to cope with increased genetic variation. Today, because our genome contains many more harmful mutations, we are a somewhat “weaker” race. Perhaps greater mtDNA variation was deleterious to health, and selective pressure therefore has reduced the amount of variation in present populations.

3. Perhaps the single Neanderthal individual from whom the mtDNA sequences were derived was at one extreme of a diverse spectrum in Neanderthals that included other more modern-like sequences. Future recovery of mtDNA from other Neanderthals (if that is possible) could help confirm whether or not this is true.

4. Perhaps our Neanderthal ancestors underwent a population “bottleneck” that wiped out a great deal of the original genetic variation. In support of such a concept, Kahn and Gibbons wrote in Science: “Living humans are strangely homogeneous genetically, presumably because...their ancestors underwent a population bottleneck that wiped out variations” (1997, 277:175).

Over the past several years, the scientific community has witnessed (not always to its liking, I might add) a serious “redefining” of the Neanderthal people. Some anthropologists of the past depicted them as culturally stagnant, if not outright stupid, individuals. In 1996, however, researchers were forced to reevaluate their long-held views on Neanderthals, due to the discovery of musical instruments and items of personal ornamentation (similar to our jewelry) [see: Hublin, et al., 1996; “Neanderthal Noisemaker,” 1996; Folger and Menon, 1997]. Furthermore, almost all anthropologists recognize burial rituals as being not just strictly associated with humans, but as a distinctly religious act as well. That being the case, the strongest evidence to date that the Neanderthals were, in fact, human, is that at four different sites where Neanderthal fossils were found, Neanderthals and modern humans were buried together! As Lubenow noted: “That Neandertals and anatomically modern humans were buried together constitutes strong evidence that they lived together, worked together, intermarried, and were accepted as members of the same family, clan, and community.... If genuine mtDNA was recovered from the fossil from the Neander Valley, the results have been misinterpreted” (1998, 12[1]:89). Indeed they have! In his 2001 book, The Evolution Wars, Michael Ruse noted: “Modern humans, that is Homo sapiens like us, were at one point thought all to come after Neanderthals, but now the thinking is that our remains date back almost as far, and there is evidence in some places that modern humans lived together with Neanderthals.... A new skeleton, apparently a modern human/Neanderthal hybrid, has just been discovered (Duarte 1999)” [2001, pp. 187-188, emp. added]. As archaeologist Randall White of New York University said regarding the Neanderthals: “The more this kind of evidence accumulates, the more they look like us” (as quoted in Folger and Menon, 18[1]:33). Indeed they do. And so they should!

Answer 2

Look, plenty of other people have cited very good scientific reasons. I'm going to cite a good not-so-scientific reason.

Have you ever seen a Neanderthal? I mean, not in person, of course - but a reconstruction or illustration. Would YOU wanna hit that?

Hey! Who's the chick with the freakishly heavy brows and sloping head? Hot!

I'm sure Neanderthals were totally attractive to one another, but I don't believe a Cro-Magnon would have been interested. Nor do I think the reverse is true - I'm not bad-mouthing Neanderthals.

Even today, we tend toward endogamy. And since the definition of a species are those that can produce fertile offspring, I think Cro-Magnon and Neanderthal would have been aware of how much of an "Other" they were. They had developed along parallel lines and would not have been interested in crossing over.

Hey, it's possible there was some mixing - long cold nights in a cave somewhere, or in the fevered imagination of Jean Auel. But I doubt it was ever enough to make a lasting impact on the genetic make-up of our species.

Answer 3

lol the asker chose the answer he wanted to hear, recent DNA discoveries point out the fact that neanderthals dna is homogeneous to that particular species, not related to huma or modern man DNA was extracted form the Neanderthal-type specimen found in 1856 in western Germany. By sequencing clones from short overlapping PCR products, a hitherto unknown mitochondrial (mt) DNA sequence was determined. Multiple controls indicate that this sequence is endogenous to the fossil. Sequence comparisons with human mtDNA sequences, as well as phylogenetic analyses, show that the Neanderthal sequence falls outside the variation of modern humans

Answer 4

Genetical studies so far would imply, that they didn't. BUT they only account for a very very very tiny little bit of the genome.
Some scientists are sequencing the whole genome of a neandertal. The want to have finished in 2008. Maybe this will shed more light on the matter. But then we will still have to keep in mind, that they only account for ONE individual.
Personally, i think it's possible that there has been a little gene flow between modern humans and neandertals, but it's rather unlikely.

Answer 5

I think it is remotely possible that they may have cross mated but I think the evidence suggests that it was pretty limited if it happened at all. I don't think they produced modern humans of today in any significant way. Modern humans have been around longer than that for over 100,000 years (somewhat arbitrary where you draw the line though). I think the jury is still out whether there was any hybrids but I don't think they played much of a role in our evolution. They probably simply became extinct IMO. Generally, the fossils are of one or another. There was recent controversial case where it appeared to have features of both but I am skeptical of that one.

Answer 6

No. CroMagnon man is just another group of homo sapiens, no different from us. It is not correct that CroMagnon + Neanderthal = modern humans. See:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/cromagnon.html

So far, there is no evidence that modern humans have any Neanderthal DNA; the seach goes on.

I see now that Marine52 gave a great answer - he gets my vote!

Answer 7

no, because neandertals were a different branch of primate development, humans as we are today were around when neandertals walked the earth. people (of any continent on earth because evolution of the species occurred before humans migrated out of africa and populated the earth) are related more closely with cro-magnon, because that group preceded homo sapiens. modern humans were not around when cro-magnon man walked the earth.

Answer 8

recent dna tests infact reveal that there does not appear to be any neandertal dna in the living human population... your facts are a little off...

sure we may be genetically similar, but we are also genetically similar with frogs, and apes, and pandas, and everything...

as for neandertals being hairier... theres no way of knowing how much hair something had from examining its bones... our ideas of how hairy they were are only guesses

the argument is an interesting one, you might want to look into your facts some more if you are interested in this topic

Answer 9

Unlikely. In fact, recent DNA evidence shows that Neanderthal man is not genetically related to modern man.

Answer 10

It is likely that they did mate, but unsuccessfully. It's been proven that they did inhabit several areas at the same time, so it's only logical to believe that some sex occured. Successful mating however, is a definite no. Impossible.

Answer 11

I don't think so. We know Neanderthal DNA, we know CroMagnon DNA, and Homo Sapien DNA is just not a cross between the two.