Re: Neanderthal vs Cro-Magnon




ErikW wrote:
Spanish Paranoia wrote:
In other posts it has been said that:
"the number of "inter-breedings" between the time
Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon most likely co-habitated and the present
time would have wiped out any traces of Neanderthal mtDNA from today's
humans."

The initial data contained no mtDNA from neandertals. There then was a
nice paper by Nordborg explaining why only large contributions of
Neandertal DNA could be statistically excluded (under a siimple neutral
model). Since then more work has been done. Take a look at this paper:

Currat M, Excoffier L (2004) Modern Humans Did Not Admix with
Neanderthals during Their Range Expansion into Europe. PLoS Biol 2(12):
e421

http://biology.plosjournals.org/perlserv/?request=get-document&doi=10.1371/journal.pbio.0020421

http://makeashorterlink.com/?Z595126AD

(I'll admit that I don't follow this particular debate closely.)

ErikW


Interesting article. Bound to say, though, that the remark:
"The finding that even minute amounts of interbreeding between
Neanderthals and modern humans should lead to a massive introgression
of Neanderthals' mtDNAs into the Cro-Magnon gene pool is somehow
counterintuitive and deserves further explanations."
certainly is true. The model did assume that the intermixing
occurred only among groups at the forefront of the expansion.
However, considering the length of time it took and the fact that a
hundred miles is not a great distance for hunters, I would think that
some ebb and flow would occur.
Consider that the Apache and the Navajo are related to the Dog Ribs, or
consider the movements of some germanic tribes in historic times in
Europe.
Need to read the article more carefully, though.
Regards
John GW


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    (talk.origins)
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    (talk.origins)
  • Re: New Cytochrome C evidence
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    (talk.origins)