Oi, everyone say "Thank you uncle Dave and auntie Deirdre Neanderthal".
Interbreeding with Neanderthals helped homo sapiens survive after they went extinct multiple times as Neanderthal DNA had some advantages.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwydgyy8120o
Interbreeding with Neanderthals helped homo sapiens survive after they went extinct multiple times as Neanderthal DNA had some advantages.
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cwydgyy8120o
Comments
Only the tiny percentage in each of us lives on.
different species can sometimes hybridize if closely related enough, but there are usually significant consequences
https://www.science.org/content/article/africans-carry-surprising-amount-neanderthal-dna
Fascinating article.
This article is garbage. Africans didn't interbreed with Neanderthals and last time I checked, they didn't go extinct.
the article isn’t claiming that humans wouldn’t have survived at all without Neanderthals, but that if humans were going to migrate out of Africa, they needed those genes to help them adapt to the environment
I could go on, but this is not a question that comes across as well intentioned or as a meaningful response to my reply, so I’m going to leave it at that
Even Google agrees
🤣🤣🤣🤣
Science fiction
They adapted to the environment in Eurasia by having very dense, robust bodies, but that has very high energy costs (like 4,000 kcal/day), so food shortages would’ve been devastating
They were not that different from homo sapiens.
and improved anything is entirely dependent on the context. just bc something was beneficial 40kya, doesn’t mean it is now
also Aboriginal Australians do have Neanderthal DNA (as well as Denisovian)
That doesn't mean that Africans don't have Neandertal DNA (just on average less of it).
https://www.science.org/content/article/africans-carry-surprising-amount-neanderthal-dna
But people of all subspecies move, including into Africa, and as the article mentioned any genetic advantage and disadvantage move with them.