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'Simply did not work': Mating between Neanderthals and modern humans may have been a product of failed alliances, says archaeologist Ludovic Slimak | Live Science 2-7-24TG: The image of the Neanderthal when I was growing up was subhuman on some level. But in recent years, we've learned that Neanderthals and humans mated at multiple points. Not only did they mate, but obviously those offspring went on to have children such that our DNA has their DNA in it. How do you think that's changed our understanding of who they were? Or does it?LS: We use the fact that — look, all sapiens today, to different degrees, we all have a certain degree of Neanderthal DNA — and [use it to say], "OK, so they did not disappear. We all came together, and we created a new humanity."And, in fact, that's not what it's saying, the DNA, at all. When you are searching for ancient DNA [from 40,000 to 45,000 years ago] … all these early sapiens have recent Neanderthal DNA, and that's why we have [Neanderthal DNA] today. But when you reach and you try to extract DNA from the last Neanderthals, contemporaries of these early sapiens — let's say between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago — there's not a single Neanderthal with sapiens DNA. [Editor's Note: except a newly studied 122,000-year-old Neanderthal from Siberia].
'Simply did not work': Mating between Neanderthals and modern humans may have been a product of failed alliances, says archaeologist Ludovic Slimak | Live Science 2-7-24
TG: The image of the Neanderthal when I was growing up was subhuman on some level. But in recent years, we've learned that Neanderthals and humans mated at multiple points. Not only did they mate, but obviously those offspring went on to have children such that our DNA has their DNA in it. How do you think that's changed our understanding of who they were? Or does it?
LS: We use the fact that — look, all sapiens today, to different degrees, we all have a certain degree of Neanderthal DNA — and [use it to say], "OK, so they did not disappear. We all came together, and we created a new humanity."
And, in fact, that's not what it's saying, the DNA, at all. When you are searching for ancient DNA [from 40,000 to 45,000 years ago] … all these early sapiens have recent Neanderthal DNA, and that's why we have [Neanderthal DNA] today. But when you reach and you try to extract DNA from the last Neanderthals, contemporaries of these early sapiens — let's say between 40,000 and 50,000 years ago — there's not a single Neanderthal with sapiens DNA. [Editor's Note: except a newly studied 122,000-year-old Neanderthal from Siberia].
