We have recently found that Neanderthals are more closely related to humans than previously thought. At least 1/5 of Neanderthal genome are in humans today. This influences skin, hair and diseases people have today. Neanderthals lived around Europe and Asia until they became extinct about 40,000 years ago. Modern humans were set apart from Neanderthals between 550,000 and 765,000 years ago.
Recently, we have found more of Neanderthals interbreeding with ancestors of modern humans. About 1.5-2.1 percent of modern human DNA outside of Africa is originally from Neanderthals. Although the amount of DNA in humans from Neanderthals is about 2 percent, it is not all the same. “If you are 2 percent Neanderthal and I’m 2 percent Neanderthal, we might not have the same Neanderthal DNA between us,”- Benjamin Vernon, population geneticist at the University of Washington in Seattle. Different people may have inherited different parts of the Neanderthal genome. 35 to 70% of the Neanderthal genome could exist in people today; it is just part of our genome as well.
Some say that interbreeding between early homosapians and modern humans played a key role in humankind. Early homosapians lived around many other human-like species. They were all closely related. Experts say that modern humans arose from Africa and spread across Europe and Asia. The roots of modern humans clearly trace back to not just Africa, but to all of the “Old World” which consists of Africa, Europe, and Asia.
Skin, hair, and nails have been altered by stone-age interbreeding between homosapians because of genes affecting an increase in the making of keratin. Keratin influences changes in hair, skin, and nails. Keratin may have been the key to survival outside of Africa. Sriram Sankararaman, a computational geneticist from Harvard medical school believes this theory. Sankararaman and his colleagues propose that Neanderthal genes contribute to modern illnesses such as lupus and Chron’s disease.
20% of Neanderthal genome shows up on various places in the DNA of living East Asians and Europeans Benjamin Vernot and Joshua Akey of the University of Washington in Seattle say. In conclusion, Neanderthals have been decided to be more closely related to humans than previously thought, and more research will be done.
What do you think they will find out about Neanderthals?
Why are people interested in Neanderthals?
Do you think there is more or less Neanderthal DNA in humans?
- Neanderthals to humans
This article was very interesting. I never knew that there was actually a group of ‘humans’ so many years ago. I did some further research on the topic and found out that Neanderthals were the first species to ever bury their dead and sometimes mark their graves. It’s really weird to think about how much things gave changed since then.
Here is the link to the article I found: http://humanorigins.si.edu/evidence/human-fossils/species/homo-neanderthalensis