Thread: species (human)

There is strong evidence that modern humans interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovians. Shouldn't all three be classified as one specie with homo sapiens as a sub-specie?

Depends on whos definition of species and subspecies one uses. and how politic one wants to be about taxonomic subdivisions of Homonini member taxa

Side question: Why aren't the oldest European cave paintings from Neanderthal cultures? They older artwork seems to be of much higher quality than younger ones, which could be explained by Neanderthals having much larger brains than contemporary and later sapiens. So maybe the younger artwork of less naturalistic quality is copy work by later sapiens cultures with a smaller brain and therefore lesser artistic capability?



Chauvet Cave, 31,000 BP


Altamira, 30,000 BP


Lascaux, 15,000 BP


Rouffignac, 14,000 BP

Cave Art, Ice Age: Characteristics, Types, Meaning

Is there any archeological way to falsify any connection between Neanderthals and paleolithic art?

Not unless one invokes a "MASSIVE GLOBAL CONSPIRACY" that kills off any researcher that notes the artists is different.

Neanderthals died out around 40,000 years ago, during a period of climate instability when the global temperatures oscillated between temperate and frozen within single lifespans. This may have stressed Neanderthals' immune systems, making them vulnerable to diseases H. sapiens carried from temperate (African) climes, but were themselves more-or-less immune to.

The definition of "species" is a fluid thing. It's often used to define populations which do not interbreed due to range and location, rather than biology. Lions and tigers can interbreed, but rarely do outside of zoos. It's probably the same with H. neanderthalenis and H. sapiens.

The beauty of cave paintings may have more to do with how much time people spent holed up for the winter.

Originally Posted by NoCoPilot

Neanderthals died out around 40,000 years ago, during a period of climate instability when the global temperatures oscillated between temperate and frozen within single lifespans. This may have stressed Neanderthals' immune systems, making them vulnerable to diseases H. sapiens carried from temperate (African) climes, but were themselves more-or-less immune to.

The definition of "species" is a fluid thing. It's often used to define populations which do not interbreed due to range and location, rather than biology. Lions and tigers can interbreed, but rarely do outside of zoos. It's probably the same with H. neanderthalenis and H. sapiens.

The beauty of cave paintings may have more to do with how much time people spent holed up for the winter.

My understanding is that two animals belong to the same species if they can interbreed AND their offspring can breed. Lion plus tiger offsprings are sterile. Similarly horse plus donkey (mules) offsprings are also sterile.

Originally Posted by mathman

My understanding is that two animals belong to the same species if they can interbreed AND their offspring can breed. Lion plus tiger offsprings are sterile. Similarly horse plus donkey (mules) offsprings are also sterile.

That is exactly correct, mathman. But it is common for the female hybrid to be fertile and able to reproduce with one or both of the original male species.

These two articles might be of interest.
The Denisovan genome and fossils

Fossil Hominids: mitochondrial DNA

Just because a brain is larger it does not make it more clever/artistic. An elephant has a larger brain than a human, and my wife's brain is much small than mine as she is smaller in stature she is definitely my equal or better, academically artistically
Really, to assess the "normal" size of a brain of a particular species, at a given time, one needs a representative sample of skulls of particular ages. one or tow skulls, or even a hundred or more, is not enough.

We are in the middle of a vast reassessment of the evidence for evolution using new DNA technologies. We can trace a persons inheritance with increasing accuracy and decode individual genomes in a rapid and cheap way. We can then compare genes using sophisticated statistical techniques

Not sure if I can relate this to the topic at hand but I was surfing Netflix just last night and I came across a show about the Scottish Wildcat. Native to Scotland and slightly larger than the ordinary house cat, the Wildcat species is endangered. Recent census' have the numbers as low as 100 left in the wild. However DNA testing has revealed the species now totally consists of hybrids, the result of interbreeding with domesticated cats. Interbreeding has also produced a separate hybrid known as the Kellas Cat, primarily black in color, not like its striped ancestors. Wiki referred to this cat as a landrace. I had to look it up but landrace refers to improvement through selective agricultural methods. Not sure if this implies human interference and i'm not going to rule out natural selection.

Regardless. Could the human race have developed similarly? Could we be a landrace?

I think we are all roughly 3% neanderthal. Some of the children in my class at school could have been a lot more

Originally Posted by mathman

There is strong evidence that modern humans interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovians. Shouldn't all three be classified as one specie with homo sapiens as a sub-specie?

your definition of species may be somewhat outdated - the hooded crow and the carrion crow were until recently considered subspecies, but are now thought to be proper species
despite some interbreeding along the contact line between the two in Scotland the two retain their separate core populations and as such are considered definite species

a limited degree of gene pool admixture is not sufficient to merge species if their core populations remain inviolate

Originally Posted by marnixR

Originally Posted by mathman

There is strong evidence that modern humans interbred with Neanderthals and Denisovians. Shouldn't all three be classified as one specie with homo sapiens as a sub-specie?

your definition of species may be somewhat outdated - the hooded crow and the carrion were until recently considered subspecies, but are now thought to be proper species
despite some interbreeding along the contact line between the two in Scotland the two retain their separate core populations and as such are considered definite species

a limited degree of gene pool admixture is not sufficient to merge species if their core populations remain inviolate

What then is the definition of a species?

the last paragraph in my earlier post gives an indication of my definition : if two populations remain distinct throughout many generations then they are separate species, even if there is the occasional cross-breeding

Originally Posted by ZeroZero

I think we are all roughly 3% neanderthal. Some of the children in my class at school could have been a lot more

There was a guy in my high school graduating class that I would bet had more like 12% neanderthal DNA.

Fuck yeah! It’s marnix! Yo man, what’s up? Long time, no see.
Oops’, language. Umm’, biology?
Hornings Hideout, a disc golf course in Oregon, has the largest known population of albino peacocks. And a bunch of regular morph peacocks. And I have seen many piebalds there myself. We have two identifiable groups of birds with identifiable hybrids, all in one area. But the genotypical difference is likely, barely, a small handful of genes.
Does biology have a rigorous definition of species?

when it comes to extant species it boils down to the interbreeding criterion, although as has been shown with this example, that type of definition has morphed over time, most recently because of the results of DNA studies

when, as is the case in palaeontology, you can only rely on the morphological species concept, that’s obviously less refined (look up cryptic species for examples)

Originally Posted by mathman

What then is the definition of a species?

This article has a good overview of the concept of species, the difficulty of defining it, and some of the definitions used: Observed Instances of Speciation

Originally Posted by Falconer360

Originally Posted by ZeroZero

I think we are all roughly 3% neanderthal. Some of the children in my class at school could have been a lot more

There was a guy in my high school graduating class that I would bet had more like 12% neanderthal DNA.

was he a Republican?

Originally Posted by ZeroZero

Originally Posted by Falconer360

Originally Posted by ZeroZero

I think we are all roughly 3% neanderthal. Some of the children in my class at school could have been a lot more

There was a guy in my high school graduating class that I would bet had more like 12% neanderthal DNA.

was he a Republican?

Big ole guntoting conservative Christian. He's probably a creationist even. He's like 6'3 and his head was so large that for high school football they had to special order a helmet for him. His forehead stuck out farther than his nose, once watched him walk into a sliding glass door and his forehead saved him from breaking his nose lol. No joke. He now lives over in Montana and works at a car dealership.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.for...iscovered/amp/

A three species hybrid of Warbler.

as a side note to this debate, being able to tell whether a population represents a separate species can be tricky, since that would mean drawing a clear dividing line in what is essentially a continuum of separation

Because horses and donkeys can interbreed. as can lions and tigers. it doesn't mean they are the same species.

Moreover, having a bigger brain doesn't denote more intelligence. By that logic, elephants should be smarter than us. Or blue whales. It's possible that the Neanderthals could have been the painters, but we don't know.

Horse and donkey as well as tiger and lion interbreeding lead to sterile offspring, so they are not the same species. Neanderthals and homo sapiens could be the same.

If they lead to sterile offspring, there woildnt be the volume of neanderthal dna in the human genome that there is