The commercials featuring the Geico caveman made it seem as if a Neandertal (also neanderthal) could readily interact within a Homo sapiens society.... we may soon find out if that is true.
Recently, scientists at the Max Plank Institute of Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig Germany announced that they had completed the sequencing of the Neandertal genome.
Neandertals went extinct around 30,000 years ago - most likely because of an untimely interaction with the Cro-Magnon, our early ancestors. As was the case with most species on the planet, Neandertals did not fare well from their encounters with us. For some time scientists have believed that it may have been possible that Neandertals simply bred into the Cro-Magnon population and the two became genetically integrated. Based on the work of these German scientists, it is now clear that this did not happen. There is no significant evidence of a transfer of Neandertal genes into our species.
While nature intends for extinction to be permanent, our mastering of the molecular world has made it possible to bring some species back to life. Wolly mammoths, the dodo bird, and passenger pidgeons have all been nominated as species to be returned to the surface of the planet. We can now add a new species - the Neandertals.
Once the genomic analysis is complete, it may be possible to transplant Neandertal DNA into a chimpanzee, or even human, ovum. Since there is very little genetic difference between these three, there should be relatively few developmental probems. In fact, it is estimated that this could occur within the next few years at the nominal cost of around $30 million.
So what would we do with these Neandertals? We should decide that before we begin. Our initial instinct may be to put them in a zoo. But we should be careful about that decision. For although we may consider ourselves to be the evolutionary favorite - we may have just gotten lucky the first time. We now know that Neandertals possessed the gene for speech, FOXP2, and they had a larger brain size than ours, and had the at least the beginnings of culture. They may give us a serious run for our money this time around. Who knows, maybe this time they will let us integrate into their culture..... or maybe not.
By Michael Windelspecht | February 22nd 2009 08:06 AM | 9 comments | Print | E-mail | Track Comments
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Nicholas Horton | 03/20/09 | 13:05 PM
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http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0003972
See the graph showing H4 and it's effect on H. neandertalensis and H. sapiens.
Ed Pardo | 03/24/09 | 13:58 PM
Michael Windelspecht | 03/25/09 | 20:49 PM
Gerhard Adam | 03/25/09 | 21:23 PM
Michael Windelspecht | 03/27/09 | 06:58 AM
In any case, I agree with you and congratulate you on a good article.
Gerhard Adam | 03/27/09 | 13:13 PM
Anonymous (not verified) | 04/15/09 | 15:41 PM
Yes even an aircraft is ultimately derived from natural principles and materials available to us, and there is nothing supernatural about it even though I often think to include a sceptic on board the flying cigar tube is enough to doom it to a watery grave somewhere over the atlantic.
Nothing can be unnatural if we are all products of a set of physical laws, for all we do is just an extrapolation of that.
What we have when we suppose otherwise is in essence a mythos we have created, a modern day creation narrative that is not too different in genre to anything the Sumerians or Egyptians came up with for it's anthropocentricity.
I think one day we might discover that the sum of differences between ourselves and nematodes is less than the sum of differences between a republican and a democrat :)
Laurence Arnold | 04/15/09 | 16:26 PM
"...what is 'natural' and what is not ..."
There are distinctions that need to be accounted for even if it doesn't include all of human existence. There is clearly a distinction between something which has been left alone and something that has been modified by human intervention. While you can certainly argue that man is also "natural" and therefore whatever he does, by extension, must be natural.
However, the general sense of the word "natural" is to indicate something that is not subject to human control or intervention. If not this word, then another can take it's place but there is a fundamental usage to distinguish between the two.
Since human control has become so pervasive, it really doesn't follow that an aircraft is "natural" in the same way that a canyon would be. If we explored another planet and found a canyon there our reaction would be radically different than if we discovered an aircraft. Since the latter clearly could not occur by "natural" processes alone.
Part of the issue is also a sense that the "natural" world is out of balance because of modern humans. While it is certainly true that all species will modify their environment in some form or another (or at least affect it). There has always been a sense that there are forces and counter-forces which allow this "natural" balance to be maintained. Humans seem to have overwhelmingly shifted this, so once again there is a need to classify the difference between these two views with this word (or concept).
I'm not suggesting that there is such a thing as a "natural" balance, or that there is even something like "nature" that doesn't include humans, but rather I'm pointing out that there is a need to distinguish between those things human and those not and that is the only thing that should be implied by the use of the word "natural".
Gerhard Adam | 04/15/09 | 16:51 PM
