Comments on: When Did Human-Neanderthal Hook Ups End? http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2012/10/when-did-human-neanderthal-hook-ups-end/ Keeping You Current Fri, 24 May 2013 15:39:04 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.4 By: SMP http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/2012/10/when-did-human-neanderthal-hook-ups-end/comment-page-1/#comment-1379 SMP Fri, 19 Oct 2012 22:01:10 +0000 http://blogs.smithsonianmag.com/smartnews/?p=5315#comment-1379 There is one rather obvious explanation - that humans interbred with a Neanderthal-human hybrid that existed in the overlap of the Neanderthal and early human ranges in the Middle East from about 200,000 years ago before the two species diverged too much. If European Neanderthals had diverged from humans for 500,000 years as estimated, then it may be the case that humans could not produce viable and fertile offspring with European Neanderthals. This is the only plausible explanation for why humans should have stopped interbreeding 47,000 years ago, and why the distibution of Neanderthal genes is not more prevalent in modern Europeans than Asians, which is what would be expected since Neanderthals lived mainly in Europe. There is one rather obvious explanation – that humans interbred with a Neanderthal-human hybrid that existed in the overlap of the Neanderthal and early human ranges in the Middle East from about 200,000 years ago before the two species diverged too much. If European Neanderthals had diverged from humans for 500,000 years as estimated, then it may be the case that humans could not produce viable and fertile offspring with European Neanderthals.

This is the only plausible explanation for why humans should have stopped interbreeding 47,000 years ago, and why the distibution of Neanderthal genes is not more prevalent in modern Europeans than Asians, which is what would be expected since Neanderthals lived mainly in Europe.

]]>