Do you believe we have Neandertal (or Cro-Magnum) ancestors? Why or why not?

Question

Do you believe we have Neandertal (or Cro-Magnum) ancestors? Why or why not?

Answer 1

Supposedly Neanderthals are on a separate branch of the tree.  Based on some people's physical characteristics, I think they interbreed with humans.

Answer 2

There are too many questions about the variety of European hair and eye colours, and the origin of the Rhesus negative blood type. The only solution is that was some contribution, although  not large, from the Neanderthals. I'd just like to point out that it's very easy to loose a mitochondrial DNA strain, and if the hybrid offspring had any kind of health problems, it would have made it near impossible for a Mt DNA lineage to become established. We won't know until all the DNA sequencing is done though. And it would need to be done on more than one Neanderthal.

Also the later Neanderthals get progressively harder to tell apart from Cro Magnons, and get called 'transtional Neanderthals', after they suddenly seem to mutate and develope chins and lighter features. Modern Europeans also have a decreasing incidence of occipital buns, a Neanderthal trait, and a long second toe. There are too many signs of some kind of gene swapping between the two.

Owner of an occipital bun, green eyes, long second toe and dark auburn hair gene. Ug.

Answer 3

Cro-Magnon man was modern man--of the same species as all of us.  So we could easily have Cro-Magnon ancestors.  Recent DNA research, however, has shown that Neandertal man, although also "human," was sufficieintly different from us genetically that it's extremely unlikely that we could be descended from Neandertals.  Before that discovery, one theory about the disappearance of Neandertals was that they had simply interbred with Cro-Magnons and been absorbed.  Of course there are probably further discoveries to be made!

Answer 4

There is certainly good empirical data that supports the theory that modern man has evolved from Cro-Magnum ancestry.  It is by far the soundest and most comprehensive explanation of human origins.  Recently there have been discoveries of European/Neanderthal weapons here in the Americas that suggests Neanderthal existed over here as well.   It seems very likely that the two species have interbred at some points, although apparently there have been no traces of Neanderthal DNA in modern/Cro-Magnum man.  Although there is some data that supports the notion that Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals coexisted and even interbred:

"Neanderthals and modern humans not only coexisted for thousands of years long ago, as anthropologists have established, but now their little secret is out: they also cohabited.

"At least that is the interpretation being made by paleontologists who have examined the 24,500-year-old skeleton of a young boy discovered recently in a shallow grave in Portugal. Bred in the boy's bones seemed to be a genetic heritage part Neanderthal, part early modern Homo sapiens. He was a hybrid, they concluded, and the first strong physical evidence of interbreeding between the groups in Europe."

"This skeleton demonstrates that early modern humans and Neanderthals are not all that different," said Dr. Erik Trinkaus, a paleoanthropologist at Washington University in St. Louis. "They intermixed, interbred and produced offspring."

This all seems to be a work in progress though, I'm certain there will be more data in the next ten years that will clarify some of these questions.

Answer 5

Recent testing of Neanderthal DNA show that present day humans are not descended from the Neanderthals. This has placed them outside the human line of descent. However, it should be remembered that this has happened before, Neanderthals were out, only to be put back in.

      There have been supposed hybrids found. The remains are few in number and when compared to the range of physical characteristics present in each species: "are either typically Neanderthal or modern (10) and, in one significant case, had been misdated ... that nobody has had any idea what a Neanderthal/modern hybrid might look like in theory"

http://www.pnas.org/cgi/content/full/96/...

      Based on this, it's doubtful any of us are descended from Neanderthals

Cro-Magnon is physically one of the first anatomically modern humans. (Looks like us, acts like us, is us) He is also a major development in out history as much of the "Neolithic Revolution" was with his involvement. The name comes from the small French village where the remains were first found.

Cro-Magnon replaced the Neandertals in Europe at the start of the Neolithic (new stone age) some 40,000 years ago. While popular thought has been that this was an extermination of one species by a more advanced, studies have shown otherwise. Sites have been found that show the two groups living side by side for thousands of years. they don't show war or hostility. They do show the Cro-Magnon advancing in technological skills while the Neandertals remained at the same level. It's thought that simple having a lower birthrate doomed Neandertal.

Cro-Magnon was responsible for the first true artwork, the great cave paintings found in France and Spain. During the Neolithic (new stone age) man first developed the art of paint on stone surfaces. Using colored earths, carbon from soot, shells and animal fat, people would mix colors and place designs on the walls. Hands, paint brushes made of fur or grass would be used. There was also an "airbrush" this was a straw with the color held in the mouth. As one blew, the color would fly out and stick to the surface. One unique site in France has dozens of handprints made in this manner. The chilling part of this artwork is that all the hands are maimed. They are each missing one or more fingers! It's been shown that it's impossible to duplicate this by simply folding a finger under the hand. For some reason, thousands of years ago people cut off their fingers. Most of these cave painting were for religious reasons. They are placed deep in the caves, far away from living spaces. The French caves at Lascaux, dated to over 17,000 years ago contain the best examples of this art form.

While it's agreed that the paintings have a religious meaning, what they mean is debated. It's thought that the work with animals are hunters was done to attract the game or give success to the hunters. Other paintings, where etchings have been done over and over, have been interpreted to suggest that an attempt at suggesting motion was being tried.

He made great advances in stone tools. Cro-Magnon developed the blade technology by which many cutting tools could be made from a small amount of flint. He also used the blades to make many tools from bone. This produced the "Swiss Army Knife of the Neolithic" basically a block of stone that had blades knocked off whenever they were required.

The people were great hunters of reindeer and the larger game animals. They were responsible for the "Neolithic Revolution" that coincided with the end of the last ice age. The revolution consisted of domestication of animals, intensive cultivation of certain food plants, and ground stone tools. This lead to the rise of permeant habitation.

One of the greatest artforms and mysteries is the Venus figures. These are some of the oldest examples of art in the world. They are small figures of the female form. The physical characteristics of the female are greatly enlarged. The face is lacking in detail and is often just hinted at. Some figures are deliberately broken; some are very detailed, while some are plain, shaped only roughly. They are thought to represent a fertility religion. They are found spread throughout Europe and Asia.

When Neandertal was discovered people suggested that he wasn't human and shied away from accepting him. When Cro-Magnon was discovered, it seemed everyone wanted to claim him.

Answer 6

Cro-Magnons were our ancestors.  They were essentially the same as modern man.  Apparently Neanderthals were not.  They were a side branch of hominid evolution.  

Note to latter answers: It is a common misconception that we have Neanderthal genes, especially caucasians.  This probably is a remnant of the discounted multiregional theory.  In addition, the Neanderthal human cross child is probably a human child with shorter limbs IMO.  I have never heard of Neanderthal in the Americas.  I am extremely skeptical of those claims.

Answer 7

I personally think that ,yes, we do have Neanderthal ancestors. Aside from the fact that DNA research has come along farther than when the first tests were done and is now starting to show new evidence there is a couple of things you might want to consider. First of all when they compared the Cro-magnum fossils and Neanderthal fossils they were comparing contemporaries not ancestor and descendants. Also any Cro-magnum fossils from that time had probably just come out of Africa and had not had the oppurtunity to interbreed. So you would have been dealing with two different groups of individuals. Also, if you look at the ancient Celtic and Scandinavian peoples (My own anscestors) you find that they had stocky, broad frames (causing greater body surface) and Shorter extrematies almost identical to Neanderthals as well as the Red and Blonde hair and Blue and Green eyes that are found primarily amongst Neanderthals and not Cro-magnum fossils of that time. My own THEORY is that some Neanderthal and magnum individuals had to have mated and formed a hybrid race. (I would have to guess that it would be primarily Neaderthal males and Cro-Magnum females as that would explain why mitochondrial DNA from Neanderthals didn't survive.) It would explain why the monuments and cities in Africa and the Middle East were focused on community bond and teamwork and why the cultures that developed in Europe were focused on individual competition and physical strength. There was a different Y Chromosone. It does not mean that Europeans and African had totally different ancestors. The common link would have been female though and not male. It would also give credence to the idea that the artists who drew those cave paintings were women. It explains why the one thing that unites all primitive pantheistic religions is they are ruled by a Mother goddess. Because while the men were focused on hunting and survival leaving the women to raise and educate the children as well as discover easier ways of doing things.

Answer 8

While we are anatomically identical to our Cro-Magnon ancestors, who arose 40-45,000 years ago in Eastern Europe, migrating from the Black Sea region to the Iberian Peninsula, we cannot discount that Neanderthals are likely responsible for contributing to our gene pool...

Examples of Neanderthal genetic traits are:

The red-hair gene, the blue-eye gene, the long-straight nose gene (for warming cold air before it reaches our lungs), and also the RH-Negative blood type, which 15% of the human population has, worldwide (Usually Caucasians)...