What kinds of evidence exist that H. s. sapiens ever interbred with other species of Homo?

Question

One of the more lively shows in Theater Anthropologica has been the debate between those who believe that anatomically modern humans emerged fully-formed out of Africa, eventually replacing the Neanderthal and Erectus populations in Europe and Asia, and those who hold that some ancestors of today's 'humans' coming out of Africa interbred with local species of Homo to give rise to the current diversity of human populations today. The 'one origin, one species'-ists point to a lack of convincing archaeogenetic or archaeological evidence in support of cross-species interbreeding. Some OOA-ers even go as far as to say that recent mtDNA and Y-DNA findings have vindicated them once and for all.

But 'multi-source, multi-species'-ists still persist. To what kinds of evidence (beyond a common-sense notion of 'we know they co-habited, so they must have co-mated') do they appeal? Even if copulation happened, what kinds of evidence show that offspring were indeed produced and were fertile?

Answer 1

Homo neanderthalensis had the red-hair gene, the long-nose gene and RH-- Blood, all of which persist in Northern European Caucasoid populations...

Also, Eric Trinkaus, of Washington University of St. Loius, one of the world's foremost experts on the subject, maintains that at least five H. sapiens/H. neanderthalensis hybrid skeletal remains have been found, to date!

Answer 2

It seems that this is one topic where some anthropologists are out to make a name for themselves.  For the time being, there does not seem to be be enough scientific evidence (or even raw data) on the topic to stake a definitive study or provable hypothesis about interbreeding of the various species of Homo.

Without living, breathing  and breeding adult specimens of the extinct Homo species, nothing short of the complete genetic mapping and an almost total understanding of the genes and gene expression will do.

Guesswork and creative hypotheses are neither scientific nor even reasonably logical.  Anthropology is one of the few sciences which places so much value on single specimens and otherwise incomplete data.

Sure the species of the genus Canis can interbreed and in some cases produce fertile offspring.  So?  This points to probability, not proof in the genus Homo.  Similar arguments hold true for breeding experiments with chimpanzees and bonobos.

The D allele argument also seems to have more holes than supporting data based upon multiple reliable specimens.

Considering current humanity's perversions and idiosyncrasies when dealing with s*x, interspecies copulation probably did occur.   Real evidence to support this activity is still scanty and not overwhelming by any means.



The melanocortin 1 receptor (MC1R) gene is poorly understood and not a reliable measure of the mixing of species.  It was originally an attempt to explain how Red hair could ever come from a population of Black haired individuals when black hair is genetically dominant.  Perhaps next we will see "evidence" that Blue and Green eyes are evidence of other Homo species involvement.

Answer 3

See:

Answer 4

Someone found out that there are two kinds of lice attached to humans and certain certain modern humans carry lice that is a lot older genetically and so they probably got it from Homo Erectus. It's not clear whether there was interbreeding but there was definitely contact. Also on the island of Flores in Indonesia erectus survived until recently (10,000 years ago). It is true that the mtDNA and the Y-chromosome of modern humans do not seem to carry any traces of the more archaic humans but as you know, the genes we have now are the lineages that survived, so who knows, perhaps there was some amount of interbreeding with erectus (in Asia) and neanderthals (in Europe). By the way I don't understand why we should be ashamed if we are somewhat mixed. I like red hair!

Answer 5

Sorry to burst bubbles but you are what you are when conceived, everything is in place. That is why no-where on this planet they cannot find any intermediate species for anything.

But I did read an article and they had it on discovery or one of the history channels that they found an oddity, looks like a mis -carriage between man and Neanderthal.