Decoding Neanderthal Genome Analysis

The disappearance of the Neanderthal race is still a much debated mystery. The myth that our ancestors, the original homo sapiens, whipped them out was once the conventional theory on their extinction. The same old narrative of we were stronger, they were weaker. Essentially survival of the fittest on the human scale. However, in The Humans Who Went Extinct, Author Chris Finlayson provides insight on a very different perspective. His theory on the Neanderthal extinction was due to climate change and chance. The ability to adapt was the reason our ancestors thrived while the Neanderthals died out. Jean Auel 's novel The Clan of the Cave Bear is a classic coming-of-age tale about an outcast who thrives in a foreign society despite numerous obstacles placed in front of her. Although, it is based in the prehistoric times, I highly doubt that there is much historical accuracy to this story. It is a powerful tale, however from a historical standpoint, I believe it is as useful as the Spartacus television show on the Roman Era. Both novels cover the Prehistoric World, however, each story 's view is drastically different than the other.

In a skeleton found in Asia, the discovery of a hyoid bone in the the throat raised the question of whether or not Neanderthals had language capabilities. There has been much debate over this and many different theories, but the most widely accepted is that they were capable of producing human speech sounds, but whether or not they used this speech to communicate in any kind of language is still largely up for debate. In height, Neanderthals were roughly about the same size as modern humans, but did not live as long as modern humans. A Neanderthal who lived into his or her 40's was considered to be long lived, which is comparatively short to our much longer lives of roughly double that. Genetically, Neaderthals and humans differ in their DNA structure both in the mitochondrial DNA and in the nuclear DNA. The significance of the DNA evidence is that it is crucial in determining whether remains that are found are truly Neanderthal or an older hominin relative.

According to “Decoding Neanderthals’ they were consider primitive; without language and art or a high level of thinking. These species hunted by brute force with a simple stone tool. Also, that their intellect cannot be associated or compared with modern humans because their behavior was too way primitive. They began to disappear 40,000 years ago as modern humans came on the scene, stated by “Decoding Neanderthals” documentary movie. However, according to the genetic evidence shows a mysterious presence related with the modern humans genes. Neanderthal’s psychical features demonstrate some facts that these Homo species possessed intelligence. For example, big noses, bulky physiques-adaptation to cold, shorter than Homo sapiens, but bones were thicker, oblique forehead and heavy eyebrows. Also, often Neanderthal’s craniums are larger than modern humans. They had larger ankle joint, elbow joint and shorter forearm, broader ribcage and lower cranium. They were the most advanced group of primates, except modern humans. Neanderthals weren’t fewer intelligent than modern people; they had clothes and had some kind of language. Neanderthal living space showed complex use of the instrument, abstract thoughts and speech, burial of their dead and manufactured primitive art objects. Some stereotypes against these species are that they had limited stone tools and no art or personal ornaments; therefore they seemed less advanced than modern humans. Also, stereotyping their intelligence

The most recent ancestor to the modern human, Homo neanderthalensis existed between 300,000 and 35,000 years ago. Originating in Africa, ancestors of the early Neanderthals migrated northwards almost 800,000 years ago. These migrants colonized much of the Old World with the majority based in Europe and small groups scattered throughout the Middle East and Asia. Historically, the Neanderthals were among the most resiliant creatures to exist on Earth. As a population, they thrived during the European ice age 40,000 years ago. This ice age enveloped the majority of Northern and Central Europe and due to their physique were the Neanderthals were able to surive. Physcially, the Neanderthals were larger and more muscular than today’s human

It's widely agreed by scientists that Neanderthals and Homo sapiens (modern man) are different species. However, it's thought that 1.5 - 2.1% of DNA from anyone born outside of Africa is Neanderthal which means that they co-existed and interbred with our Homo sapien ancestors approximately 35,000 years ago. Researchers say, the only human ancestors who didn't interbreed with Neanderthals were sub-Saharan Africans. Neanderthals typically lived in Europe and Asia up until approximately 33,000 BC when they are said to have become extinct. They lived during the Ice Age and can be considered as early cave men who are likely to have been covered in hair and had an ape like appearance very similar to the conventional perception of Bigfoot. Their eyes and brains were larger than those of Homo sapiens but they were sophisticated enough to carry tools, make fire and bury their dead. One scientific explanation as to why the Neanderthals died out is climate change, More likely, they were unable to compete with the better adapted early humans who either killed them, took over their land or interbred with them and they were absorbed into our

Neanderthals and modern humans coexisted for well over 100,000 years.  Then suddenly Homo neandertalensis began to die out and surrender the earth to Homo sapiens.  Paleontologists and anthropologists have entertained several possibilities to the causes of this event: interbreeding among Neanderthals and humans, competition for natural resources, and Darwin’s theory of “survival of the fittest.”  What the real cause has been has plagued scientists for years. Now, due to an international research team from Germany, those possibilities have been even further deduced, making it easier to pinpoint the exact reason Homo neandertalensis became extinct.

If Neanderthals did in fact comport themselves in ways once thought to distinguish anatomically modern humans and enable the latter’s rise to world domination, that similarity makes the Neanderthals’ decline and eventual extinction all the more mystifying. One theory is that H. sapiens had a broader variety of tools that may have enhanced their ability to forage. When they brought their superior technology with them out of Africa and into Eurasia, they were thus better able to exploit the environment more effectively than the resident Neanderthals could. Still, the arrival of H. sapiens did not equal an instant demise for Neanderthals. The latest attempt to track their decline, carried out by Thomas Higham of Oxford and his colleagues, applied

Additional interesting facts about Neanderthals include: They had the same gene associated with language that modern humans have, but the anatomy of their vocal chords would not allow them to make certain sounds. They found a way to make adhesive through a complex thermal process, where they extracted pitch from stones. Amongst the artifacts found from the Neanderthal time period there are bones which appear to have been made into instruments. They were the first in history to have buried their dead. It appears they may have even marked their graves and perhaps had burial rituals. Finally, it has been discovered that at least some of the Neanderthals had pale skin and red hair. Qualities that may have helped them to absorb vitamin D which in

It was the extinction that puzzled many anthropologists across the globe. How is it possible that living humans now outlived a subspecies of a hominid with a larger brain than our own? The first Neandertals, otherwise known as the Homo Neandertalensis, appeared in the Eurasian region approximately 150,000 years ago and are believed to roam the planet until just about 30,000 years ago. With their strong and muscular bodies, it was no surprise that they were a likely candidate of survival. The Neandertals endured treacherous weather conditions, shrugged off many broken bones, and barely escaped the clutches of death that came with their risky hunting techniques. What we may deem as extraneously harsh living conditions was a quotidian part of

Cro-Magnons did not appear in Europe until about 40,000 years ago (Shreeve, 150). The Neanderthals seem to have been geographically separated from other humans for a long time, in a different environment. These factors gave the Neanderthals a chance to evolve separately, maybe enough to become a species (Shreeve, 156). Even when the two species met and coexisted for thousands of years, they continued to have very distinct morphological traits. If they were the same species, gene flow would have blurred the differences, but little evidence of this is found.

The Neanderthals seem to have largely disappeared around 25,000 years ago, but the precise explanation for their disappearance remains something of a mystery. A number of different theories have emerged, some mutually exclusive, some not, but all of them draw upon substantial archeological, anthropological, and biological evidence. Researchers have variously proposed that Neanderthals were the victims of genocide at the hands of modern humans, died out due to some kind of plague or epidemic, or went extinct because they could not cope with climatic shifts. While none of these can be conclusively proven or disproven, one can at least begin to assign certain degrees of likelihood to each hypothesis. Upon examining a variety of these theories regarding the extinction of the Neanderthals, it becomes clear that in all likelihood, the Neanderthals disappeared not due to any single cause, but rather from susceptibility to climate change coupled with conflict, disease, and interbreeding.

Neanderthals, the neighboring evolutionary kinsfolks of modern human being, existed in enormous parts of Europe and western Asia before endangered 30,000 years ago. We also realize that they probably like our own ancestors. Couple of years ago some scientists and their team publish graph genome and turn down love own genes today and review more and more secrets about Neanderthals and human relatives. Research by Dr. Svante Paabo(1996) retrieve species of all from Neanderthal. They found DNA of Neanderthals from bone shells and blood vessels. Moreover in 2010, Scientists Surprised that Neanderthals contributes in genetic materials of people who live today. Dr. Svante Paabo finds vast genetic variations in Africa and a genetic perspective on human variation says: we all are Africans (Paabo, 2014). The investigation team found the most of the DNA used for their research from a total of 400 milligrams of bone particles, produced from three female Neanderthal bones that were mined from Vindija cave in Croatia where they existed over 38,000 years before. Sarah Tishkoff, a lecturer of biology and genetics at the University of Pennsylvania who was not include of either study, hypothesized that the Neanderthal’s DNA probably helped the darker hominids out of Africa manage with the cooler less bright arctic. Neanderthals were greater and heftier than Homo sapiens, and it's not confirmed that they had linguistic, but according to research of Paabo (1996) they ran into recent man

Some scientists believe (Duarte et al., 1999) that Neanderthals and modern humans not only interbreed in Europe but Neanderthals are the biological and cultural evolutionary transition between archaic and early modern

There is evidence to suggest that Homo neanderthalensis and Homo sapiens had coexisted for approximately 35-40,000 years, (Fagan 2010) from around 60,000 years ago to 25,000 years ago when they finally went extinct (Gibbon 2001). Anthropologists are still uncertain what the cause of their extinction was. This paper will analyze three main theories of Neanderthal extinction. The first theory is the competition theory, which claims that the Homo sapiens and Neanderthals had to compete for resources, ultimately leading to their demise. The second theory I will discuss is the climate change theory, which claims that Homo sapiens lived while Neanderthals died because they were better adapted to the climate. The last theory I will discuss is

These Homo species existed between 230,000 and 30,000 years ago. “According to one theory, Neanderthals, Denisovans, and modern humans are all descended from the ancient human Homo heidelbergensis. Between 300,000 to 400,000 years ago, an ancestral group of H. heidelbergensis left Africa and then split shortly after. One branch ventured northwestward into West Asia and Europe and became the Neanderthals. The other branch moved east, becoming Denisovans. By 130,000 years ago, H. heidelbergensis in Africa had become Homo sapiens—our ancestors—who did not begin their own exodus from Africa until about 60,000 years ago.”