Live Science
“Would they have recognized each other as possible mates?” Harvati asked. “We know when closely related primate species meet, they sometimes interbreed in nature, not just in zoos, and this is something we see not just in primates, but with other closely related species among mammals.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.
Blowback
Note from Hot Air management: This section is for comments from Hot Air's community of registered readers. Registration is currently closed. That means if you're not already registered, you can't comment. We will let you know if and when registration re-opens. Please don't assume that Hot Air management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment just because we let it stand. A reminder: Anyone who fails to comply with our terms of use may lose their posting privilege.
Trackbacks/Pings
Trackback URL
Comments
It might explain a few things about a couple of ex-boyfriends I’ve had.
mizflame98 on November 6, 2009 at 9:49 PM
There’s really no evidence that ‘neanderthals’ exist as anything but a set of physical traits common to our species as presently found.
Scribbler on November 6, 2009 at 9:53 PM
When you’ve got the urge ….. just ask Lorien.
OldEnglish on November 6, 2009 at 9:53 PM
We should wait for the facts before jumping to conclusions.
farright on November 6, 2009 at 9:58 PM
Fascinating article and subject; thanks AP.
Motivates me to re-read The Clan of the Cave Bear.
aquaviva on November 6, 2009 at 10:03 PM
Listening to Chris Matthews, I’d say yes. Yes they did.
Django on November 6, 2009 at 10:04 PM
Did Neanderthals have sex with modern man?
Yup.
fogw on November 6, 2009 at 10:10 PM
Caveman porn! Hot!
sammypants on November 6, 2009 at 10:10 PM
Of course they did. After a few fermented gourds you’d be looking for the woman with the biggest cranial ridge you could find. I hear they do more stuff.
Beagle on November 6, 2009 at 10:20 PM
I was expecting an article on early man. Maybe post a warning.
Beagle on November 6, 2009 at 10:22 PM
There isn’t anything wrong with dating a neanderthal, it’s just embarassing if your friends catch you with one.
DrAllecon on November 6, 2009 at 10:24 PM
Kinda brings a whole new meaning to “so easy a caveman can do it”, don’t it?
Snowed In on November 6, 2009 at 10:33 PM
“Neanderthali AllahPunditus”
HMMMMMMM
FloridaBill on November 6, 2009 at 10:47 PM
So is this evidence that they will use to make it so that interspecies relationships are going to become a protected class of citizen in our free society?
I mean are they going to demand ‘equal rights’?
If they are neanderthals, would they still be ‘human rights’?
I love the interperative subjectivity involved in these new scientific studies.
ThackerAgency on November 6, 2009 at 11:16 PM
Ah, I always liked Dance of the Tiger. The author stressed that he wasn’t presenting it as a theory, though, just an interesting fiction.
VerbumSap on November 7, 2009 at 12:07 AM
Maybe what happened to Neadnerthals is just what Democrats want to do to Americans? They were screwed out of existence!
Warner Todd Huston on November 7, 2009 at 12:52 AM
Exactly. Next thing we’ll be calling pygmies another “species”. If we lived in a time where documents weren’t kept, and Europeans started “mating” with them, scientists would be asking the same stupid question.
RightWinged on November 7, 2009 at 2:11 AM
Neanderthals are alive and well and living in Congress.
Annar on November 7, 2009 at 6:59 AM
AKA caveman porn?
Count to 10 on November 7, 2009 at 7:09 AM
Neanderthals are modern humans. So the answer is yes, they had sex with each other.
splink on November 7, 2009 at 7:29 AM
Unless they’ve disposed of them, the Smithsonian and British Museum reportedly still have boxes full of “prehuman” skulls of pygmies and aboriginies in the basement. They’d been decapitated, boiled and hauled back home in the last century by brave, slaughtering evolutionists, purely for scientific enlightenment, donchaknow.
splink on November 7, 2009 at 7:32 AM
Modern man has sex with horses, goats, and hot apple pie… why not neanderthals?
Lehosh on November 7, 2009 at 7:51 AM
The past 40 or so years of hominid research hinged on the notion that brain capacity was the determinant factor in evolution. That was until they began looking at Neanderthal man who had a larger brain capacity than our own.
Another theory that they omitted was the suggestion that Neanderthal man failed to adapt to a changing environment at the end of the Pleistocene Epoch. “Global warming” killed the Neanderthal man.
Neanderthals were apex predators and their diets consisted almost exclusively of meat. This is established. Once areas that the Neanderthals inhabited such as Iraq began changing to temperate climates the herds of animals that they relied upon began moving north. Once starvation set in they began to rely on cannibalism to survive (Neanderthal cannibalism did occur).
Neanderthals were not as efficient at tool-making or strategy as Homo Sapiens. They killed big game animals by charging it with short heavy spears. We have crushed skeletons that prove this was a bad idea. Homo Sapiens developed the atlatl to throw longer, lighter spears.
darclon on November 7, 2009 at 9:39 AM