Research is increasingly supporting the idea that non-Africans are the interspecific hybrid offspring of male Neanderthals and female humans. Standard naming practices for hybrid offspring follows the rule that the first half of the name comes from the male parent and the second half comes from the female parent. According to this naming system, do non-Africans have to stop using the title of human?
http://www.hypothesisjournal.com/?p=932
Although yes anatomically modern humans interbred with neanderthals, we as Homo. sapiens are still genotypical and phenotypically Homo. sapiens, regardless of the admixture of the Neanderthal DNA.
Essentially we aren't a true hybrid, we are the product of a small amount of admixture, that was moderated due to the relatively rare production of fertile Neanderthal/Anatomically modern human hybrids. That can also be confirmed through the very small degree of genetic variation amongst human populations, including South-East Asian populations (those that show the most Neanderthal DNA admixture) right through to South African populations (those that show the least admixture).
So, just like how polar bears are still polar bears, despite the possibility that they had a hybrid in their ancestral line, Humans are still Humans by phenotype and genotype.
A very interesting questions as the F1 generation certainly should be thought of as a true hybrid. But of course that was a while ago and the hybridisation admixture will have been diluted since by further H. sapiens contributions so this is no longer an issue.
Thanks for your informative answers Jon, John, and Leandro!
I guess the only place I can hope to see a title such as Neanderman or Neanduman is the next time I see an article about the fossil remains of a hybrid Neanderthal-human.
From a taxonomic view, since humans and Neanderthals produce fertile offspring, they should be reclassified as varieties of a single species instead of separate species from the same genus? I think we have never wanted to admit that we are related, just like the weird cousin or strange uncle?
Any human taxonomists reading this, do you agree? I am hoping for a reclassification in the near future, to welcome and include our long-lost relatives.
I take your viewpoint into consideration, but if Haldane's law applies, which the data so far suggests, then only fertile female offspring were produced by Neanderthal males and human females mating with each other. It would seem that male offspring were rare, infertile or absent, and we have no evidence that female humans and male neanderthals successfully mated.
http://www.hypothesisjournal.com/?p=932
I am concerned that if we are able to bring back Neanderthals alive somehow, that if they are not a variety of Homo sapiens, then they will not legally share our human rights?
Having done work on the history of degeneration theory and the horrible twists it took, I would love to go back in time to tell those late nineteenth and early twentieth century theorists that in fact we are strongly related to Neanderthals.
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