Let’s start with Neanderthal’s cohabitations and work our way back to the “affairs” of earlier times.
KISSING COUSINS: HIGHLIGHTS OF NEANDERTHAL DISCOVERIES
1829 About two years before the young naturalist Charles Darwin sets sail on HMS Beagle, the very first Neanderthal skull is found in a cave in Belgium, that of a child. Within twenty years, further remains of a proto-Neanderthal woman and child are uncovered in Gibraltar, followed a few years later (in 1856) by the Dusseldorf/Feldhofer find, the German Neander Valley famously lending its name to the specimen christened Homo neanderthalensis in 1864. The limbs of this creature were bowed, the nose large, the brow bulging. Some saw it as merely a pathological modern, otherwise no different (except for robustness) than the rest of the human race. Indeed, that is his classification today: Homo sapiens neanderthalensis.
1908 With the discovery and examination of France’s La Chapelle-aux-Saints skull, French paleontologist Boule indignantly removes Neanderthal from the human family. The head, he thought, had too much in common with the chimpanzee—its cranium long and low, its brow prodigious. The “structural inferiority” of the toothless specimen too much offended his Gallic pride to be classed with men—despite an awesome brain of 1,625 cc, well over the modern average! The obvious answer, that a dose of Cro-Magnon (Ihuan) genes supplied the large brain, was not considered. At Shanidar, Iraq, Neanderthal’s cranial capacity was again well over 1,600 cc, outstripping our own, today’s average somewhere around 1,400.
Figure 5.1. Two views of Gibraltar Man’s skull.
Figure 5.2. La Chapelle-aux-Saints skeleton and strata.
Figure 5.3. Marcellin Boule (1861–1942). To Boule, the idea of Neanderthal as our forerunner was “absurd.”
Figure 5.4. Neanderthal reconstruction, published by Marcellin Boule.
Figure 5.5. This reconstruction, published in L’Illustration in 1909, based on the work of Marcellin Boule certainly exaggerated the animalistic appearance of Neanderthal.
Figure 5.6. A more civilized portrait of Neanderthal from Illustrated London News, 1910.
1911 To Arthur Keith, there was no reason to suppose that if Neanderthal and Homo sapiens mated, “they would not produce fertile offspring.”5
1931 Hooton stated simply, concerning Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon: “They surely bred.”
1937 Back to France, where the Fontéchevade specimen is discovered, a Neanderthal evidently of the Mousterian period. However, the layer beneath held skull fragments of a more modern type, with lighter build and milder browridge; this at last was “the earliest Frenchman.” Yet the reversed sequence toppled the smooth evolutionary paradigm of gradual improvement over time. (See appendix E on reversals.)
1950 Howells declares in Mankind So Far that “the Neanderthal brain was most positively and definitely not smaller than our own; and this is a rather bitter pill: it appears to have been perhaps a little larger.”
1955 Le Gros Clark, esteemed Oxford professor of anatomy, in his book The Antecedents of Man tries to settle the mounting dilemma of reversals. To resolve the difficulty between Neanderthal 1 and 2, Le Gros Clark reasoned that the later Neanderthal 2 must have been isolated for a long time (due to climate conditions), which led to the differentiation. The older Neanderthal 1, mainly outside Europe, had a fairly well-developed forehead (absent in 2) and less massive jaws. The skull approximated that of H. sapiens, and the limb bones were also quite modern, being lighter and straighter than Neanderthal 2. In this case, Le Gros Clark astutely derived this man from an H. sapiens type with regressive changes in the skull, which he actually attributed to retrobreeding with a lower type.
1970s Something called the spectrum hypotheses, introduced in this decade, admits much more interaction (sexual mixing) between different groups than we previously thought; indeed, the concept anticipates today’s theorists who are talking more and more of “gene exchanges,” though guardedly, catching up with Louis Leakey who, decades ago, had asked outright: “Is it not possible that they are all the result of crossbreeding between Homo sapiens and Homo erectus?”6
Figure 5.7. Author’s conception of crosses that produced the two different kinds of Neanderthals.
Figure 5.8. Torus. How can we call this brow “apelike” when orangutan is an ape, and it does not have a prominent torus; neither did some robust Au, such as Kromdraai, perhaps due to an admixture of AMH (Ihin) genes.
1986 A twelve-year dig at Vindija Cave, Croatia, now completed, reveals that these Croat Neanderthals had sophisticated tools. Their skeletal structure was also a bit more delicate and modern than expected, which paleontologist Jacov Radovcic and others interpreted correctly as the result of interbreeding between Neanderthals and mods. Sure, many individuals had the ferocious browridge, sloping forehead, and powerful jaw of classic Neanderthal, but others had refined faces, cranial vaults, and limbs (matching similar finds in Italy). These Vindija people were dubbed “modernized Neanderthals”—a lovely euphemism for serious fraternizing. Normally Neanderthals among themselves look very much alike, though at Vindija there was considerable variation. How could this be explained? Further muddying the picture, the earliest mods at this location have numerous Neanderthal traits.
1988 “The status of Neanderthals has changed more times than the mini-skirt has gone in and out of fashion,” quipped Roger Lewin in his 1988 book In the Age of Mankind. And now, on the slopes of Mt. Carmel, Israel, a mixed burial (studied actually since the 1930s) resurfaces to shake the family tree. Not too different from the Croatian sequence, Israel’s Qafzeh Cave revealed an early H. sapiens mixed in with others who looked considerably less modern. These Palestinian caves confirmed the coexistence of H. sapiens and Neanderthals. And with every variety of intergradation, crossbreeding (“signs of hybridization”7 at Skhul and Qafzeh) came into view.
The fusion of types found in these Israeli caves (Tabun, Skhul, and Qafzeh) shows modern and Neanderthal traits freely admixed. Most have the trademark (heavy) torus, but variability of features is extensive, many specimens markedly modern in cranial vault, occiput, face size, and limbs. Yet those who posited the hybridization of these two different races are now silenced by a semantic ploy—labeling them Neanderthaloid, and arguing for a “transitional” stage of evolution.
Transitional? For goodness sake, these people were all living together! The fact, moreover, that the AMHs at Qafzeh were using Neanderthal tools makes us suspect that the main result of these crossings was retrogressive, that is, the back breeding of AMH-Ihuans into Neanderthal stock (which thereby inherited the Ihuan big brains). But to make them look “transitional,” paleontologists adjusted the date from the third interglacial to fourth; using C14, Tabun was dated 60 kyr and Skhul 35 kyr, making the Skhul population intermediate (transitional between Neanderthal and mod), thus “eliminate[ing] all need for theories involving hybridization, with their attendant difficulties.”8 Despite these maneuvers, Ashley Montagu saw here a clear “intermixture between a modernlike form and Neanderthal. . . . The Mount Carmel population was the product of that intermixture. There is every reason to believe that similar intermixture (hybridization) occurred between populations throughout the long prehistory of man.”9 [e.a.]
Making matters worse for the evolutionist, at Mt. Carmel, as in France in 1937, H. sapiens was older than Neanderthal. Indeed, a similar out sequence was observed at Steinheim, Swanscombe, Ehringsdorf, Krapina, and other sites, where the more gracile Neanderthal (Neanderthal 1) preceded the more extreme, “chimpanzee-like” one (Neanderthal 2).
1992 Speaking of chimpanzees, in his book released this year, The Third Chimpanzee, Jared Diamond confidently declares (despite Carmel and Vindija), “No skeletons that could reasonably be considered Neanderthal-Cro-Magnon hybrids are known.” Yet that same year, fossils in Spain (Atapuerca) prove to be a farrago of H. erectus, Neanderthal, and H. sapiens traits! “There could have been a big party of different hominids living in Europe together,” offers archaeologist
Clive Gamble.10 And now there is further evidence from other parts of Europe that Neanderthal and early mods (Cro-Magnon) partied together: at Mladec, Czechoslovakia; Steinheim, Germany; and Muierii, Romania.
1996 This year, Donald Johanson and Blake Edgar publish their lavish book From Lucy to Language, informing us that Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon “were too biologically distinct to have shared anything more than culture.”11 Others, though, were indeed floating hybridization to explain the softened features of St. Cesaire’s Neanderthals, especially since excellent Cro-Magnon tools were found there as well as at another French Neanderthal site: Arcysur-Cure. Further confusing the issue, Johanson and Edgar state: “Even if it [meaning: interbreeding] did happen rarely, it would not mean that Neanderthals and modern humans were a single species”—a downright contrarian position, defying the very definition of species, as I will soon make clear.
1997 Hominid Paleogenomics takes the stage by storm, as biologists are now equipped to analyze the Neanderthal genome in earnest: wherein the Max Planck (a group of reknowned scientific research institutes) people supposedly deal “a powerful blow” to the interbreeding idea. If it happened at all, “it was too rare to leave a trace of Neanderthal DNA in the cells of living people.”12 Also in 1997, Chris Stringer of London’s Natural History Museum agrees that Neanderthal are “probably” a different species. Not a good bet, as we will soon see.
1998 For, now a small and stocky breed of 24 kyr people has been discovered at Abrigo do Lagar Velho, Portugal; it is a child’s skeleton, presenting a striking blend of mod and Neanderthal traits—thousands of years after the latter supposedly went extinct. While the child’s teeth and chin are modern enough, the jaw is heavy and short, the bones thick, forcing some to reluctantly concede that there could have been “significant interbreeding” between Neanderthal and Cro-Magnon here. Others, though, hold to “the complete absence of any Neanderthal mitochondrial DNA in modern Europe. . . . [I]f this interbreeding were a frequent occurrence, then surely we would see the evidence in the modern mitochondrial gene pool, and we just don’t.”13 This comment is almost immediately contradicted by new updates that say 4 percent of the DNA in Europeans and Asians appears to be derived from Neanderthals, due to hybridization. Paleoanthropologist Milford Wolpoff concurs: Neanderthal DNA falls within the modern type.
1999 Following up on the controversial Portugal discovery, paleoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus of Washington University, St. Louis, points out that Portugal’s 24,000-year-old boy is a blend of mod and Neanderthal, but hedges: “the boy could simply be the love child from a single prehistoric one-night stand.” Ian Tattersall of the American Museum of Natural History, also playing down the rising specter of crossbreeding, remarks: “It’s just a chunky modern kid. There’s nothing special about it.”14 After all, too much interbreeding, and the house of evolution all falls down.
2000 Tattersall goes on to cite DNA evidence confirming that the human race does not bear any biological connection to the Neanderthal “species.”
2002–3 But a new trend is afoot, and now a dig at Pestera cu Oase (Cave of Bones) in Romania comes up with more hybrids, H. sapiens sporting unmistakable Neanderthal features: huge long noses, great molars, occipital buns. Dated anywhere from 30 to 40 kya, the mandible is robust but combines archaic and mod features. The specimens are clearly of mixed type. Four years later (in 2007) when digs in Czechoslovakia come up with similar results, the finds once again whisper of repeated dalliance between modern humans (Cro-Magnon Ihuans) and Neanderthals (more than a onenight stand). Nevertheless, Richard Klein, teamed up with Blake Edgar in The Dawn of Human Culture, assures us that “if Cro-Magnon and Neanderthals interbred, it was probably on a very small scale.”15 The same year sees Stephen Oppenheimer, in The Real Eve, asserting that “no genetic traces of them [Neanderthals] remain in living humans.”16 But all our naysayers will soon be eating crow.
2006 In November, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, emboldened by recent progress in paleogenomics (using 38,000-year-old DNA), issues a press release asserting that Neanderthal and ancient mods were not likely to have interbred. Even though they coexisted, say these scientists, there is no evidence of significant crossing. But that same year, paleoanthropologist Erik Trinkaus reenters the fray, reminding us of definite hybrids discovered in southwest Romania (in 1952), comparable to the 40,000-year-old Romanian cave skull (found in 2002), which has been classed as basically modern, though the forehead is extremely long and flat, and the molars very large. Trinkaus, as before, manages to cover both possibilities by stating that interbreeding would not be a “surprise.” But very shortly after, as the evidence mounts, the professor loosens up: “Why not? Humans are not known to be choosy. Sex happens.”17 Indeed, a separate study that year finds a haplotype in these 40,000-year-old genes that may have been passed on during an “encounter” with Neanderthals.
2007 Discover magazine runs a piece that mentions that “our ancestors may have gotten up to 25 percent of their DNA from Neanderthals.”18
2008 Despite the theoretical crisis caused by all this unevolutionary nookie, genome researchers at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig doggedly maintain that Neanderthal mtDNA falls outside the range of human variation, indicating an entirely separate species—even though Neanderthal and H. sapiens share about 99.5 percent of DNA! Cautiously, however, the team asserts that this doesn’t mean crossbreeding would have been impossible. Hybridization, though now out of the bag, must still be made to play a minor role.*72 Thus do these scientists, now working on 70 percent of 40,000-year-old Croatian DNA, say that so far the project has unearthed no sign of DNA transfer between the two hominid lineages.
Nature magazine is quick to cover the story, parroting that Neanderthals probably did not interbreed with their “human” neighbors. Scientific American publishes similar findings but does mention the alternative multiregional model of occasional interbreeding, which Wolpoff has been saying all along, citing, for example, the especially modern jaw structure (mandibular nerve) of Neanderthals. Meanwhile, the Max Planck people, evidently sniffing a change in the wind, are now quoted as saying “some gene exchange might [e.a.] have occurred, but the result was later found to have been a false signal because of sample contamination.”19 Other publications in 2008 backed up this stalwart conclusion, such as Ker Than in National Geographic.20 Also, in their 2008 book, Human Origins, Rob DeSalle and Ian Tattersall stand by the agenda: “the two kinds of hominid did not mingle. . . . Neanderthals and moderns represented two distinct species, and thus would not have effectively interbred.”21
2009 Leading a Max Plank team, Pääbo, having successfully recovered 60 percent of the Neanderthal genome, affirms his earlier assessment of no “significant” evidence of crossbreeding.
2010 “DNA has even shown that a few [e.a.] Neandertals interbred with our ancestors,” reports now allow. The thing is, we now have data on the coloring of these specimens and lo and behold, some Neanderthals had red hair and pale skin. Well, of course they did; all the races, past and present, have some Ihin traits—be it fair complexion, mod brain, slender build, or other AMH characteristics. But Douglas Palmer’s book, Origins: Human Evolution Revealed, published in 2010, backs up the naysayers, agreeing that one finds “no genetic mixing between Neanderthals and modern humans.”
Pääbo, blowing hot and cold, first stresses that there is no sign of admixture. Using sequences of nucleotides, he notes that Neanderthal mtDNA is “readily distinguishable” from mods. But things are changing fast and by May 2010 the Pääboled Max Planck team changes its conclusion, acknowledging that interbreeding probably occurred: the “team’s second conclusion—[huh?]—is that there was probably interbreeding between Neanderthals and modern humans. . . . Neanderthals mated with some modern humans, after all.”22 Non-African moderns, it is now discovered, have 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal genes. Nevertheless they are still telling us that Neanderthal DNA does not seem to have played an i
mportant role in human evolution, although interbreeding “would not be greatly surprising, given that the [two] species overlapped from 44,000 . . . to 30,000 years ago.”23
By October of 2010, an article titled “Human Family Tree Gets Bushy, Grows Roots” appears in Discover magazine relating “one stunner: early humans mated with Neanderthals” according to genetic studies (using DNA fragments from Neanderthal bones). Pääbo can now trace that interbreeding back 60,000 years to the Middle East. Now he says “humans and Neanderthals must have mated at some point.”
2011 Discover magazine, in January, lures readers with “Stone-Age Romeos and Juliets,” the piece confirming that “Neanderthals and modern humans probably had interbred . . . at least once.” Only once? Now, earnest paleoanthropologists, poised like concerned parents of wayward teens, promise to “pin down how much interbreeding occurred.” Then, in May, Discover returns to the subject: “Maybe we all carry a bit of Neanderthal in our DNA,” although the differences presumably “are great enough to rule out significant interbreeding.” So paleogenetic DNA sequencing has now established that AMHs “interbred with Homo neanderthalensis . . . in the Middle East. . . . We shared the planet with our cousins.”24 But not just in the Middle East . . .
Finally, as if to make it all OK and respectable that our ancestors fooled around with lowly Neanderthals: “First modern humans protected themselves against disease after leaving Africa by interbreeding with Neanderthals. . . . Early humans picked up genes which protected them . . . and eventually helped them to populate the planet.”25 (So nookie with the cavemen wasn’t all that bad.)
Mysterious Origins of Hybrid Man Page 18