Comments on: The Neanderthal Predation Theory http://blog.essayweb.net/2010/02/16/the-neanderthal-predation-theory/ Tue, 13 Jul 2010 14:35:05 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 By: Gold http://blog.essayweb.net/2010/02/16/the-neanderthal-predation-theory/comment-page-1/#comment-1594 Gold Thu, 08 Jul 2010 15:29:31 +0000 http://blog.essayweb.net/?p=126#comment-1594 Interesting read and comp art. However it's highly unlikely Neanderthals looked liked those renderings, especially the eyes and nose. Interesting read and comp art.
However it’s highly unlikely Neanderthals looked liked those renderings, especially the eyes and nose.

]]> By: Sagat http://blog.essayweb.net/2010/02/16/the-neanderthal-predation-theory/comment-page-1/#comment-978 Sagat Mon, 17 May 2010 03:48:33 +0000 http://blog.essayweb.net/?p=126#comment-978 Some of his suggestions are very interesting and some of his points about Neanderthal reconstructions are valid. There's been a trend over the past few years to make Neanderthals look more and more human like, and specifically more European in appearance. Now we do have some evidence from their genome that suggests that they had pale skin and maybe reddish hair. This has led to reconstructions that make Neanderthals out to look like ugly Irishman. These types of biased interpretations fly in the face of basic evolutionary biology. Considering that Neanderthals and humans split from each other 500 thousand years ago and both groups faced divergent evolution in two very different geographic areas, it's highly unlikely that Neanderthals looked simply like squat Europeans. We don't know when humans lost our body hair and we certainly don't know when we acquired certain human traits that distinguish us from other apes, such as having the whites of our eyes visible. Many of these adaptations could've been very recent and given that Neanderthals were evolving in the frigid north for hundreds of thousands of years while we remained in tropical Africa, it's more likely that our appearances where very different. Now that they've sequenced the Neanderthal genome we can better compare our differences on the genetic level. The problem still remains in trying to figure out what different areas of our genome code for. If we find that humans carry a mutation for hairlessness that Neanderthals don't, then we might decide that Neanderthals did in fact look like hairy beasts. We are still many years away from understanding our DNA and as we begin to unlock some of these mysteries, we'll be able to understand what our last known closest relative may have looked like. And I doubt he was just an ugly Irishman. Some of his suggestions are very interesting and some of his points about Neanderthal reconstructions are valid. There’s been a trend over the past few years to make Neanderthals look more and more human like, and specifically more European in appearance. Now we do have some evidence from their genome that suggests that they had pale skin and maybe reddish hair. This has led to reconstructions that make Neanderthals out to look like ugly Irishman. These types of biased interpretations fly in the face of basic evolutionary biology. Considering that Neanderthals and humans split from each other 500 thousand years ago and both groups faced divergent evolution in two very different geographic areas, it’s highly unlikely that Neanderthals looked simply like squat Europeans.

We don’t know when humans lost our body hair and we certainly don’t know when we acquired certain human traits that distinguish us from other apes, such as having the whites of our eyes visible. Many of these adaptations could’ve been very recent and given that Neanderthals were evolving in the frigid north for hundreds of thousands of years while we remained in tropical Africa, it’s more likely that our appearances where very different.

Now that they’ve sequenced the Neanderthal genome we can better compare our differences on the genetic level. The problem still remains in trying to figure out what different areas of our genome code for. If we find that humans carry a mutation for hairlessness that Neanderthals don’t, then we might decide that Neanderthals did in fact look like hairy beasts. We are still many years away from understanding our DNA and as we begin to unlock some of these mysteries, we’ll be able to understand what our last known closest relative may have looked like. And I doubt he was just an ugly Irishman.

]]> By: What are the Implications of the Sequencing of the Neanderthal Genome? « The Amazing World of Psychiatry: A Psychiatry Blog http://blog.essayweb.net/2010/02/16/the-neanderthal-predation-theory/comment-page-1/#comment-975 What are the Implications of the Sequencing of the Neanderthal Genome? « The Amazing World of Psychiatry: A Psychiatry Blog Sun, 16 May 2010 23:36:11 +0000 http://blog.essayweb.net/?p=126#comment-975 [...] Critique of Neanderthal predator theory. [...] [...] Critique of Neanderthal predator theory. [...]

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