Re: Neanderthal DNA  Dick Fischer ( Sun, 13 Jul 1997 22:23:53
-0500  Glenn Morton wrote:  >Besides, if Neanderthal men found
sapiens women beautiful, then Neanderthals >could be in our
ancestry and this is still consistent with the results of >the
DNA tests. mtDNA is only passed on by women to their offspring.
Thus >if Neanderthal men all married sapien women, the mtDNA
passed on to the next >generation would be sapiens mtDNA! This
result only proves that there is no >direct maternal line from
Neandertals to modern men. It does not rule out >Neanderthal
ancestry of other sorts.  There could have been friendly contact
I suppose, but I rather suspect, human nature being what it is,
that H. sapiens and Neanderthals were adversaries judging from
the eventual eradication of the big guys. If that was the case,
H. sapiens women were probably spoils of war and the resulting
offspring never made it back into H. sapiens culture. Still,
it's just a guess.  (Dick wrote previously:)  >>Why wouldn't
biological humans be th