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What our DNA reveals about the sex life of Neanderthals

nytimes.com

41–49 of 49 posts

Re: What our DNA reveals about the sex life of Neanderthals

#41
post #8

Presumably this hypothesis is meant to explain why there is this observed asymmetry in the type of Neanderthal DNA we find in modern human populations that contain them, which is entirely autosomal. With none in the mitochondrial form, which is exclusively passed down along the female line, and also none in the Y-chromosome form, which is exclusively passed down along the male line. Without weighing on the validity o…

Y chromosome is passed as is (baring few mutations) and same is true for mtdna.

Autosomal region is what acquires most ancestral dna as it's the one which recombines.

Re: What our DNA reveals about the sex life of Neanderthals

#42
One thing, this jives in some fashion.

If we all seem to have neanderthal DNA in us, then we're all the progeny of someone which, to a degree, preferred certain "cross-pollination" behaviours.

Certainly, there would have been no revulsion. And potentially, there would have been preference. So if so, well.. why wouldn't that preference continue in the line?

Re: What our DNA reveals about the sex life of Neanderthals

#43
post #42

One thing, this jives in some fashion. If we all seem to have neanderthal DNA in us, then we're all the progeny of someone which, to a degree, preferred certain "cross-pollination" behaviours. Certainly, there would have been no revulsion. And potentially, there would have been preference. So if so, well.. why wouldn't that preference continue in the line?

> Certainly, there would have been no revulsion

Farmers have sex with goats.

I think you underestimate the places a lonely guy is willing to put his dick in.

Re: What our DNA reveals about the sex life of Neanderthals

#44
post #26

One reason for that might be the size of the baby homo sapiens scull/head upon birth. Bigger brain might have meant female Neanderthals couldn’t give birth to Homo Sapiens babies. Just a theory.

You do realize that Neanderthals had significantly bigger brain sizes than Homo sapiens?

Re: What our DNA reveals about the sex life of Neanderthals

#45
post #43
post #42

One thing, this jives in some fashion. If we all seem to have neanderthal DNA in us, then we're all the progeny of someone which, to a degree, preferred certain "cross-pollination" behaviours. Certainly, there would have been no revulsion. And potentially, there would have been preference. So if so, well.. why wouldn't that preference continue in the line?

> Certainly, there would have been no revulsion Farmers have sex with goats. I think you underestimate the places a lonely guy is willing to put his dick in.

Manatees were the choice for sailors

Re: What our DNA reveals about the sex life of Neanderthals

#47
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

However, if one happens to be a race science type, there’s a lot of profit that can be made telling suggestive “just so” stories about which homo sapiens genetic lines are allegedly tainted with a larger proportion of neanderthal genes, or however that’s supposed to work.

It would be an afrocentric trope because it’s Europeans that have the most neanderthal genes.

https://wwnorton.com/books/9781324091455/

Fantasizing about prehistory to justify contemporary racism is a very old pastime. It doesn’t aspire to logical consistency:

> From the “state of nature” and Romantic notions of virtuous German barbarians to theories about Neanderthals, killer apes, and a matriarchal paradise where women ruled, Geroulanos captures the sheer variety and strangeness of the ideas that animated many of the major thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Charles Darwin, and Karl Marx. Yet as Geroulanos shows, such ideas became, for the most part, the ideological foundations of repressive regimes and globe-spanning empires. Deeming other peoples “savages” allowed for guilt-free violence against them; notions of “killer apes” who were our evolutionary predecessors made war seem natural. The emergence of modern science only accelerated the West’s imperialism. The Nazi obsession with race was rooted in archaeological claims about prehistoric IndoGermans; the idea that colonialized peoples could be “bombed back to the Stone Age” was made possible by the technology of flight and the anthropological idea that civilization advanced in stages.

Re: What our DNA reveals about the sex life of Neanderthals

#48
post #37
post #8

Presumably this hypothesis is meant to explain why there is this observed asymmetry in the type of Neanderthal DNA we find in modern human populations that contain them, which is entirely autosomal. With none in the mitochondrial form, which is exclusively passed down along the female line, and also none in the Y-chromosome form, which is exclusively passed down along the male line. Without weighing on the validity o…

> Without weighing on the validity of their hypothesis that one or both sides found the other“especially attractive” I get that it's survivor bias and all, but modern racial preference also paints a clear picture, I don't understand why we are so against this hypothesis that male homo sapiens did not particularly like the female neanderthal (I can clearly see why as any modern male would). We found neanderthal fossil…

> don't understand why we are so against this hypothesis that male homo sapiens did not particularly like the female neanderthal

Maybe the documentary 101 sexual accidents might enlighten you.

> (I can clearly see why as any modern male would).

What is a "modern male" ?

Re: What our DNA reveals about the sex life of Neanderthals

#49
post #37
post #8

Presumably this hypothesis is meant to explain why there is this observed asymmetry in the type of Neanderthal DNA we find in modern human populations that contain them, which is entirely autosomal. With none in the mitochondrial form, which is exclusively passed down along the female line, and also none in the Y-chromosome form, which is exclusively passed down along the male line. Without weighing on the validity o…

> Without weighing on the validity of their hypothesis that one or both sides found the other“especially attractive” I get that it's survivor bias and all, but modern racial preference also paints a clear picture, I don't understand why we are so against this hypothesis that male homo sapiens did not particularly like the female neanderthal (I can clearly see why as any modern male would). We found neanderthal fossil…

Ancestral Neanderthal Y-DNA was completely replaced by an incursion of Sapiens Y-DNA long before they(/we?) went extinct, so your whole theory of "we ain’t hitting that" is not very convincing to say the least.

"DNA deserts" likely indicate spots where there were issues with hybrid viability and not some half-disguised fantasy.

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