Reconstruction of a Neandertal group. (© Johannes Krause, Neandertal group by Atelier Daynes, Paris, France. In: Museum of the Krapina Neanderthals, Krapina, Croatia. Project and realization of the Museum: Zeljko Kovacic and Jakov Radovcic. The Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology)
For me the most fascinating question that 2010 posed has to do with something that most likely happened between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago. The question was—did some of our ancestors get it on with Neanderthals? And the answer was—they very likely did.
In May of the year that is ending today an exhaustive study by evolutionary anthropologist Svante Paabo of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, and his team suggested that Neanderthals and humans did mess around. Of course, being a serious scientist given to weighing his every word, as opposed to a superficial journalist like me for whom words are a dime a dozen, Dr. Paabo put his findings thus: "Neandertals probably mixed with early modern humans before Homo sapiens split into different groups in Europe and Asia."
One particularly delicate term to describe sex across the species line which caught my attention was interfertile. As in Neanderthals and Homo Sapiens were interfertile. It is amazing that when I write about this very significant anthropological/genetic finding, I make it sound so very smutty. I can almost picture a stocky, hairy and unclothed Neanderthal male, with his eyes darkened by his bushy eyebrows, lurking behind a tree, ogling a human female.
The pick up line may have gone something like this: “Your bush or mine?”
Dr. Paabo’s finding also suggested that Eurasians could be between 1% and 4% Neanderthal as a result of the scene my interfertile imagination just conjured up. I have always felt odd within fully human groups. It is possible that I am one of those who may carry more than 4% Neanderthal in me. It is more like 50%. The other half is extraterrestrial. If you cannot imaging humans and Neanderthals getting it on, wait till you visualize aliens and Neanderthals mixing it up.
Wish you all humans and part Neanderthals a very compelling 2011.