NeanderthalHomo Sapiens Hybrid
Implications of Neanderthal-Homo Sapiens Hybrid from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho (Portugal)In a recent excavation at Abrigo do Lagar Velho in Portugal, Duarte et al (1999) unearthed what was later to be recognized as early human skeletal remains which pointed to interbreeding between Neanderthal and Modern Humans during the mid - upper Palaeolithic transition. The morphology of the remains, belonging to a child of approximately 3-4 years old, indicates a Neanderthal typology in post-cranial features, and more modern cranial features. The find has been cited as evidence of hybridization between the two traditionally separate human lines, and offers an explanation to the question of Neanderthal extinction. (Trinkaus 1999) Anthropologists are now offered a line of evidence pointing to the contemopranity of Moderns and Neanderthals in parts of Europe and assumptions can be made about their contact:"The discoverers...are making a ground-breaking claim, that the skeleton shows traces of both Neanderthal and modern human ancestry, evidence that modern humans did not simply extinguish the Neanderthals, as many researchers had come to think. Instead the two kinds of human were so alike that in Portugal, at least, they intermingl
DNA from a Neanderthal specimen would be able to confer or oppose the " Mitochondrial Eve" theory put forth by Cann et al in 1987 (Foley and Lahr 1992: 526; Klein 1989:352) which stated that the common ancestor for modern human populations could be traced to approx. 1992 The archaeology of modern human origins. Trinkaus, Eric1989 Issues concerning human emergence in the later Pleistocene. 1989 African origin of human mitochondrial DNA. It is apparent that there can be no consensus as yet to the fate of the Neanderthals. These two theories are known as the Continuity or Regional model and the Replacement or Out of Africa model respectively.
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