Neanderthal genes 'survive in us'
Many people alive today possess some Neanderthal ancestry, according to a landmark scientific study.
The finding has surprised many experts, as previous genetic evidence suggested the Neanderthals made little or no contribution to our inheritance.
The result comes from analysis of the Neanderthal genome - the "instruction manual" describing how these ancient humans were put together.
Between 1% and 4% of the Eurasian human genome seems to come from Neanderthals.
But the study confirms living humans overwhelmingly trace their ancestry to a small population of Africans who later spread out across the world.There's no controversy in classifying "Neanderthal" as part of the Homo (human) genus. The question of whether they were a different species, or simply a subspecies, depends on whether they were capable of breeding with H sapiens.
If you believe the process of speciation is the result, at least in part, of geographic isolation from the main population, then it would make sense that Neanderthals were a separate species. However, the data studied in the report, above, suggests that the ability to interbreed did not completely cease.
So Jean Auel's
Clan of the Cave Bear is not a totally farfetched.
But back to the OP's hypothesis. If species H sapiens and H neanderthal has difficulty producing offspring, think of the problems between different genera.
L - scene from film version,
Clan of the Cave Bear, 1986R - modern human woman facial profile versus Neanderthal reconstruction
