Neanderthals R Us
Research shows that one formerly
leading missing link is now a
recent member of the human family
by Jerry Bergman, PhD
One of the most important links between modern humans and our putative ape ancestors was Neanderthal Man. The first fossils described as Neanderthal were discovered in 1856 in the Feldhofer Cave of the Neander Valley, near Düsseldorf, Germany. The fossils, discovered by quarry workers, consisted of a robust cranial skull with a massive arched brow ridge and several limb bones. Soon other similar examples were unearthed.
A year before Darwin’s Origin was published in 1859, Charles Lyell, who had a major influence on Charles Darwin, wrote: “When the skull and other parts of the [Neanderthal] skeleton were first exhibited at a German scientific meeting at Bonn, in 1857, some doubts were expressed by several naturalists whether it was truly human.”[1] Lyell then consulted the leading evolutionist of his day, Professor T.H. Huxley. Huxley concluded that the Neanderthal had “the most ape-like skull he had ever beheld.”[2] It was clearly an important link between apes and humans.
From that 1857 date, for over a century. Neanderthals were featured as ‘Exhibit A’ for the evidence of human evolution. If a biology book covered human evolution, Neanderthal Man, although not always mentioned by name, was invariably presented as a central link between apes and modern man. In fact, from “until the late 20th century, Neanderthals were regarded as genetically, morphologically, and behaviorally distinct from living humans.”[3]
A few examples of many examples of the use of Neanderthal man in my files in leading textbooks include the following:
From Rice, E., An Introduction to Biology, Ginn and Company, Boston, MA, p. 73, 1935.
An early textbook placed Neanderthals between so-called Java Man and modern man. From Benjamin Gruenberg, Elementary Biology, Ginn & Company, Boston, MA, 1924, p. 493.
Above is one example of what Gruenberg describes as “the fact of evolution.”[5] The chart shows Java Man, Neanderthal Man, Negroid Man, and Nebraska Man.
But then, around 2000, something happened. The common view of Neanderthal Man was overturned by genetic evidence.
Our understanding of admixture between humans and Neanderthals has changed dramatically over the past decade and a half. Once [interbreeding was] thought not to have occurred at all, there is now ample evidence for gene flow from Neanderthals to humans and vice versa.[4]
Indeed, all of the claimed missing links between human ape ancestors and humans have now been refuted.
New research proving Neanderthals are only another
people group like the Scandinavians, French, Chinese, and Africans
An early racist picture of a Neanderthal: beetle-browed, bow-legged, stooped over, and black.
In the true spirit of science, numerous research programs have adduced genetic evidence of frequent interbreeding between humans and Neanderthals, showing that they were part of our own species. One example published in the past few weeks[6] will be reviewed.
This was published July 11, 2024 in the leading American journal Science. The genetic analysis concluded that a new DNA protocol allowed the researchers to estimate when the Homo sapiens and Neanderthals interbred, concluding that “they made babies together remarkably early… not long after Homo sapiens coalesced as a species the dalliances were repeated” documenting the conclusion that mating between modern humans and Neanderthals “was more common than previously thought.”[7]
The rethinking was arrived at by the following reasoning:
By analyzing the length and other features of the diverse segments of modern human DNA, Akey and Li could calculate when and how often these ancient hookups [between Neanderthals and non-Neanderthals] happened. The smaller the stretches of DNA, the earlier Neanderthals got them, because inherited segments get shorter over generations. The first mating episode the team spotted was very ancient…, around the time anatomically modern humans first show up in the fossil record in Africa…. The third bout of mixing is the familiar one …. likely in the Middle East or Europe, where Neanderthals and modern humans overlapped for thousands of years.[8]
Professor Akey, one of the lead researchers who was part of the data analysis, commented:
People with Neanderthal genes didn’t abruptly vanish, … their offspring just acquired more and more modern human DNA. “They were overwhelmed by waves of modern humans extending out of Africa,” he [Akey] says. “The modern human population eventually absorbed the Neanderthals”…. Even before then, the findings suggest, our ancestors and Neanderthals had more in common than we ever knew.[9]
The researchers developed a complex method to estimate the level of human sequences in Neanderthals. They applied the protocol developed to the whole-genome sequence data from two thousand modern humans, three Neanderthals, and one Denisovan. Akey et al. estimated that Neanderthals have from 2.5 to 3.7 percent human ancestry.
A more modern depiction shows Neanderthals as strong, intelligent and culturally astute. What’s the difference? image by Mauro Cutrona.
One investigator concluded in light of the findings that they now have closed “the loop in terms of us thinking about ‘us’ versus ‘them.’” One of the other major conclusions from the data was Neanderthals did not go extinct as once commonly believed, but instead were absorbed into the modern human population which is why modern human DNA is from 2.5% to 3.7% of the Neanderthal genome.[10]
This research has “forced the rewriting [of] the Neanderthal story. …. Ever since the first Neanderthal bones were discovered, people have wondered about these ancient hominins. How are they different from us? How much are they like us? Did our ancestors get along with them? Fight them? Love them?”[11]
Now we have some solid knowledge about these questions. This people group, specifically “Neanderthals, once stereotyped as slow-moving and dim-witted, are now seen as skilled hunters and tool makers who treated each other’s injuries with sophisticated techniques and were well adapted to thrive in the cold European weather.”[12] The Princeton University summary added that
the new findings paint a picture of how the Neanderthals vanished from the record, some 30,000 years ago. “I don’t like to say ‘extinction,’ because I think Neanderthals were largely absorbed,” said Akey. His idea is that Neanderthal populations slowly shrank until the last survivors were folded into modern human communities. This “assimilation model” was first articulated by Fred Smith, an anthropology professor at Illinois State University, in 1989. “Our results provide strong genetic data consistent with Fred’s hypothesis, and I think that’s really interesting,” said Akey.[13]
Conclusion
This work at Princeton University has now totally demolished the view that has dominated evolutionary biology for the past century, namely that the Neanderthals were a link between our ape ancestors and modern humans.
Addendum: The Age of Neanderthals
One major concern of mine is that the many dates cited in the articles involving hundreds of thousands of years is contrary to the conclusions of forensics.
Forensic evidence shows that DNA breaks down fairly rapidly due to temperature variations both heat and cold, from many kinds of radiation, and from exposure to substances in the environment. In living organisms, this damage in the vast majority of cases is effectively repaired, but is not in non-living organisms. Thus the damage to DNA slowly accumulates, proving that Neanderthal DNA found in caves cannot be as old as claimed.
One excellent summary describes the problem as follows:
Although genetic variation is important for evolution, the survival of the individual demands genetic stability. Maintaining genetic stability requires not only an extremely accurate mechanism for replicating DNA, but also mechanisms for repairing the many accidental lesions that occur continually in DNA. Most such spontaneous changes in DNA are temporary because they are immediately corrected by a set of processes that are collectively called DNA repair. Of the thousands of random changes created every day in the DNA of a human cell by heat, metabolic accidents, radiation of various sorts, and exposure to substances in the environment, only a few accumulate as mutations in the DNA sequence. We now know that fewer than one in 1000 accidental base changes in DNA results in a permanent mutation; the rest are eliminated with remarkable efficiency by DNA repair.[14]
In non-living organisms, the 1,000 base changes are not repaired but accumulate. After the hundreds of thousands of years that evolutionists claim for the Neanderthal bones, not much of the original DNA would be left. This problem needs to be looked into by creationists and others. These DNA samples could not be thousands of years old, or even hundreds of years old, without some highly effective preservation environment.
Cosmic radiation, the radiation coming from space and the Sun, is one major cause of damage. We are also all exposed to background radiation every day of our lives, but when radiation doses from the Sun and the Earth exceed certain levels, mutations and DNA damage results. Background radiation levels can vary dramatically, but the average exposure level across the United States is ~3mSv/yr, or roughly 0.34 µSv/hr. which is below the safe limit of 5,000 mrem (50 mSv)/year. Exposure to minors and to the general public is limited to 100 mrem (1 mSv)/year.. The fact is, even exposure at the lower levels from 1,000 to over 300,000 years will normally cause significant damage to biological tissue, especially DNA. One Duke University report concluded that radiation damages
the cellular DNA and its ability to replicate correctly. Ionizing radiation such as that created by cosmic rays can damage the DNA in different ways. One way is to damage the nucleotides or the sugar moieties. Electrons from the high energy rays are transferred to the oxygen or nitrogen atoms in the DNA nucleotides for example, causing the formation of …. the wrong base pair to be formed during replication. Another possibility is that the high energy electrons actually cause breaks in the DNA strands. Usually, in cells with DNA damage, the cell would either repair the DNA or execute cell death (apoptosis). If the mutations are not eliminated through the repair system, the cells begin to divide and produce more copies of the damaged DNA. A third way that ionizing radiation causes DNA damage is indirectly by increasing the amount of reactive oxygen species in a cell. Reactive oxygen species are chemically reactive, charged molecules that damage many parts of the cell, including the DNA.[15]
From my reading, I was unable to find any detailed discussion of this problem for Neanderthal DNA claimed to be many thousands of years old which even small amounts of DNA should not exist.
References
[1] Lyell, C., The Antiquity of Man, John Murray, London, UK, p. 78, 1863.
[2] Lyell, 1863, p. 79.
[3] Trinkaus, E., and R.H. Tuttle, “Neanderthal: archaic human,”. Encyclopedia Britannica, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Neanderthal, 13 July 2024.
[4] Simonti, C.,is quoted in Li, L., et al., “Recurrent gene flow between Neanderthals and modern humans over the past 200,000 years,” Science 385(6705): DOI: 10.1126/science.adi1768, https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.adi1768, 12 July 2024.
[5] Gruenberg, B., Elementary Biology: An Introduction to the Science of Life, Ginn and Company, Boston, MA, p. 470, 1919.
[6] Li, L., et al., “Recurrent gene flow between Neanderthals and modern humans over the past 200,000 years,” Science 385(6705): DOI: 10.1126/science.adi1768, https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.adi1768, 12 July 2024.
[7] Gibbons, A., “Neanderthals and modern humans mingled early and often,” Science 385(6705): doi: 10.1126/science.ztbutl9, 11 July 2024.
[8] Gibbons, 2024.
[9] Gibbons, 2024.
[10] Choi, C.Q., “Neanderthals didn’t truly go extinct, but were rather absorbed into the modern human population, DNA study suggests,” LiveScience, https://www.livescience.com/health/genetics/neanderthals-didnt-truly-go-extinct-but-were-rather-absorbed-into-the-modern-human-population-dna-study-suggests, 11 July 2024.
[11] Fuller-Wright, L., “ ‘A history of contact’: Princeton geneticists are rewriting the narrative of Neanderthals and other ancient humans,” https://www.princeton.edu/news/2024/07/12/history-contact-princeton-geneticists-are-rewriting-narrative-neanderthals, 12 July 2024. See also Princeton University via Phys.org, https://phys.org/news/2024-07-history-contact-geneticists-rewriting-narrative.html.
[12] Fuller-Wright, 2024.
[13] Fuller-Wright, 2024.
[14] Alberts, B., A. Johnson, J. Lewis, et al., “DNA Repair,” in Molecular Biology of the Cell, 4th edition. Garland Science, New York, NY, 2002. Available from: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK26879/.
[15] Duke University Medical Center, “Radiation Damage to DNA,” Mission to Mars, https://sites.duke.edu/missiontomars/the-mission/effects-of-radiation/radiation-damage-to-dna.
Dr. Jerry Bergman has taught biology, genetics, chemistry, biochemistry, anthropology, geology, and microbiology for over 40 years at several colleges and universities including Bowling Green State University, Medical College of Ohio where he was a research associate in experimental pathology, and The University of Toledo. He is a graduate of the Medical College of Ohio, Wayne State University in Detroit, the University of Toledo, and Bowling Green State University. He has over 1,900 publications in 14 languages and 40 books and monographs. His books and textbooks that include chapters that he authored are in over 1,800 college libraries in 27 countries. So far over 80,000 copies of the 60 books and monographs that he has authored or co-authored are in print. For more articles by Dr Bergman, see his Author Profile.