Neanderthals Promoted to Relatives
Once viewed as an extinct
missing link, Neanderthals are now
seen as our distant relatives
by Jerry Bergman, PhD
The Neanderthal Progression
The Neanderthal progression has been an evolving story of human evolution. Neanderthals have “evolved” (so to speak) in scientific interpretations from a creature close to an ape into one that was a close relative of ours.
The story of Neanderthal re-interpretations illustrates one of many examples of paleoanthropologists having to admit, “Oops! Sorry, we are wrong about that.” (See our Early Man category for other examples.) Each new re-interpretation was itself superseded by another one which, in turn, was replaced until we reach the view now common today. One of the newest Neanderthal interpretations was published in Nature by F. Kreier this year under the title, “Neanderthals and humans interbred more recently than scientists thought.” Kreier says,
The Neanderthal DNA found in all people with ancestors outside Africa entered the family tree much more recently than previously thought, according to two analyses that together examine DNA from people who lived across Eurasia.… humans and Neanderthals had so many children together that Neanderthal DNA is found in all humans with ancestors outside Africa. Furthermore they became part of the family tree much more recently than previously thought.”[1]
Evolving Interpretations of Neanderthals
This long series of ‘Oops’ episodes can be illustrated in artist reconstructions. In the following high school biology textbook, a Neanderthal was pictured as halfway between an ape and a modern human. The sculptor wanted to emphasize it as some kind of missing link.
From a 1920 textbook. Neanderthal is the drawing in the center.
Another old illustration portrayed a Neanderthal as fully ape-like, at least from the neck up. In the early 20th century, Neanderthals were considered one of the early missing links between apes and modern man.
An early picture of a Neanderthal: beetle-browed, bow-legged, stooped over, and black.
The next graphic portrayed Neanderthals as one step in the long-extinct precursory line leading up to today’s humans.
Next, came the ‘cave man’ Neanderthal portrayal, here shown with his cave home to the right and behind him.
More recently, Neanderthal Man is being pictured as so genetically close to modern humans that they could breed with us.
The next step of the ‘Neanderthal progression’ assumes that Neanderthals were actually fully human, but became extinct and left no direct ancestors. What remains is modern humans with a few lingering Neanderthal traits like heavy brow ridges.
Yet another example looks almost fully evolved:
Next, these reconstructions with a few Neanderthal traits look fully human, able to interbreed with modern humans. The current view is that many people have Neanderthal genes (i.e., DNA with recessive alleles), but very few have obvious Neanderthal traits.
The following photos show the end of the progression. At left, one looks like someone’s own great-grandmother. She had a significant amount of Neanderthal genes but little evidence of Neanderthal physiology (i.e., shared genotype but not phenotype). The one on the right, a modern European woman, has as much as 20 percent Neanderthal DNA, but no visible Neanderthal morphology. But is this evolution?
The Latest View
One example of the most-recent perspective regarding Neanderthals, published December 12, 2024 in Nature by Iasi et al., involves a re-interpretation of a presumably 40,000–year–old human mandible found in a Romanian cave called Oase. This find had been announced by Erik Trinkaus in 2003. Its lower jaw had a mix of human and Neanderthal traits. Genetic analysis ‘suggests’ [the word the authors used] that the individual Neanderthal ancestor lived only 4 to 6 generations before the individual had died.[2] The editors of the newest technical paper in this area describe the find in some detail which measures introgression, meaning the transfer of genetic material from one species into the gene pool of another:
Gene flow from archaic hominins into modern humans, and vice versa, has been amply demonstrated in recent years. However, many questions remain about how selection has acted on introgressed variants as well as the diversity of hominin individuals who contributed to this admixture. Iasi et al. identified Neanderthal ancestry in genomic data from 59 ancient and 275 present-day human samples. They found that gene flow likely happened over a period of about 6000 years… Surprisingly, the authors didn’t find evidence for a second pulse of introgression into East Eurasians despite the increased levels of introgression found in modern individuals.[3]
The lead author of this new 2024 paper concluded that their
study provides insights into the complex history of Neanderthal gene flow into modern humans. We found strong support for a single extended period of Neanderthal gene flow into the common ancestors of all non-Africans …. The majority of natural selection—positive and negative—on Neanderthal ancestry happened very quickly after the gene flow and left clear signals in the genetic diversity of the earliest modern humans outside Africa.[4]
Note how the Oase mandible was first portrayed in evolutionary terms by Trinkaus:
The Oase 1 mandible is the oldest definite early modern human specimen in Europe and provides perspectives on the emergence and evolution of early modern humans in the northwestern Old World. The moderately long Oase 1 mandible exhibits a prominent tuber symphyseos and overall proportions that place it close to earlier Upper Paleolithic European specimens. Its symmetrical mandibular incisure, medially placed condyle, small superior medial pterygoid tubercle, mesial mental foramen, and narrow corpus place it closer to early modern humans among Late Pleistocene humans. However, its cross-sectional symphyseal orientation is intermediate between late archaic and early modern humans, the ramus is exceptionally wide, and the molars become progressively larger distally with exceptionally large third molars. The molar crowns lack derived Neandertal features but are otherwise morphologically undiagnostic. However, it has unilateral mandibular foramen lingular bridging, an apparently derived Neandertal feature. It therefore presents a mosaic of archaic, early modern human and possibly Neandertal morphological features, emphasizing both the complex population dynamics of modern human dispersal into Europe and the subsequent morphological evolution of European early modern humans.[5]
Not Evolution, but Intermarriage
This research was not about evolution, although presented as such. The evidence supports what creationists call comparisons of various people groups. Evolutionists in secular science often call these “racial groups.” Comparing these bones from yesteryear is no different than research on intermarriage between whites and blacks today, because each so-called racial group has traits that are used to classify them in their respective ‘race’. Yet all are fully human—and modern humans at that.
Some of the measurable differences include blacks having higher axial and appendicular bone mineral content and density than whites of comparable ages and body weights. This specific design feature is associated with a lower incidence of fractures in black adults than in white adults. In addition, blacks generally have a higher bone mineral density and body protein content than whites. This difference results in a higher, fat-free body density. Additionally, there exist racial differences in subcutaneous fat distribution and the length of the limbs relative to the trunk length.[6]
These differences are important in forensics. When a dead body is recovered, to determine who the deceased person is, one of the first steps is to determine the sex, ethnicity and age of the victim.
All that the Iasi paper found were results of blending two different racial groups—nothing more. Today in America, one out of six marriages are interracial yet no one terms this trend evidence of evolution. In the Trinkaus paper the word ‘evolution’ was mentioned 15 times, admitting that “In the context of this limited knowledge of the biology of the earliest modern Europeans, it is difficult to address the more subtle aspects of the evolutionary emergence of those populations and their subsequent evolution.[7] The Iasi article also used the term ‘evolution’ 15 times, indicating that the focus is on evolutionary change when, in fact, evolutionary change as normally defined did not occur as a result of the intermarriage of Neanderthals and so-called modern humans. The common interbreeding today is not evidence for evolution, nor of the interbreeding between Neanderthals and so-called modern man.[8]
References
[1] Kreier, F., “Neanderthals and humans interbred more recently than scientists thought.” Nature, 12 December 2024.
[2] Kreier, 2024.
[3] Simonti, C., Summary to the Iasi, L., et al., 2024 Neanderthal ancestry through time: Insights from genomes of ancient and present-day humans. Science. 386(7627). December 27.
[4] Iasi, L., et al., Iasi, L., et al., 2024 Neanderthal ancestry through time: Insights from genomes of ancient and present-day humans. Science. 386(7627). December 27.
[5] Trinkaus, Erik, et al., “An early modern human from the Peştera cu Oase, Romania,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) 100(20): 11231-11236, , 22 September 2003.
[6] Wagner, D.R., and V.H. Heyward, “Measures of body composition in Blacks and Whites: A comparative review,” The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition 71(6): 1392-1402, June 2000.
[7] Trinkaus, et al., 2003, p. 1123.
[8] Iasi, et al., 2024.
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.