Sex with Neanderthals?!

Neanderthal 

Recent genetic analysis shows that at least two other extinct species of human, the Neanderthal and the Denisovans  contributed to the DNA of people living today, suggesting that modern humans did in fact interbreed with other archaic humans. It seems as though Neanderthals and Denisovans, found predominantly in Europe and Asia interbred with modern humans, mixing our genes up together. Some of these modern humans with the newly acquired genes then brought them back to Africa about 10,000 years ago, giving modern humans global immunity to a lot of diseases. 

Peter Parham
Stanford University 

The research 

The team focused their analysis on Human Leukocyte Antigen genes, or HLA genes for short. HLA genes evolve quickly and play an important role for our immune system, which helps us to fight disease. Peter and the team studied the genomes of Neanderthals and Denisovans and compared them with the modern human genome from different populations. From this they managed to paint a picture of our past.
He explained, during an interview with discovery news that a small group of modern humans, left Africa and colonized other continents. This small group would have had limited HLA diversity and suffered the consequences through infections from diseases they hadn't been exposed to before. 
Interbreeding with the archaic humans local to their newly discovered continent, introduced new HLA variants into the modern human population, which helped to increase genetic viability and ability to resist infection. 

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Two sapiens and a Neanderthal!

Homo Sapiens Neanderthalensis 

I once believed that humans today evolved from the neanderthal.We didn't - the neanderthal lived alongside modern humans instead, sharing a common ancestor, the Homo erectus.  This means the neanderthal is more of a brother as opposed to a father. The Neanderthal is now classified as the Homo sapiens neanderthalensis, whilst the modern human is classified as Homo sapiens sapiens. Meaning that we are now considered part of the same species.

What does it mean to be a 'modern' human?                             

The term modern human, means ‘anatomically modern’, as in people that look like we do today. All other forms of extinct human, don’t look exactly like us, and are known as the ‘archaic’.The oldest fossil of a modern human, found in Africa dates back to 196,000 years before present, this means ‘we’ the Homo sapiens sapiens are estimated to be 200,000 years old.

Human Skull (left), Neanderthal Skull (right) comparison

Anatomically modern humans are mostly distinguished from the archaic humans by the physical features of the skull. As you can see from the diagram, the Neanderthal had a tough, robust skeleton, with much harder bones. A layer of bone also protrudes from above the eye socket, they have a smaller chin and their forehead is slanted backwards. If you look at the back of the skull, they have a pointy edge known as an ‘occipital bun’. These are all features that the modern man lacks for various evolutionary reasons.

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For example, anthropologists believe that the reason the Neanderthal had stronger bones was because they lived a more physically demanding life, whilst we became increasingly dependent on technology. Causing our bones to become weaker, however, it may be this same dependence on technology that has allowed us to outlive the Neanderthal and other archaic humans.

With the archaic humans extinct, our closest living relative is now the ‘chimpanzee’, who shares 98% of the modern human genome.