It seems like some geneticists have been working very hard, and a paper in PLoS One, an open-source science journal, has appeared online, free for anyone to download. This paper apparently shows, with lots of charts and graphs and details that I haven't yet had time to read and digest, that there were at least three distinct Neandertal populations, spread over a wide area. These populations seem to have been genetically distinct in the same way that the various populations of "modern" humans are often genetically distinct. Which would make the various Neandertals more complicated, in some ways, than most people are inclined to believe. But before anybody starts getting on the "races are real" bandwagon, re Neandertals or anybody else, I think more studies will probably tend to show, that Neandertals, wherever they happened to reside, had more in common with each other, than they differed -- just as "modern" humans do.
Is this "similarity" or "difference" from "us"? I can answer the question for myself, but I am sure there are people who will answer this kind of question quite differently.
Anne G
2 comments:
Completely OT comment! You won a copy of The Traitor's Wife at Historical Tapestry. If you could please send us your details we will get your book on its way to you!
Marg:
Hey, no, it's not (exactly) OT, since this is a writer's blog! I'll even do a review of it. But I'll send you the necessary details at Historical Tapestry, for obvious reasons! Oh,and thank you, yay, I won something for a change!
Anne G
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