My Dear Cousins

[Tidgy's Dad]

Somehow, I find this terribly sad. 

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200128-how-did-the-last-neanderthals-live

[snolly50]

30 minutes ago, Tidgy's Dad said:

I find this terribly sad.

Don't feel bad Adam, I'm still here. snolly: 2.3% Neanderthal, 2.2% Denisovan

[grandpa]

I prefer to see the Neanderthal fate as not an extinction but rather an incorporation into another (sub?) species - us.

 

20% of our combined DNA is Neanderthal?!! Wow.

[Randyw]

13 minutes ago, grandpa said:

I prefer to see the Neanderthal fate as not an extinction but rather an incorporation into another (sub?) species - us.

 

20% of our combined DNA is Neanderthal?!! Wow.

I’ll go along with this. I’ve heard this before and I was really excited when I did. The Neanderthal live on in us! (  my wife thinks I may have more then the average amount of Neanderthal left in me ) instead of a failed line it’s now continuing at least for a few more generations..

[DPS Ammonite]

1 hour ago, grandpa said:

I prefer to see the Neanderthal fate as not an extinction but rather an incorporation into another (sub?) species - us.

 

20% of our combined DNA is Neanderthal?!! Wow.

I have heard that we as individuals can have 2-3 % Neanderthal DNA; it is not 20%. I think that the authors of the paper were trying to say that 20% of the Neanderthal DNA was transferred to us collectively. We each received only a small part of that 20%.

 

 

Quote from paper cited cited by OP in first post: 

“I discovered a few years ago that I have 2.5% Neanderthal DNA. There’s a lot of it out there – across thousands of individuals, researchers have identified a combined total of 20% Neanderthal DNA in modern humans today.”

[DPS Ammonite]

1 hour ago, snolly50 said:

Don't feel bad Adam, I'm still here. snolly: 2.3% Neanderthal, 2.2% Denisovan

Where did your Denisovan come from? Do have records of relatives from east Asia, Australia or the south Pacific?

[snolly50]

9 hours ago, DPS Ammonite said:

Where did your Denisovan come from?

I participated in the Genographic Project, Geno 2.0 sponsored by National Geographic. My DNA sample was sequenced and compared. I expected the Neanderthal contribution; but was surprised by the Denisovan presence. The ancestry known to me in "modern" times was Irish paternal line and Moravian maternal line. The Geno 2.0 report cites my "Regional Ancestry" (5,000 - 10,000 years ago) - Northern European 42%, Mediterranean 39%, Southwest Asian 18%. The results found my haplogroup most closely allied with the current indigenous population of Ireland. This of course was not surprising, given my known family origins. Again seeing a affinity with the hominin, Neanderthal was not unexpected given the European family links. As I said, the mysterious Denisovan contribution was not anticipated. Apparently, folks of my ilk wandered a bit and were "friendly." When I commented to my wife that I was not 100% Homo sapiens, i.e. not quite human; she unkindly remarked, "That explains a lot!"  

[Tidgy's Dad]

I rather think I'm 2% tortoise, 4% camel and probably 20% orthid brachiopod.