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Articles
Pan the Tool-Maker
Latest Homo erectus of Java
Neandertal mtDNA
Middle Stone Age Bone Industry from Katanda
Pedra Furanda
Venus Figures

Web Sites
The Ancient Indus Valley
Stolen Stones: The Modern Sack of Nineveh
Clovis and Beyond
Chimpanzee Cultures
Oldstoneage.com

ROM Visits
Egypt Exhibit
Evolution of Man Exhibit

Bibliography 		Krings, M., Geisert, H., Schmitz, R.W., Krainitzki, H., Daabo, Svante. 1999. DNA sequence of the mitochondrial hypervariable region II from the Neandertal type specimen. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. v. 96, i. 11, p. 5581-5585.

This article looked at the mitochondrial DNA of a Neandertal found in central Europe in 1856. From their methods, they found that the mtDNA of Neandertals varied greatly from that of modern humans. The article said that there is a divergence of about 465 000 BP between modern human and Neandertal DNA. The article says that "the results support the concept that the Neandertal mtDNA evolved separated from that of modern humans for a substantial amound of time and lends no support to the idea that they contributed mtDNA to contemporary modern humans." Therefore, Neandertals are a distinct branch in the evolution of the genus Homo, and became extinct without any direct genetic contribution to modern humans.

The article then goes on to exhaustingly cite the materials and methods uses in the experiment.


This picture is a phylogenetic diagram comparing Neandertals and humans using mtDNA. The numbers on the internal branches indicate quartet and puzzling support values.

One of the article's conclusions was as follows, "the line leading to the Neandertal mtDNA diverged before the most recent common ancestor of the modern human mtDNA gene pool existed." Therefore, Neandertals couldn't possibly be the ancestor to modern Europeans, as some people have suggested.

I think this article does much to prove that Neandertals are not the ancestor of modern humans, nor are they a subspecies of Homo sapiens. However, phylogenetic conclusions should not just be based on genetic studies alone. Including morphological characters in their phylogenetic study would have made their research more complete.

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