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Comment by excalibur | Hacker News Reader

Our understanding of the interplay between the different groups of early humans and their relationship to us has been done a disservice by the artificial lines we've drawn in the sand. The Neanderthal and the Denisovan interbred. Both are the ancestors of modern humans, and on the same level of our family tree (i.e. the same number of generations ago). To proclaim that one group is homo sapiens and the other is not amounts to a weird sort of racism against our own ancestors, leading to the popular view of the Neanderthal as inferior.

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> by the artificial lines we've drawn in the sand.

You make it sound like the distinction was completely arbitrary or something. There are anatomical differences that justified the separation into different species, from a classical point of view.

Now, the concept of species is blurry and genetic analysis shows that Neanderthal and Sapiens did interbreed. Nevertheless, the anatomical characteristics of Sapiens remained, and none of the Neanderthal ones. Therefore it seems to me that the distinction into different species remains pertinent.

> none of the anatomical characteristics of Neanderthal remained

Red hair and green eyes came probably from them

Err, isn't use of morphological classification to define species of animals super outdated? I was under the impression it was more useful to define which groups of animals could produce viable offspring. In this definition, neanderthals would be a subspecies, not a distinct species in itself. This seems both more correct and more useful.

> Err, isn't use of morphological classification to define species of animals super outdated?

It's still the best you have in most cases, notably in the fossil record.

I'm no expert but I believe that the concept of species is becoming more and more problematic nowadays. There is a wikipedia article about it[1]. So, it's complicated.

That being said, even if Neanderthal seems to have interbred with Sapiens, as far as I know, nobody seriously thinks this should revise its status as a separate species.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Species_problem

Let me introduce you to the Occipital bun [0].

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occipital_bun

Only those of very limited imagination would assume that any of three different Homo species are “inferior” to any of the other. Tigers, lions and leopards are all different species of the genus Panthera [0], but nobody says that one is inferior to the other.

Just like the Homo species, different Pathera species can interbreed [1]. The most interesting observation is that it appears that Neanderthals and ancient Africans (we don’t seem to have a good short name for the Homo species that arose in sub-Saharan Africa) follow Haldane’s Rule [2], where only male Neanderthals and female ancient Africans were able to produce fertile offspring [3].

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panthera

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger

2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haldane%27s_rule

3. http://www.hypothesisjournal.com/?p=932

I thought that there were sizable modern populations with no Neanderthal DNA which would suggest that they are not ancestors of modern humans:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archaic_human_admixture_with_m...

There are, but not a great many, and that doesn't by any stretch countermand the gp's point.

Sub-Saharan Africa is almost entirely free of Neanderthal DNA except for some groups who acquired a bit through introgression from Eurasian modern humans.

Various sources of Archaic admixture have been observed or postulated for different modern human groups; determinations about their similarity to modern humans are made in broader grounds. As a practical matter, taxonomic distinctions between different hominid species/subspecies are generally retained until sufficient evidence accumulates to justify dissolving the boundaries. The idea that archaic groups like Neanderthals were very cognitively sophisticated has been around for a long time; the question is whether it is more informative to maintain them as different taxa.

Absolutely. I have to admit I don't really understand why neanderthalensis is separate from sapiens - H. sapiens sapiens is a widespread enough classification, so why not H. sapiens neanderthalensis?

Yeah, homo sapiens and homo neanderthalensis were separated by 500.000 years, however they could still produce offspring when they met.

They had art, organisation, tools..

I have neanderthal genes in me as do many people living today. I never got the "official story" of them being dumb cave men who could barely have a coherent thought.

> I never got the "official story" of them being dumb cave men who could barely have a coherent thought.

Where did you get that "official" story, though?

Mate, you share 50% of your genes with a fucking banana. I double dare you to tell me with a straight face that you never believed the official story that bananas aren't even sentient.

There's no crediable evedence they had art.

Neanderthals are not our ancestors, but older and very close relatives. We have common ancestors, but in Africa there was no known interbreeding (because there was no Neanderthals) AFAIK. However the physical differences are significant enough, so I don't see how it is more racist than, say, making a distinction between a husky and a golden retriever. They are close relatives and can interbreed, but they're distinctively different breeds, aren't they? Racism is only in the part where we always like to presume to be the smartest ones...

Those are both the same species.

Neanderthals and sapiens are separate species. Just look at the pictures here:

https://phys.org/news/2014-11-neanderthals-sub-species-moder...

Clearly related, but also different.

They may not be your ancestors (if you are solely of sub-saharan decent), but they are most definitely the ancestors of most people on the planet including mine.

Racism only enters the picture if we assume one Homo species is “superior” to any of the others, something for which we have no evidence. Different !== worse.

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