rysworld t1_ir7q7ds wrote on October 5, 2022 at 11:05 PM

Reply to comment by cent178 in How can we be sure that Neanderthal skeletons are Neanderthal skeletons and not human skeletons decomposing? by cent178

There is genetic evidence extant in the genomes of large populations of humans and in DNA we have been able to extract from Neanderthal remains:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4072735/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2860157/

It is also notable that while there was SOME genetic input from Neanderthals into the modern human genome, there are no Neanderthal genes on any modern human Y chromosome- suggesting that it was either impossible for male Neanderthals and female modern humans to breed at all or that any such offspring produced were sterile like mules- a genetic block to fully interbreeding that points to a genetic basis to call them a different species.

We also have a lot of examples of modern human remains that have spent time in a wide variety of conditions, and none of them seem to deform in ways that give them the morphological characteristics of Neanderthals.

cent178 OP t1_ir8gz74 wrote on October 6, 2022 at 2:47 AM

Have we ever found human remains in similar conditions that Neanderthal remains have been found in? Like in a cave decomposing? Have Neanderthal remains always been found in caves? If there have been found human remains decomposing in a cave and the remains did not look like a Neanderthal I think that kind of answers my question since then two different things have been found.