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LouSanous t1_iv0pta7 wrote

It's difficult to say why. There are a number of possibilities:

Male sapien-female neanderthal (MS-FN) couplings did not happen. Perhaps FNs did not accept MSs for coupling

MS-FN offspring were sterile for whatever reason

MS-FN offspring were killed via infanticide

MS-FN offspring were not viable

MS-FN offspring caused some complications in birth.

MS-FN offspring were less hardy the pure N offspring and the N mothers couldn't adapt to keep them alive

We may never know why exactly.

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viridiformica t1_iv1fboh wrote

Interestingly, there is a paper which suggests that at least some groups of Neanderthals had their y chromosome and mitochondrial DNA replaced via an earlier admixture with modern humans https://www.science.org/doi/epdf/10.1126/science.abb6460

This goes against the theory that ms-fn hybrids didn't happen, and suggests instead that they were selected against in modern humans populations

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