Neanderthals: A Genetic Analysis

some provocative conclusions, which were summarized by Gibson: “…Neanderthals lacked fully modern speech…among members of the primate order, only humans can pronounce the sounds [i], [ u , and [a] and the velar consonants ] [g] and [k]. In addition, only humans can close off the nasal cavity from the oral cavity by raising the soft palate, thereby producing non-nasalized sounds. Using reconstructions of the vocal tract of a classic Neanderthal, La-Chapelle-aux-Saints, Lieberman concludes that Neanderthals also lacked the ability to pronounce these sounds. Hence, although, in Lieberman’s view, Neanderthals possessed some linguistic capacities, their speech was less efficient than our own” (Gibson 108).
In fact, some evidence also exists that …show more content…
Recent investigations have focused on the ways in which genetic analysis, such as mitochondrial DNA, can shed light on how closely Neanderthals are related to humans. “Whole mitochondrial (mtDNA) genomes have been sequenced, indicating that Neanderthals represented a distinct lineage from all recent humans, with an inferred Middle Pleistocene divergence date. The newly published composite Neanderthal genome indicates a level of about 2% introgression of Neanderthal genes in modern humans outside Africa, perhaps from geneflow in the middle east about 60,000 years ago” (London Natural History Museum). The genome of the Neanderthal was sequenced by Svante Pääbo, a Finnish scientist who had a significant amount of epertise in genome sequencing. He described his findings in a later book and announced that “What excited us was that the sequence we had determined from the Neanderthal bone contained changes that had not been seen in any of those thousands of humans”(Pääbo n.p.). Another gene sequencing study focused on delineating the frequency of interbreeding …show more content…
The methods used to investigate this primitive man span microbiology, genetics, anthropology, and a variety of other scientific methods and fields. Much of the investigation revolves around mitochondrial DNA evidence, which is strongly defended by the scientific evidence therein. Fossil evidence has been used, for example, to look at evidence on teeth and foodstuffs found near corpses to evaluate the diets of Neanderthals (Henry, Brooks, and Piperno). There are many ways to interpret fossils, however, and the variety of evidence they offer shows how the scientific method is both compellingly useful and at times, problematic in its interpretive opportunities. The differences in, for example, DNA analysis machines or protocols (Pääbo) can lead to very significantly different analytical outcomes for sets of

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