How Troglodyte are you? and which Flintstone are you intermixed with?

Although Neanderthals did not survive, it is apparent that many think they did, based on many of the comments on yesterdays post.

And those commentators are partially correct.

About 20% of the entire Neanderthal genome is floating around in modern humans, although only 2 or 3 percent is usually found in individuals of European descent.

Some individuals may have as much as 5% or even more Neanderthal genes.

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The most visible of traits that we get from that side of the family are red hair, freckles, tough skin etc.

These are the adaptions Neanderthals living in the harsh margins of Ice Age Europe found beneficial.

the Neanderthal component in non-African modern humans was more related to the Mezmaiskaya Neanderthal (Caucasus) than to the Altai Neanderthal (Siberia) or the Vindija Neanderthals (Croatia).

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East Asians actually show more signs of Neanderthal admixture than Europeans and it is possible that gene flow occurred at least twice, once in the middle east on the way out from Africa into Europe and then again later in the middle east leading to the high admixture rates in East Asians.

Sub-Saharan Africans have the least Neanderthal genes and North Africans are somewhere in between. An exception to this is the Maasai from East Africa which show some admixing occurred about 100 generations ago.

Higher Levels of Neanderthal Ancestry in East Asians than in Europeans

But before the Non-Europeans get a little to excited and start pointing fingers...

...there are the Southeast Asian Cousins of the Neanderthals, the Denisovans.

Their genes are found in eastern Southeast Asian and Oceanian populations and the mixing occurred at roughly around the same time.

Then there is also an Archaic African hominin which has contributed to Biaka Pygmies and San and the West African Mandinka's.

We have yet to find the bones and DNA for this African Homonin that is found hiding in the DNA of modern populations.

Bones and viable genetic materiel are not often preserved in the acidic soils of Africa and so the hunt for this Archaic species continues.

In contrast we can even find the bones of hybrid individuals preserved in Europe:

early Upper Paleolithic burial remains of a modern human child from Abrigo do Lagar Velho (Portugal) featured traits indicating Neanderthal admixtures with modern humans dispersing into Iberia. Considering the dating of the burial remains (24,500 years BP) and the persistence of Neanderthal traits long after the transitional period from a Neanderthal to a modern human population in Iberia (28,000–30,000 years BP), it was suggested that the child may have been a descendant of an already heavily-admixed population.

The early Upper Paleolithic human skeleton from the Abrigo do Lagar Velho (Portugal) and modern-human emergence in Iberia

So next time we want to go throwing troglodyte(Fred Flintstones) insults around, it is highly recommended we take a DNA test first to see if some of the fingers we are pointing aren't pointing back at us.