Do you think that We are all part Neanderthal?

Recent evidence from geneticists, as one of the answerers notes, indicates we carry a few Neanderthal genes; thus if we carry a few of their genes, we did interbreed with some of them, and they children must have been fertile or we would not today have a fewof those genes. They had large brains, but different musculature. We could probably run faster than Neanderthals; they probably were more meat eaters than we are; we are actually omnivores, and we eat a lot of different things than meat. Someone answered that interbreeding with earlier species caused our races. The term race is an old fashioned one, and anthropologists and archaeologists do not use it. All so-called races are just varieties of humans caused by environmental changes and responses usually, or other genetic processes. Not interbreeding with other species. All humans today are ONE race with many varieties. Lighter skin apparently came with humans moving farther into the northern hemisphere where there was less daily sun available as a source of Vitamin D. Blue eyes are a relatively recent mutation, under 10,000 years I believe. Perhaps something to do with snow fields? No one is sure yet.

Yes, there is good recent evidence indicating that Neandertals and modern human interbred. And of course the offspring were fertile, otherwise the studies would have been negative. Therefore, by the common definition, both belong to the same species.

As P. Z. Myers writes: " There's good news and bad news. The bad news is that there aren't very many of them: a grand total of 78 genes were identified that have a novel form and that have been fixed in the modern human population. That's not very many, so if you're an exceptionalist looking for justification of your superiority to our ancestors, you haven't got much to go on. The good news, though, is that there are only 78 genes! This is a manageable number, and represent some useful hints to genes that would be worth studying in more detail."

wl

If the Neanderthal are not part of the Home sapien line of descent they will have been a different species. In which case offspring will have been hybrid and infertile.

If he is in the line of our descent, then where is the Neanderthal DNA in the African people who are said to be the cradle of mankind ?

It seems to me we have got to do a bit of backtracking to find out where we went wrong.

There were at least 20 different species of human throughout the eons, we're just the last ones left. I think our interbreeding with other species is what ultimately produced the three main races of today, African, Caucasian, and Asian.

Scientists now say that whites and Asians have 1 - 4% neanderthal DNA.