"Where Are the Neanderthal-Human Children?"

Neanderthal mother with Neanderthal-Human children (Image Credit: Harvard Magazine)

This post is a follow up to a previous post about Neanderthal-Human relations.  Since the discovery of Neanderthal DNA in modern human DNA there have been additional studies regarding the interactions and sexual relations between Neanderthals and humans.  A common question that my students consistently ask is where are the Neanderthal-human babies that were fathered by human males and birthed from Neanderthal females?  This post will address this question by explaining their existence and eventual extinction.

The discovery of Neanderthal DNA in modern human DNA led scholars to conclude that this was due the sexual relations between Neanderthal males and human females, which has been substantiated through subsequent paleoanthropological discoveries.  But little attention was initially paid to whether or not Neanderthal women and human males also bred, producing similar but different Neanderthal-human hybrids.  This is partially due to the preservation bias against immature bones, which is due to the fragile nature of these remains.  This makes it difficult to discover children in the archaeological record, and it is far more problematic in the paleoanthropological record.  Furthermore, due to some genetic differences between the two species it is not believed that many viable offspring existed, adding to the difficulty in discovering these individuals.  Despite this a Neanderthal-human hybrid born of a Neanderthal mother and fathered by a human father was found at the site of Mezzena in northern Italy.  This individual dates to approximately 40,000 to 30,000 years ago. 

It is believed that this individual would have been raised with its (Neanderthal) mother, which makes sense as breast feeding is the most common means of sustaining a young child and therefore decreases the likelihood of ripping the child from its mother to be raised in its father’s (human) household.  Additional evidence suggests that while Neanderthals and humans may have interbred and coexisted they were not commonly cohabitating in the same households or communities.  The key piece of evidence is the different stone tool traditions that while similar are also distinctly different between Neanderthals (who practiced the Mousterian and Chatelperronian stone tool traditions) and humans (who utilized the Aurignacian stone tool tradition).  Furthermore, while it is clear that both groups were practicing intentional burials they are very rarely found interred together, and when this occurs it is typically a solitary human female with her Neanderthal offspring and mate. 

The voluntary separation of Neanderthals and humans would have separated the Neanderthal-human hybrid offspring by mother, which is what eventually led to the extinction of the hybrids with Neanderthal mothers.  Neanderthals died off for unknown reasons, although it is believed that humans may have played a role in their demise.  Whatever the case may be these offspring would have become extinct as their Neanderthal caregivers died, hence why they do not exist among modern humans today.

So there you have it.  Neanderthal-human hybrid offspring did exist in the past.  Only those born of human mother would have been able and/or allowed to survive, which is why we do not see them existing in our modern populations. 

Bibliography

Feltman, R.  2015.  Neanderthal Hybrid Suggests Modern Humans Bred with Them Much Later Than Thought.  The Washington Post.  https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2015/06/22/neanderthal-hybrid-suggests-modern-humans-bred-with-them-much-later-than-thought/

Gibbons, A.  2016.  Modern Human Females and Male Neandertals Had Trouble Making Babies.  Here’s why. Science.  http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/04/modern-human-females-and-male-neandertals-had-trouble-making-babies-here-s-why

Holloway, A.  2013.  The Controversial Lapedo Child-A Neanderthal/Human Hybrid.  Ancient-Origins.  http://www.ancient-origins.net/human-origins-science/controversial-lapedo-child-neanderthal-human-hybrid-00903

Letzter, R.  2016.  Here’s Why Human Women Probably Struggled to Have Babies with Neanderthal Men.  Business Insider.  http://www.businessinsider.com/why-human-neanderthal-babies-were-rare-2016-6

Viegas, J.  2013.  First Love Child of Human, Neanderthal Found.  Discovery News.  http://www.livescience.com/28270-neanderthal-skeleton-provides-evidence-of-interbreeding-with-humans.html?li_source=LI&li_medium=most-popular

Viegas, J.  2015.  First Neanderthal-Human ‘Love Child’ from Israel.  Seeker.  http://www.seeker.com/first-neanderthal-human-love-child-from-israel-1769467646.html