Hybridization is just all over the news recently with the debate over Ketchum’s work in decyphering if she has Big Foot DNA, or just contaminated possum samples, a recent story on the possibility (if not very likely) that humanity came about as the result of a pig/monkey hybrid, and now a discovery in Northern Italy of a jaw that offers more evidence of Cro Magnon/Neanderthal cross breeding ala “Quest For Fire.”

From Discovery.com

First Love Child of Human, Neanderthal Found
Mar 27, 2013 by Jennifer Viegas

The skeletal remains of an individual living in northern Italy 40,000-30,000 years ago are believed to be that of a human/Neanderthal hybrid, according to a paper in PLoS ONE.

If further analysis proves the theory correct, the remains belonged to the first known such hybrid, providing direct evidence that humans and Neanderthals interbred. Prior genetic research determined the DNA of people with European and Asian ancestry is 1 to 4 percent Neanderthal.

The genetic analysis shows that the individual’s mitochondrial DNA is Neanderthal. Since this DNA is transmitted from a mother to her child, the researchers conclude that it was a “female Neanderthal who mated with male Homo sapiens.”

By the time modern humans arrived in the area, the Neanderthals had already established their own culture, Mousterian, which lasted some 200,000 years. Numerous flint tools, such as axes and spear points, have been associated with the Mousterian. The artifacts are typically found in rock shelters, such as the Riparo di Mezzena, and caves throughout Europe.

The researchers found that, although the hybridization between the two hominid species likely took place, the Neanderthals continued to uphold their own cultural traditions.

That’s an intriguing clue, because it suggests that the two populations did not simply meet, mate and merge into a single group.

And a related item that comes as no shock to people like me:

Neanderthals Lacked Social Skills
Mar 12, 2013 by Jennifer Viegas
For ages, anthropologists have puzzled over Neanderthal and human brains, since they were the same size. If each species had comparable brainpower, why did humans dominate?

A comparison of Neanderthal and human brains has revealed it was a matter of allocation: Neanderthal brains focused more on vision and movement, leaving less room for cognition related to social networking.

According to the study, published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B, bigger eyed and larger bodied Neanderthals required more brain space devoted to the visual system and basic body functions, leaving less area for what co-author Robin Dunbar called “the smart part.”

Therefore Partying=Survival

Now, nothing in any of this supports the fringe idea that bigfoot is a neanderthal or related hybrid, as has been suggested from time to time. Neanderthals weren’t particularly tall,

Had a receding lower jaw completely unlike Patty,

Left behind flint tools and other manufactured artifacts of their population, and died out in the fossil record 35,000 years ago. But that probably will  not stop people from continuing to propose the idea.

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