A little bit 'o Neanderthal

A little bit Neanderthal

Did God make Herm Chosen People as sex toys for horny Neandertal hunters. I know God had little respect for human women but this is ridiculous.

No Neandertal mitochondrial DNA in Homo sapiens. Ergo no Neanderthal women bred with Homo Sapiens men. 1-4% Neanderthal DNA in Homo sapiens. This must be from male Neanderthals breeding with Homo sapiens females.

A bit of speculation: It is my understanding that the Neanderthals were a superior apex predator in every way to Homo sapiens, except for adaptability. Neanderthals had no need to adapt. Everything including Homo sapiens stayed out of their way if possible.

Now if a bunch of Neanderthal guys were on an extended hunt far from the caves, and happened upon a Homo sapiens female, a little fun and games involving bestiality (by their standards) might have been more useful than the quantity of food available. If she managed to escape some of those Neanderthal genes might have been advantageous and were conserved.

From the SciAm report:
Researchers sequencing Neandertal DNA have concluded that between 1 and 4 percent of the DNA of people today who live outside Africa came from Neandertals, the result of interbreeding between Neandertals and early modern humans.

The finding contrasts sharply with Pääbo's previous work. In 1997 he and his colleagues sequenced the first Neandertal mitochondrial DNA . Mitochondria are the cell’s energy-generating organelles, and they have their own DNA, which is distinct from the much longer DNA sequence that resides in the cell’s nucleus. Their analysis revealed that Neandertals had not made any contributions to modern mitochondrial DNA.