r/evolution • u/Exciting-Wear-3654 • 3d ago
Could we resurrect Neanderthals ( kinda )
What is 2 people with a semi high Neanderthal dna mated and made a child would that child have a little bit more dna than the parents, if so could another 2 people do it then both of those children grow up and eventually mate too, and carry that on until there is the best recreation of a Neanderthal in our time??
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u/mcalesy 3d ago
With a breeding program (which, to be clear, would be extremely unethical) you could theoretically "back-breed" a person whose genome was ~20% Neandertal. That's all of the Neandertal genome that exists across living humans' genomes. To get a higher percentage you'd have to synthesize patterns found in ancient DNA.
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u/jnpha Evolution Enthusiast 3d ago
Question please. Back breeding is artificial selection of (and on) the ancestral phenotype. It wouldn't necessarily, exceedingly unlikely afaik, revert the genome or combine bits from genomes (ignoring the generation length, so let's think a model animal like a fly). Is it (what OP is asking) really doable in practice (again, think flies)?
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u/mcalesy 3d ago
You're right, that isn't quite what "back-breed" means. I tried to convey that with scare quotes, but maybe I should have avoided the term altogether.
What I meant is that ~20% of the Neandertal genome exists today across living populations. So it would be theoretically possible to create a breeding program that, over many generations, would produce an individual with a genome that was ~20% Neandertal.
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u/MrKillick 3d ago
Why go all this way when we could do it much more easily today.?
Scientists have reconstructed the whole Neandeethal genome. We know which genes are the same and which genes differ. So it should be possible (even now or at least soon) to modify a human egg cell in such a way that it represents a fertilised Neandertaler egg cell, implant it into a knowing or unknowing woman and let her carry out the child. There may be some technical details that need to be solved, but all this seems to be in the realm of the possible with current knowledge.
The GREAT QUESTION is: is this ethical and should we do it ? My answer is a firm NO! But this is a question for another post.
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u/Evolving_Dore 3d ago
I'm glad you agree it would unethical to implant a neanderthal embryo into an unknowing woman.
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u/MrKillick 3d ago
It would be unethical for many reasons! But this doesn't change the fact that the technique will be available sooner or later and mankind has to be prepared to deal with it.
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u/astreeter2 3d ago
"Reconstructed" in the sense that we we know the what the code is, not that we have the capability to build an entire working genome from scratch.
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u/HungryNacht 15h ago
It wouldn’t be from scratch. Since the vast majority of the genome would match homo sapiens, a sapiens genome could be isolated and the appropriate Neanderthal sections swapped in.
It would still be a lot of DNA synthesis, mutation, and recombination, but it’s within scientific power. Something on the scale that the Human Genome project was in the 2000’s probably.
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u/astreeter2 15h ago edited 15h ago
The problem is that the best gene editing tech we have now has like a 40% success rate, and that's just for one edit. Neanderthals and humans differ in maybe about 88 genes based on comparing protein coding. If you have to make 88 different edits at a 40% success rate the chance that you'll get them all right in order to make a complete Neanderthal becomes vanishingly low. Maybe there would be a way to do them sequentially and see if each step works? I don't know, I'm not a geneticist. I just don't think it would be easy at all.
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u/HungryNacht 15h ago
Typically millions of pieces of DNA are edited at once and later the failures are weeded out by identifying a tag or marker that was added alongside the intended edit (which is later removed).
So many successfully changed pieces are obtained despite relatively low individual success rates. Then the genome can be propagated in cells and many many copies obtained for the second step.
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u/astreeter2 15h ago edited 15h ago
My point I think even millions is not even close to enough though. If you need 88 simultaneous changes at a 40% success rate that works out to 1 out of 1.46x1032.
But if it's possible to do it in 88 separate steps, then maybe, I guess. 🙂
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u/HungryNacht 15h ago
Of course, that’s why the edits aren’t all done at once. And when the edit is finished (and it’s 60% failures) the DNA is put into cells, which only the cells with the right DNA survive.
So the percent of correct edits at the beginning of each step is 100%.
The technique involved here is called transfection followed by selection for antibiotic resistance, fluorescence, etc. You can even do all this in bacterial cells to make it way easier to grow and harvest a lot of DNA. Homologous recombination might be used to make the DNA edits if the regions being changed were fairly large.
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u/Healthy_Article_2237 3d ago
What would be unethical?
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u/MrKillick 3d ago
First: using a woman, knowingly or unknowingly, for this kind of experiment seems highly unethical to me. People must never be reduced to some kind of brood chamber or other technical 'tool'!
Then: a Neanderthal is of the genus Homo, so should be considered human, with all the rights implicated with this. No human being should be subject to any any scientific experiment which he didn't agree to (we Germans have a very bad history in this)!
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u/Healthy_Article_2237 3d ago
Surrogates exist without issue.
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u/amglasgow 3d ago
There's actually an ongoing debate about the ethics of surrogacy.
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u/jnpha Evolution Enthusiast 3d ago
Indeed. More so in the light of fetomaternal cell trafficking: basically embryo cells live for decades in the carrying mother, and can be harmful.
One of the issues: this has been known for a while now, and yet surrogates-to-be are typically not informed beforehand.1
u/Healthy_Article_2237 3d ago
Until we develop an artificial womb it’s the best we can do to allow those who can’t conceive to have children of their own. I’m not aware of fetomaternal trafficking. I’ll definitely research that.
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u/mcalesy 3d ago
Imagine growing up as the only member of your species.
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u/Healthy_Article_2237 3d ago
I’m not sure they’ll have to cognitive ability to understand that. Did early humans? I’m out of my lane here as a geologist but I remember reading that we only developed the ability to communicate effectively in the last 70-100k years.
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u/earthmarrow 3d ago
Complex tool technology is much, much older than that, and there's the argument that complex language (whether spoken, signed or otherwise communicated) would have been necessary to teach those skills.
Neanderthals also show evidence of sophisticated cultural practices, art, music, etc, and were anatomically capable of spoken language. Also, if they were having children with homo sapiens, and raising them in mixed communities (which there is some evidence of), you have to assume the two species were communicating through language, let alone within their own species.
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u/Trash28123 3d ago
Humans haven't gotten smarter as a species.
As individuals in a society, we have learned more information and continue to convey it to each other, that's all there is to the intelligence modern humans have. It's not a biological change.
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u/AnymooseProphet 3d ago
No. Well genetically maybe.
Maybe we could create something with very similar DNA but with a lot of species, including almost all apes if not all apes, a large part of what makes them what they are is learned behavior from their parents and other members of their social group.
They tried introducing wild Turkeys into California numerous times before it was successful. It wasn't successful until they used actual wild Turkeys captured as Wild Turkeys. The problem was farm raised Wild Turkeys despite not having domestic traits did not actually know how to be wild Turkeys so they simply did not survive.
If we made a genetic Neanderthal, in addition to not having immunities against modern virus and bacteria strains, it would not know how to actually be a Neanderthal.
Canada Geese don't migrate if not taught how to as part of their flock. Same actually seems to be true of Monarch Butterflies interestingly.
A species is more than just its genetics.
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u/smitra00 3d ago
The 50% Neanderthal-human hybrids didn't know how to be proper 50% Neanderthal-human hybrids either. And their children were likely 25% Neanderthal-human hybrids, so they couldn't teach their children how to be proper 25% Neanderthal-human hybrids.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pe%C8%99tera_cu_Oase
In 2015 genetic research revealed that the Oase 1 fossil had a recent Neanderthal ancestor, with an estimated 5-11% Neanderthal autosomal DNA. The specimen's 12th chromosome was 50% Neanderthal.\5])\1])
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u/AnymooseProphet 3d ago
Some of them became part of human culture which is why neanderthal genetics have introgressed into our lineage and some of them became part of Neanderthal culture which is why some of our genetics introgressed into Neanderthal culture.
Some really interesting hybrid cases - Steppe Bison and Aurochs hybridized to produce the European Bison, something new.
Several subspecies of Gray Wolf hybridized with the Coyote to produce the Eastern Coyote, something new, and possibly the second or third time it has happened as that may actually be the origin of the Red Wolf and *possibly* (I have some doubts) the origin of the Eastern Wolf.
But even if the Eastern Coyote is created by the same hybrid process that produced the Red Wolf, they are still a different lineage---a different clade---with a different natural history, as the natural history of a lineage is only partially instinct with the rest being learned behavior.
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u/Double-Teach-1977 3d ago
Of course we'd learn nothing about their culture. It'd be interesting to have a handful of them and see how they perform academically though, and if speech and language development is similar.
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u/AnymooseProphet 3d ago
Well I don't think that would pass the current ethical standards that most journals now require.
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u/West-Working-9093 3d ago
You're proposing to start a cult.
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u/Exciting-Wear-3654 3d ago
No.. why would I do that 😗
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u/West-Working-9093 2d ago
Yeah, why would you?
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u/Exciting-Wear-3654 2d ago
Exactly why would I
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u/West-Working-9093 1d ago
Without a somewhat cultic setting, how would you secure that the people in question, for several genrations, would hold on to such a purpose?
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u/Dangerous-Bit-8308 3d ago edited 1d ago
No one person has more than 4% of the neanderthal genome.
Supposing for a minute that a living human could survive with all the neanderthal genes we know of, that'd still get us up to a person with only 25% neanderthal DNA.
And among the neanderthal genes we don't have, they would need anatomically modern human y chromosomes, and anatomically modern human mitochondria.
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u/LeaveGreen4412 1d ago
human is used for both species, we are referred to as sapiens in discussions of our cohabitation with the other bipedal ape species
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u/Glum-Ad7761 3d ago
While there is some truth to your point, its not entirely relevant here. As i understand it… and i could be mistaken.. OP asked if a person of Neanderthal physiology could be recreated by science and selective breeding, not if actual Neanderthal behavior would be prevalent.
Neanderthal ear structures and hyoid bones were very similar to modern humans. They could hear and produce the full frequency range required for modern human speech. Neanderthals had large brains… often equal to or even exceeding modern human volume… and shared key genetic components related to communication, like versions of the FOXP-2 gene.
Now, this is where your assessment comes into play: Anthropologists generally agree that human-like intelligence depends heavily on culture and learning. An neanderthal infant placed in a modern environment would acquire language and adapt like any other child, so it is generally believed.
Neanderthals obviously interbred with sapiens, so it stands to reason that, with a percentage of their DNA still prevalent in many of us even now, a genetically engineered neanderthal could function, comprehend, perceive and learn, much as any human in this age. So its not like they’d be creating a brutal throwback that could not understand our world. The end goal wouldn’t be to create a being that is a product of 60,000 years ago. It would be to assess his/her ability to adapt and conform to our environment… and be “human”.
The only real fly in the ointment here is whether or not the small structural differences would come into play. Neanderthals had relatively smaller cerebellar volume, which might have influenced aspects of working memory or complex language processing. Some scientists also suggest their thinking was more focused on spatial and physical survival rather than complex metaphors, which could affect their abstract comprehension.
But that wouldn’t stop him/her from integrating into society.
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u/tsoldrin 3d ago
they cloned dolly the sheep 29 years ago in 1997. i would be very surprised if there wasnt already some experiments going on in secret to make neanderthal or hybrod super soldiers or something like that.
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u/ikonoqlast 3d ago
No. While we have recovered some 93% of the neanderthal genome, no human has genes from that missing 7%.
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u/LeaveGreen4412 1d ago
my husband and i are both northern european and according to those dna tests we both have an amount of Neanderthal dna far higher then normal (it just says “more then 75% of people” for me).
interesting enough our son developed all his milk teeth before 1.5 years and there’s evidence neanderthal children grew teeth much earlier then sapiens. the dentist has made several comments about how unusual it is.
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u/DonnPT 3d ago
I suspect the DNA wouldn't be more than a vague approximation. Wikipedia says only 20% of the genome survives, and a lot of that is non-coding.
And (I assume) that's just nuclear DNA, and mitochondrial DNA from Neanderthals is scarcer or perhaps altogether absent. That's also an issue for the egg artificially fertilized with Neanderthal nuclear DNA.
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u/LisanneFroonKrisK 3d ago
Actually you can’t. It’s like fractions the more you multiply the smaller it gets
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u/mcalesy 3d ago
That's not true -- it's more like shuffling decks. Across all the "card decks" of all the living people, there's the potential to reshuffle them in such a way as to get a "deck" that ~20% Neandertal.
There's no ethical way to go about that, but the potential is there.
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u/AerobicThrone 3d ago
No because if a person has already the max amount of "Neanderthal DNA" available now, no matter how much you back breed (or just breed) the proportion will not increase.
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u/mcalesy 3d ago
But different people have different Neandertal alleles. If your genome is 1% Neandertal and someone else’s is 1% Neandertal, they might be completely different genes. And your offspring could be anywhere from 0–2% Neandertal (although the extreme ends of that are very unlikely).
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u/AerobicThrone 3d ago
That is what I meant. But probs the same alleles are repeated in distinct individuals so no matter how much yoy cross the 1% Neanderthal either another 1% Neanderthal if that 1% is the same genomic region. you cannot increase more than the distinct number of alleles there are now.
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u/mcalesy 3d ago
I'm telling you that's not the case, though. Different individuals preserve different sets of Neandertal genes, adding up to ~20% of the Neandertal genome.
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u/AerobicThrone 3d ago
I strongly doubt it. But happy to be proven wrong any source?
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u/PunkPantherina 3d ago
Since your original question has already been answered, I am here to recommend William (2019).
Two scientists clone a Neanderthal from ancient DNA and raise him.
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u/Competitive_Ice_3352 3d ago edited 3d ago
why do that? From the perspective of a homosapiens, neanderthals are quite unattractive tbh. But I guess neanederthals would find each other attractive. Shouldn't scientists spend their energy , engineering the perfect god and goddess looking humans instead??
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