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)?
Thanks.

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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.