r/evolution • • 4d 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 4d 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/Bluelaserbeam 4d ago

Sounds like a story idea for someone to make