When did humans and Neandertals stop having sex?

[pokerfan]

It's an interesting question because that's what causes species to diverge...

Anthropologists are pretty sure that Neandertals and humans interbred — and DNA analysis backs up this idea. But we don't know the date ranges involved — including when the two groups stopped hooking up.

A new study is offering some possible answers, indicating that Upper Paleolithic humans coming out of Africa stopped interbreeding with Neandertals about 47,000 years ago — which may have been before humans started to spread across the rest of Eurasia.

Neandertals reached Eurasia first. Our best estimates suggest that they first emerged in that part of the world roughly 230,000 years ago. Humans, on the other hand, made our first appearance in Africa over 200,000 years ago and we didn't start making our way up into the European continent until about 100,000 years ago.

More: http://io9.com/5949304/when-did-humans-and-neandertals-stop-having-sex

[ForgoTheConsequence]

1. What?

We were suppose to stop?

[pokerfan]

3. Hey, I could've banged Sarah Palin

We were eight miles apart for one of my four years at university.

But we have to stop at some point.

[longship]

2. Sounds like an awkward morning conversation to me.

No matter which way you look at it, beer goggles have to be part of it.

Don't get me started about the evolution of chimp/homo ancestors and sweet monkey love. (I know that chimps are not monkeys; but otherwise I couldn't write "sweet monkey love&quot

[TheMadMonk]

7. nous ne sommes pas des singes, nous sommes des singes /nt

[JaneQPublic]

4. I'm not convinced they did. . .

... judging from Democratic friends and family who married un-evolved Republicans.

[tblue]

5. Ask James Carville and Mary Matalin.

Though that's kinda a personal question.

[The River]

6. After Marriage Was Invented.....nt

[Bohunk68]

8. Since when are Neanderthals not humans?

The title should have said, "When did Cro-Magnons and Neanderthals stop having sex?" If an answer is truly desired, then it was when the Neanderthal humans died out.

[pokerfan]

9. depends on definitions

Are Neanderthals Human?

By Carl Zimmer
Posted 09.20.12
NOVA scienceNOW

In August 1856, in the German valley of Neander—Neanderthal in German—men cutting limestone for the Prussian construction industry stumbled upon some bones in a cave. Looking vaguely human, the bones—a piece of a skull, portions of limbs, and fragments of shoulder blades and ribs—eventually made their way to an anatomist in Bonn named Hermann Schaafhausen.

Do Neanderthals belong within Homo sapiens? Paleoanthropologists cannot agree.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/evolution/are-neanderthals-human.html

[Javaman]

10. About the same time politics was invented. nt