9. Appearance rather than intelligence

We can at least say that for obvious reasons interbreeding on a large scale did not occur. Recent research on the changes of mitochondrial DNA supports it. How could two populations with the same capabilities virtually not interbreed? This has always been a big mystery. But when you come to think of it, it is self-evident. However good looking some Neanderthals were, if their bodies were covered with hair from head to toe, no ancestors of modern humans would be attracted. In the same way, the Neanderthals may have seen the hairless modern humans as unpleasant. After all, throughout time the main factor in deciding one's partner has not been intelligence but appearance. However, we still can't declare that there was no interbreeding (There will always be some curious people!)

The research group lead by Andrew Clammer of the University of Tennessee, Milford Walpoff of the University of Michigan and Tracy Krumet of San Jose State University compared the skulls of modern Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals of Levanto and of the modern Homo sapiens of Europe. They concluded that some interbreeding did occur and announced their conclusion in the January 2001 issue of Quaternary International.

The races of Europe currently have the thickest body hair. And the Neanderthals could explain such a fact as the trace of genetic influence.

Some anthropologists support the occurrence of interbreeding by putting forth the extremely sturdy-built body structure of Anglo-Saxon Germans as evidence.

Considering the above, I believe it right to admit that there was some interbreeding. But at the same time, it could be that while the bald Homo erectus and the archaic Homo sapiens of Asia and Africa, with their high capacity for environmental adaptation, gradually assimilated as one of the modern Homo sapiens, the population resulted from interbreeding with the hairy Neanderthals were limited in number and therefore led the Neanderthals to extinction.

Translated by Rie Ishida