Slashdot now has a post on Neandertal introgression:
While modern day eugenicists might all too eagerly read into these findings to draw their own politically biased conclusions, people such as myself, who happen to be of northern European ancestry, may find it fascinating that somewhere in our lineage ancient humans and Neanderthals decided to make love and not war on the ancient plains of Eurasia."
There's a problem with this: sex is not always a gentle act, and can occur via force. Neandertals were a robust people, powerfully built. Am I the only one who has watched or read The Clan of the Cave Bear? No need to romanticize this, it isn't an either or situation. The prominence of female Amerindian and male Iberian lineages in Latin America was not just a function of the love between Malinche and Hernán Cortés, there were broader sociohistorical forces which drove the pairing of native women and European men.
