Did modern humans breed with multiple related species?

[Parson]

This inter species thing.
In my twenties there's been a few times I woke from an alcohol fuelled slumber, looked at some beautiful female vision from the night before and thought "Yikes! What is that?"

 

[Mirannan]

About 4 percent of our DNA is Neanderthal, they're still with us.

Yup. Many of them working as bailiffs and the like.

 

[LordOfWizards]

Many years back I took a physical anthropology course, and this topic was treated as precarious. The instructor admitted the possibility. The other relevant matter is the science of recessive versus dominant genes. So things like ginger hair and hazel eye color can skip generations.

 

[Danny McG]

Oo-er, I got two non smiling faces. Perhaps I slightly overstepped the boundaries of decorum and tastefulness!!

 

[Parson]

One was an alien (for what you discovered) and the other was the puzzled look you must have had on your face. I don't think there's one for hung over, unless it would be this one. It was not meant to be a "Be Careful" emoji. That must be your conscience speaking.

 

[Cathbad]

Well, if I'm reading the Bible correctly, we also mingled with Angels.

So that should cancel out the Neanderthal thing...

 

[Overread]

Actually one interesting consideration is that the answer to this could well be both yes and no depending on how you classify a species.

Species as a definition is not fixed* and even today there are subspecies and species classifications that make changes as they shift around what defines a species and what is simply variation within the species itself. Politics also comes heavily into play and I suspect if we were studying humanity as a 3rd party we might well identify several species variations within the population we have today - so one could argue that we are doing it today. Politics and complications regarding race tends to shut down this viewpoint though.


* In fact the whole concept of using a latin based taxonomy naming system falls apart pretty fast as there's multiple different systems in use. DNA has also started re-writing a lot of it, but even then there's variation in opinion in how things are formally classified.