Species is a construct meant to impose a binary on a complicated reality. The division between us and Neanderthals was in the grey area. We were able to interbreed, and we did so, but it was absolutely nothing like when two groups of sapiens interact over a long period of time. You can’t separate the Gauls from the Romans in France for example. Racial separation requires heavy effort in homo sapiens, whereas we’re talking a few percentage points of Neanderthal DNA.
Not true, both modern humans and Neanderthals are subspecies of Homo sapiens.
I was going to say, weren’t humans and Neanderthals interbreeding in some cases
Species is a construct meant to impose a binary on a complicated reality. The division between us and Neanderthals was in the grey area. We were able to interbreed, and we did so, but it was absolutely nothing like when two groups of sapiens interact over a long period of time. You can’t separate the Gauls from the Romans in France for example. Racial separation requires heavy effort in homo sapiens, whereas we’re talking a few percentage points of Neanderthal DNA.
That’s a point of debate. The prevailing view is that Homo neanderthalensis is a distinct species.