Speaking of Neanderthals, recent DNA tests have concluded that they were indeed a separate species from our anscestors homo sapiens and there's no evidence of interbreeding. They disappeared a short 10-30,ooo years ago and were not the stereotype large stupid brutes we think of. They weren't much diferent in their use of tools, living in shelters, they had the ability for speech, the males only about 5'6", the females about 5 feet.
They were probably chased and killed across Europe by our ancestors, since that's what we do well, the last of them taking refuge in caves on the coast of France, apparently not able to escape mankind and maybe they lacked our cunning to survive at all costs. Artist recreations from their bones show a very human looking people for non-humans. If we did lead to their extinction, as an evolved human I'm sad for the loss. Now if some had survived and were discovered today, how would we view them? Protected and endangered non-human but similar species? What if their hiding area had oil? Who would protect them from Cheney? Could we interbreed, Mr. Santorum? It fascinates me that we came so close to having a non-human competitive species survive with us today. Wouldn't that challenge a lot of religious and ethnocentric notions?
Some recreated images here invite comparisons with todays neandercons. Who would you trust to be more peaceful planet neighbours? Would they hate us for our freedoms? They probably just wanted to have kids and live in peace.
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7 comments:
A one blog. Keep it up. How come a Neanderthal like Bush survive though.
A long time ago I read an old sci-fi story that has always stuck with me. I don't remember the author and I'm retelling this from memory so apologies as I mangle the plot line. You'll have to forgive that it is rather xian and eurocentric as they mostly tended to be back then.
An explorer/anthropologist discovers a race of reclusive hominids in some remote place on Earth. After working out a means of communicating with them, he also discovers they are terrified at having been discovered as they have been in hiding from the alien invaders from space who wiped out almost all of their people thousands of years ago.
The explorer assures them that there are no alien invaders on Earth and they settle down to sharing their differing views of the history of life on Earth.
The explorer is amazed at how much farther back in time their oral history goes compared to our own. As he takes his turn telling them 'our' creation myth - sky god expels us from a garden and condemns us to life as outcasts - it dawns on him that the hominids were right about the alien invaders. The alien invaders were us; we just don't remember.
To him, the idea that we originated elsewhere explains why as a species we are at odds with the rest of the earth and why the central plot of our creation myth is a traumatic expulsion story.
It's just a story, Q, but it's an interesting perspective shift.
I'm a romantic and the artist recreations, especially the eyes made me connect and feel sad at how fleeting life is even at the species level. It's hard to look at current news or history without remorse that we don't mature.
alison, it almost sounds like a john wyndam book. the book you describe isn't far off from native creation myths , which get slammed as mere stories.
i definetly like the looks of the real, genuine neandrathal better. or the elf girl rr neanderchild, whatever.
i wonder how the sasquatch managed to survive?
Sasquatch! I hope not on Bowen Isl,. you guys don't need the extra tourists. The images were taken from real skeletons and DNA information. The upper pic is the female, the lower a young boy. The politicians were chosen at random and I'm not suggesting that I would trade the world's neocons for neanderthals! That would be grotesque.
i would hope a colony of sasquatch on bowen would keep tourists away and get the yuppies moving off. waddya mean you wouldn't trade the neocons for neanderthals!!!!! sheesh, i think we'd be better off.
I'll take the Neanderthals any day! The neocons are useless, hate-filled, bigoted, sorry excuses for the human race.
Sure wish the Neanderthals would not have been wiped out by our marauding forebears. Some things never change, and we never learn. We're still marauders, invaders, killers & plunderers.
Bush, Condi and their ilk are not Neanderthal survivors. They are genetic defects.
Great blog, Q. Keep up the good work!
Yeah, Scout, a Sasquatch colony would be much better for Bowen than those pesky, plastic, yuppie tourists.
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