What nature doesn't do to us will be done by our fellow man

[sovay]

Of course I want to know if I have Neanderthal ancestry. The recent research is fantastically cool. And I appreciate that Olivia Judson, whose book I think we may have downstairs, feels the same way. That said—

And the results stoke the imagination, for they provide more evidence for something that has long been suspected: Neanderthals are not just a quirky sideshow in human evolution, but an intimate part of our own story. Many of us have Neanderthals in our family tree, just as some of us have Hottentots, or Aztecs, or Genghis Khan.

I got about four hours of sleep with time off for coughing, so my critical skills are a little blunted at the minute, but I think that last sentence just failed something hard. Quite possibly several somethings at once. Just to start with, Hottentots? Also, quite a lot of people still speak Nahuatl. And being descended from Genghis Khan, for large portions of Asia, is actually pretty normal. (Like Jón Arason and Iceland.) But for the sake of several gods, I thought we'd spent centuries disentangling scientific thinking from the idea that interracial equals interspecies.

All the same, the idea of Neanderthal ancestry brings a vividness to the distant past. Were the men exotic and sexy? What were half-Neanderthal, half-human children like? Were they extra-beautiful, as people with mixed ancestries often are? Did they have an unusual hungering for red meat? Did we learn Neanderthal customs, or languages?

I would love to know the answer to that last question, and not only because I tried to teach myself to use a sling after reading The Clan of the Cave Bear (1980) in seventh grade. As regards half-Neanderthal children, mostly I hope they were, as children should be, loved. But it is difficult to dismiss the idea of an evolutionary sideshow, I think, when your first question is whether our closest genetic relatives were sexy and exotic.

It may be that kind of day. The first thing I saw on my friendlist was tithenai on Dan Fanelli. I feel like finding a grave and putting flowers and red ochre on it.

Comments

[timesygn.livejournal.com]

... being descended from Genghis Khan, for large portions of Asia, is actually pretty normal.

... :: Brigham Young : Utah

... But it is difficult to dismiss the idea of an evolutionary sideshow, I think, when your first question is whether our closest genetic relatives were sexy and exotic.

Oh, you're no fun! :->

[sovay]

Oh, you're no fun!

Dude, we've got their genetics. At some point in time, the answer was clearly duh.

[cucumberseed.livejournal.com]

No, I think you read that right.

Also...

HOTTENTOTS!

[sovay]

No, I think you read that right.

I am contemplating whether I want to write a letter when my brain starts working again; it would be one thing if this were some random yahoo (thank you, Jonathan Swift) with two thumbs and a keyboard, but it's a science blog at the New York Times. Give me a break.

[movingfinger.livejournal.com]

I kept wondering, as I read this, whether I was really reading Olivia Judson or whether Tierney's column might somehow have been run in its stead.

[sovay]

or whether Tierney's column might somehow have been run in its stead.

Who is Tierney? she asked, sure she would regret finding out.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

Um. I know it kills joy for journalists (and quite a lot of other people), but casual references to the perceived-by-one-writer-to-be-exotic almost never work out. When they do work, they are great! But it's hugely difficult to pull off, and for good reason. Frowny face for "extra-beautiful," too, which with the hyphen sounds probably accidentally like some state that transcends beauty rather than being at its far edge. Dammit.

Typing this a few feet from someone with some Sonoran ancestry who speaks no Spanish and has no idea whether his great-grandparents spoke Yoreme, Yaqui, or something else by preference, but still--and yeah, I probably have a tiny bit of Mongolian ancestry somewhere, if not Genghis Khan in particular, because of those repeated invasions and the less concerted instances of cultural conflict that began before his time. Clearly, our child should seek out someone of Khoi ancestry to hit the trifecta! I mean, what?? Isn't the point re: neatness of Neanderthal genetic inheritance the fact that though most phenotypic traces have faded due to assimilation, the genetic traces remain?

I like the fact that Judson's article includes citations for further reading, at least.

[thistleingrey.livejournal.com]

I hit Post too quickly--indeed, it seems to me that the offspring of s. sapiens x s. neanderthalensis would most often have survived amongst sapiens populations when they presented the fewest distinguishing neanderthalensis physical features.

Imagine the italics, please, because I'm in a bit of a rush :(