Backward Glance: A Shout Out to Our Neanderthal Cousins
According to some recent DNA studies we split off from our Neanderthal cousins between 300,000 to 700,000 years ago. They liked flowers, made stone tools, controlled fire, talked and maybe even played flutes. They undoubtedly, being more or less human, bonked each other and us over the head with those stone tools periodically. There is some evidence of Neanderthal cannibalism, but hey, who are we to get snooty about that? Maybe we even mated with them and their bigger brains made us smart. Then they disappeared about 30,000 years ago. Supposedly. I had a boss once whose genome might be worth a gander.
Anyway, I think I kind of miss them. And he wasn’t a bad boss. For a caveman.
Footnote: Neanderthal enthusiast Philip Jose Farmer included one in the superlative Riverworld series. Another great Farmer story, “The Alley Man,” tells of Old Man Paley and a tribe of ragpicking Neanderthals who dwell on the fringes of False Folk society — that’s us — still searching for the magic hat a treacherous human female stole.
Update: You may owe a debt of gratitude
to a Neanderthal for more than just your genome. via argghhh!!!
Topics: Uncategorized
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 11:48 am on Friday, November 17, 2006
10 Responses to “Backward Glance: A Shout Out to Our Neanderthal Cousins”
Leave a Reply
Trackback URLYou must be logged in to post a comment.
November 17th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
Everybody has met at least one Neanderthal in the course of life. The real mind-stopping critters are those rare individuals who seem not to be mammalian at all. Worked for one of them once. I blame all my subsequent health problems on the experience.
November 17th, 2006 at 2:14 pm
How you doing, Becks. Speaking of ‘Thals, where the heck’s Wron?
November 17th, 2006 at 3:46 pm
Ooooooh. Riverworld (wanders off into the Castle Stacks)
November 17th, 2006 at 6:38 pm
Robert Sawyer has written a series of books about an alternate Earth populated by a Neanderthal civilization coming into contact with our Earth.
November 17th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
Wronwright is his own man (despite living in the Republic of Cincinnati). Rather than Neanderthals (who are just another species of naked monkey), wouldn’t it be cool to have a series of books about non-mammalians descended from dinosaurs? I mean, they were around for 250 million years or so, and the best they could do was a semi-predatory, carrion-eating TRex?
November 17th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
Incidentally, why does this site make me post everything twice. Is it showing up twice, and you have to delete one? Is it just a glitch of the software? Or is it the usual medieval offal I have to endure because I use AOL as my browser?
November 17th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
I dunno, RH, I’m not seeing double. By the way, your non-mammalian earth civilization book is call “West of Eden.” Androgenous lizards, somehwat anthropomorphized. Kind of creepy.
November 17th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
By the way, your non-mammalian earth civilization book is call “West of Eden.”
Harrison’s series is good……you could also try Turtledove’s alternate history of WW II that features an invasion of a race of reptilian bipeds.
November 17th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
Thanks, guys, but you are speaking of reptiles and invasion. I’m envisioning a race descended from dinosaurs (not reptilian) who might have created a civilization on earth just as we did. Creepy? Well, that remains to be worked out, no?
November 17th, 2006 at 11:22 pm
G: you saying WWII didn’t involve reptilian bipeds?
RH: WoE involves homegrown androgenous lizards, not invaders, living in a big Gaia-friendly tree city, with primitive humans scrabbling about on the edges. Sort of a metaphorical envirotopia, I think. Only its hard to keep the smart monkeys down. Don’t know if it suits your category, but I’m sure someone’s done something that will.