Lineage

Fiorella is fascinated by reports of Neanderthals, Denisovans, Floresians and whatever other human species are out there.  One thing she'd missed, though is the discovery that ALL modern non-Africans have a pinch of Neanderthal in them.  Interesting.   So, that means that Africans are the only pure-bred homo sapiens.

All Together

Well, it's official. The most up-to-date DNA analyses have shown that everyone's a mongrel. All humans have the genes of Neanderthals or their recently-discovered cousins, the Denisovans, incorporated into their DNA. For a while, it looked like Africans had escaped the melange, but further research indicated some of the blended humans had returned to the dark continent and infected its stay-at-home inhabitants too.

In a way, it's sort of comforting, like learning that a rare, interesting species didn't die out after all. In fact, it's living within us.

Return of the Neanderthals

Fiorella, eagerly following the newest Neanderthal info, is interested to learn that, according to DNA studies, non-African homo sapiens show evidence of Neanderthal DNA, but Neanderthals show no evidence of our DNA. The obvious conclusion is that Neanderthal men could sire children on Cro-Magnon women, but Cro-Magnon men could not mate productively with Neanderthal women.

All of which ties in with a theory Fio has held for years, that the females of the species are the key. Neanderthal women's pelvises were built differently than those of homo sapiens, they carried their babies in utero longer, and their children had more developed bone structures at birth--all of which could have negatively affected them giving birth to sapiens babies.

And Husband has chimed in with the theory that children born to Neanderthal mothers and Cro Magnon fathers could have been mules, unable to breed.

Scientific world, do you hear us?

Mixed Heritage

Ha HA! Fio was right all along. The human genome, at least of non-Africans, is one to four percent Neanderthal!

There WAS intermingling, which is only logical. If people do it with sheep, they'll certainly try hominids.

Fio has a further theory. Maybe modern man got his brains from Africa, but the lighter complexions some of us sport came from the Neanderthals. That makes more sense to Fio than claiming it was all in the sunshine.

But in the meantime, Fiorella is reveling in her new Neanderthalism. One to four percent, the researchers say, but from time to time, Fio's encountered people who seem to have gotten more than their fair share. Right now, most of them are wearing Indian costumes and picketing the health care bill.

Primeval Appetites

Fiorella is again thinking about the demise of the Neanderthals, although she is convinced she has met quite a few personally in her lifetime.

Maybe it was a disease that the CroMagnons brought in, something like measles or chickenpox, that the Neanderthals had no immunity to.

Or maybe they just tasted like chicken.

Neanthderthal Granddaddy

The other night I watched a two-hour National Geographic television presentation on the most recent developments in the study of Neanderthals. There is new evidence that Neanderthal genes might have entered the Cro-Magnon bloodline.

When the Cro-Magnons came out of Africa, they encountered several pockets of indigenous humanoids--mostly (or all) Neanderthals, apparently--in Europe and Asia. The previous supposition has been that either the Cro-Magnons annihilated the Neanderthals or that the Ice Age wiped them out, but recent discoveries have pointed to some degree of assimilation.

This is all well and good and interesting, and the results of the ongoing Neanderthal DNA studies should make another enthralling television presentation. But I was left with another question which had never occurred to me before--where did the Neanderthals come from? How was it they were scattered over Europe and Asia before the Cro-Magnons ever set foot out of the Dark Continent? Were the Neanderthals an earlier, hardier migration? Or did their evolution happen somewhere else, outside of Africa?

National Geographic, please appease my inquiring mind.

Big and Little

We have taken control of many aspects of our world, but two that keep giving us trouble are very basic--weather and disease.

Weather is a big sort of thing--hurricanes, droughts, blizzards, and the like. We can try to prepare for these natural devestations, but there is really nothing we can do to vitiate them. They control us rather than the other way around. In fact, some people theorize that the Ice Age was what finally did in the Neanderthals.

Disease, on the other hand, is a little sort of thing--microbes and germs and fleas on rats. We develop vaccinations and treatments, but it seems that as soon as we polish off one of these little devils, another one, even more deadly, pops up. Considering how deadly chickenpox and measles were to the American Indians, I'm wonder if a disease carried by CroMagnons might have been what killed off the Neanderthals.

And if the Neanderthals could be eliminated by either weather or disease, what about us?