Show Your Neanderthal Pride, People!
I’m proud of my Neanderthal heritage, and why shouldn’t I be? It’s not as if my low-hanging, hairy knuckles scrape the sidewalk as I lumber along, or I dress in pelts. I’m a modern-day guy who happens to be part Neanderthal.
Scientists say the DNA of most living people is the same as mine, 1- 4% Neanderthal DNA, so I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. In fact all us present-day troglodytes should be proud of our heritage. Neanderthals, in their prime 40,000 years ago, led the world in clothing design, use of hatchets, bird call imitations, club manufacture, wooly mammoth kills, and cave painting. For all their low-hanging limbs and long, hairy fingers—they could scratch their whole back with one forefinger and flick parasites off their friends with the other—they were adept with tools and paintbrushes.
Scientists have discovered Neanderthal genes primarily in today’s Europeans, and I, being of Irish descent, am among the lucky recipients of those genes. One among tens of millions, to be more accurate. And while we moderns thrive, no one knows how or why the Neanderthal species of early mankind died out. Presumably they didn’t sell enough subscriptions or receive sufficient donations as a group. Where was GoFundMe for the Neanderthals when they were on the wane?
There are some who say the Neanderthals never went extinct, but merely went “underground,” and to this day remain incognito. As a result, they are hiding in plain sight among us now, actual Neanderthals who pose as full-fledged modern humans. Who might they be? Here theories abound, naming politicians (all of them), billionaires (all of them), lawyers (all of them), and all those folks who still wear hospital masks at the store, trying to conceal their apelike features.
But these theories are unsubstantiated, and likely many who continue to shop in N95 masks are fully human, only they’re getting ready to rob a bank when they leave the store. Also,they like to sneak up on stock clerks and say, “Guess who?” and then, “Where are the beets?”
Stories of encounters with modern-day Neanderthals are also common. Axl Thorp of Cincinnati reports: “I once saw a Neanderthal in a bar. He was a sloppy drinker and a poor tipper and looked like the caveman in that insurance commercial. I went up to him and said, ‘Hey, Pal, have you seen that caveman commercial?’ He glared at me and left. I followed him outside, saw him bum a cigarette from someone, and then start rubbing two sticks together. ‘Need a light?’ I asked him. ‘Buzz away,’ he snarled at me.”
Carol Yeti of Sandusky says: “This knuckle-dragger tried to pick me up the other night. Told me his name was Ted Throwback, really. He looked like one. Prognathous jaw and all, but kinda cute. We spoke casually about Neanderthals, and he told me the actual ones from like 40,000 thousand years ago roamed all over the planet interbreeding with human females, and maybe other females that weren’t so human, too. I don’t know what you would call those. But I had to ask myself, what would a human female see in a Neanderthal guy to make her want to shack up with him and have his kids? Then it hit me: she was willing to comb his back and put up with him only having six teeth, so long as he could spear a bison and sing ‘Smoke on the Water.’”
There are celebrities who don’t or can’t hide their Neanderthal descent: rocker Nick Cave, for instance. His name pretty much says it all, doesn’t it? Look at his boney face with those wide nostrils, listen to his throaty voice. Well, there you are. And of course the English band the Stones. Their name too is a dead giveaway, right? Look at Mick Jagger with his ridged forehead and outsized lips. Guitarist Keith Richards hasn’t evolved in the last 40,000 years. With some imagination you can put anyone you want into the Neanderthal category, especially if they resemble the Stones’ late drummer, gorilla-faced Charlie Watts.
It isn’t possible to time-travel back into prehistory and come up with a roster of then-famous Neanderthal celebrities and high rollers—the Paleolithic elites, so to speak. But here’s the thing: they passed on to us the considerable knowledge they gained during the years they hung around. There was a Neanderthal brain (larger than ours, actually) behind every great idea we moderns have had, with shotgun beer drinking and cryptocurrency among the notable exceptions.
The era of the Neanderthals may have come and gone, but they remain a part of us all, except for Africans. Few Neanderthals left their home in Europe to interbreed with Africans, and a glance at a world map will show you why: it was a long way to swim or paddle. Also, most of them enjoyed the comforts of the Ice Age and refused to leave their beloved glaciers for broiling deserts and swamps. That brings us to another big reason the Neanderthals preferred frozen Europe: no alligators.
Maybe it would be odd to have a Neanderthal Remembrance Day, considering that the species is extinct except in diluted form. But why not honor them all the same, even if they were not as human as you or me? I’m not asking for myself. Sure, I’d be celebrating my Neanderthal forebears in Ireland, the first protohumans to wear tweed caps and play tin whistles while singing “The Hills of Old Killarney.” But almost everyone from almost anywhere has the same roots as me, even if their cavemen ancestors didn’t start a conversation with “Top of the mornin’ to ya.”Talk about inclusion!
With that in mind, I extend the following invitation. Those of you who feel, as I do, as strongly about your Neanderthal heritage as your modern ethnicity—whether it’s European, Asian, or Bigfoot—are invited to dress as cavemen or cavewomen or saber tooth tigers and join me in Columbus, Ohio on November 30 at the Woodlands Tavern for the first Neanderthal Remembrance Day. Let’s show the world who we are, namely, that we’re all Alley Oop, only this time with beer. (Our apologies to Neanderthal purists who do not drink alcohol, as Neanderthals most likely did not, but we’re going to party like it’s 1999, or more exactly like it’s BCE 31,999, a bit before the Neanderthals went extinct.) See you at Woodlands Tavern, and cheers!
Michael Fowler writes humor and horror in Ohio.
Photo: Werner Ustorf. Source.