By Daniel Rigney
The results are back from my mother’s National Geographic DNA test. It turns out that her genetic ancestry is 2.2 percent Neanderthal. That would almost certainly make me part-Neanderthal.
What species are you? Are you sure?
Chances are you’re part-Neanderthal too. If you don’t believe me, check out this article in Scientific American and learn a surprising truth about yourself, and about some of those lower-hanging branches on your family tree that you’ve always wondered about.
So it’s looking as though some of my own ancestors dated outside their species, and I’m trying to come to terms with this new self knowledge. Some small part of me wants to disavow that I’m anything less than fully Homo sapiens. But a much bigger part of me thinks there’s something cool about being able to lay scientific claim to a Neanderthal heritage. At the very least it’s a unique conversation starter.
“Hi, I’m Dan, and I’m part Neanderthal.”
For those who still harbor hopelessly outmoded anti-Neanderthal stereotypes, let me share with you what I’m learning about this branch of our family tree. Neanderthalis, a close relative of Homo sapiens, lived in Europe and went extinct some 30,000 years ago for reasons not yet fully understood.
Neanderthals were stronger and more robust than modern humans. They were probably fair-skinned and reddish-haired. Their average cranial capacity (1600cc) exceeded ours (1400 cc), so they probably had more brains than we do.
We modern humans generally regard Neanderthals as our cultural inferiors, since the latter never came close to achieving our sophisticated capacity for plunder, military annihilation and ecological self-destruction.
We’re so culturally advanced, in fact, that we may soon be able to clone a Neanderthal infant from recovered DNA with the assistance of an “adventurous” human surrogate mother. Genetic engineering trundles on.
I look forward to learning more about my Neanderthal relations in the coming weeks. I’m sending an inner cheek swab dripping with my own DNA to the laboratories of National Geographic’s Genographic Project for detailed analysis, and I’ll soon know just how fully human I really am.
Meanwhile, I’ll try to take whatever pride I can in the knowledge that I’m still mostly Homo sapiens, meaning literally “wise human.”
Our species is hubristically named “wise humans,” of course, because we alone, among all the species on Earth, had the power, pride and prejudice to name ourselves. I’ll let you know when the results of this little science experiment come back from the lab. I can hardly wait to find out what sort of stuff I’m made of.
Danagram
Drigney3@gmail.com
The results are back from my mother’s National Geographic DNA test. It turns out that her genetic ancestry is 2.2 percent Neanderthal. That would almost certainly make me part-Neanderthal.
What species are you? Are you sure?
Chances are you’re part-Neanderthal too. If you don’t believe me, check out this article in Scientific American and learn a surprising truth about yourself, and about some of those lower-hanging branches on your family tree that you’ve always wondered about.
Odds
are you carry DNA from a Neandert[h]al, Denisovan or some other archaic
human. Just a few years ago such a statement would have been virtually
unthinkable. But in recent years geneticists have determined that …
anatomically modern Homo sapiens did in fact interbreed with archaic humans, and that their DNA persists in people today.
If
you’d like a more graphic depiction of inter-species love, I recommend
Jean-Jacques Annaud’s imaginatively realistic 1981 film, Quest for Fire,
featuring the ancestral romance of a Cro-Magnon (European early modern
human) woman and her big strong Neanderthal he-man. Jean Auel’s Earth’s Children series, including her best-selling The Clan of the Cave Bear, offers similar fictional accounts of possible interactions between Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon humans. So it’s looking as though some of my own ancestors dated outside their species, and I’m trying to come to terms with this new self knowledge. Some small part of me wants to disavow that I’m anything less than fully Homo sapiens. But a much bigger part of me thinks there’s something cool about being able to lay scientific claim to a Neanderthal heritage. At the very least it’s a unique conversation starter.
“Hi, I’m Dan, and I’m part Neanderthal.”
For those who still harbor hopelessly outmoded anti-Neanderthal stereotypes, let me share with you what I’m learning about this branch of our family tree. Neanderthalis, a close relative of Homo sapiens, lived in Europe and went extinct some 30,000 years ago for reasons not yet fully understood.
Neanderthals were stronger and more robust than modern humans. They were probably fair-skinned and reddish-haired. Their average cranial capacity (1600cc) exceeded ours (1400 cc), so they probably had more brains than we do.
We modern humans generally regard Neanderthals as our cultural inferiors, since the latter never came close to achieving our sophisticated capacity for plunder, military annihilation and ecological self-destruction.
We’re so culturally advanced, in fact, that we may soon be able to clone a Neanderthal infant from recovered DNA with the assistance of an “adventurous” human surrogate mother. Genetic engineering trundles on.
I look forward to learning more about my Neanderthal relations in the coming weeks. I’m sending an inner cheek swab dripping with my own DNA to the laboratories of National Geographic’s Genographic Project for detailed analysis, and I’ll soon know just how fully human I really am.
Meanwhile, I’ll try to take whatever pride I can in the knowledge that I’m still mostly Homo sapiens, meaning literally “wise human.”
Our species is hubristically named “wise humans,” of course, because we alone, among all the species on Earth, had the power, pride and prejudice to name ourselves. I’ll let you know when the results of this little science experiment come back from the lab. I can hardly wait to find out what sort of stuff I’m made of.
Danagram
Drigney3@gmail.com
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